Proactively supporting mental wellbeing in the workplace yields a host of benefits, from improved productivity and talent retention to reduced absence and better customer service. It all starts with an organisational culture that cares and takes practical, visible steps to actively prioritise mental wellbeing.
In reality, many organisations don’t have a clear system for supporting mental wellbeing and in part it’s because people often obscure the truth about what’s really going on with them. People who are absent from work say they are experiencing a physical illness when it’s actually a mental health issue. They’d rather lie than tell their boss the truth. But if bosses don’t know that an absence is due to workplace-induced stress or depression, are they simply unaware that there is a problem?
The facts of the matter
Some facts might help bring home the truth of the matter. In 2023/24, according to the Health and Safety Executive, nearly 800,000 workers suffered work-related stress, depression or anxiety, leading to 16.4 million working days being lost. When you consider that most people (a MIND study from a few years back put it at 90%) don’t even want to admit to having a mental health issue, preferring to blame a physical ailment for their absence from work, the true figures may be even higher.
The NHS states that “one in four adults experiences at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any given year”, so it’s highly probable that someone in your team or your organisation will experience, or is experiencing, a mental health issue. Whether it’s work-related or not, providing support is more likely to mean a faster return to being well and productive.
The facts are clear. Mental health issues are common and have a profoundly negative impact on productivity and wellbeing. But what can you do if people would rather pretend they’ve got ‘the flu’ or even Covid – still a reliable source of sympathy and ‘please stay at home until you’re better’?
People feel they can’t tell the truth about their mental wellbeing
We need to examine why people lie. Mental health issues are often invisible, employees feel the need to ‘prove’ that they are unwell (in the days when you had to phone in sick and actually speak to your boss the coughing and croaking that went on could be Oscar-worthy). Also, everyone has bad days – what’s the difference between that and a ‘mental health issue’? It can be tricky, especially without a formal diagnosis or a doctor’s note, and people feel guilty about taking time off (at least they do if the organisation we work for fails to prioritise their wellbeing). The irony is, by having support systems in place and drawing attention to monitoring and managing mental wellbeing, problems can be identified early and – with the right support – prevented from escalating.
Change needs to come from within organisations with senior people in particular leading by example. Mental health issues result in millions of lost working days, not to mention the human suffering behind these figures. You can’t ignore these numbers or pretend they don’t affect your organisation and the only way we’ll encourage people to be honest about what’s going on is by putting mental health on a par with physical health. No-one would lie about needing an operation to fix a broken leg, they shouldn’t feel like they have to lie about needing support with their mental health.
All organisations need a mental wellbeing programme because even if you genuinely believe that not a single one of your employees has taken a day off because of stress, anxiety or depression, the facts would strongly suggest otherwise.