Dear Employers: It’s Time To Make Employee Mental Health Your Business
For organisations that invest in supporting their people’s mental health with mental health programs, the return on investment is anything between £5 and £11 for every £1 spent. According to research, these figures come from a combination of increased productivity, performance and collaboration, and reduced presenteeism, absenteeism, and staff turnover.
You don’t have to look far to find significant research explaining the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. We see it in the media and hear about it in our communities; anger, stress, worry and grief change behaviours and affect people differently.
As we adapt to new circumstances, organisations are not exempt from dealing with challenges as they arise. Organisations are stretched as they best manage the uncertainty that still lies ahead, which makes it too easy to push employee mental well-being, resilience, and leadership training to one side.
Those who reduce their investment in management training and workplace mental health programs may be paying for it in other ways. This is not immediately obvious, as most organisations have no way of tracking or reporting on this.
Any company choosing to make mental health at work a priority within their organisation, and looking to implement initiatives to promote good mental health, should first measure what is intended to be improved.
This doesn’t necessarily mean looking at sick days taken to gauge a healthy corporate culture.
On the contrary, many companies have reported absenteeism rates have reduced since the lockdowns, unaware that this could be masking the potential issue of presenteeism. Presenteeism costs three times more than sick leave; therefore, it could be time to reflect a little deeper if you have noticed this trend.
Measurable results for employers
Most organisations do not have appropriate mental health reporting arrangements in place. Consider the following questions as you explore mental health training for your leaders and managers:
- How could your team’s mental health be impacting your company’s performance?
- Are the staff championing mental health in the workplace?
- Would all employees know what to do if a mental health crisis incident occurred?
- How can you go beyond a staff survey to really understand the impact of investing in the mental health of your people?
- When we ensure we are effectively measuring the positive impact of mental health, organisations are in a much stronger position to direct initiatives appropriately to optimise that ROI. We also see that we can increase that return by effectively measuring and monitoring progress.
Why choose Onebright mental health programs?
One part of Onebright’s mental health training is board-level reporting on insights, trends and risks for your organisation and workforce screening to identify problems with staff mental health before they happen. This helps you put a complete ‘safety net’ in place, as industry-leading mental health experts recommended.
We all have mental health, and the mental fitness of your team is already impacting productivity, engagement and morale. Creating more understanding around mental health in the workplace and its impact can help drive the decisions being made through positive culture and supportive interactions. Challenges become opportunities for individuals and businesses to thrive when each person has optimal mental fitness.
Onebright is building a new way to deliver mental healthcare for employees worldwide – investing in clinical expertise and technology solutions to provide a complete mental healthcare service. Talk to us today about mental health awareness training for managers to build skills and awareness, lessen stigma, reduce absenteeism and staff turnover, and help to create a positive working environment.
Get in touch to discuss how we could support your organisation.
