The cost of poor mental health for employers is currently £51 billion per year. Of this huge financial impact, presenteeism is deemed the greatest contributor, which Deloitte defines as people working in spite of illness and not perform at their full ability, costing employers £24 billion each year.
The research shows not only a moral responsibility to support the mental wellbeing of employees, but a business case for doing so as well. According to the report, for every £1 spent on supporting the mental health and wellbeing of the workforce, employers receive on average £4.70 in return via increased productivity.
As entrepreneurs and small business owners, you have an opportunity to make a tangible, widespread impact to workforce wellbeing in your organisation, reaching and engaging your staff population with mental health-related efforts, and ensuring that this caring, empathetic culture is baked into the heart of your business. However, with so much on your plate already in terms of limited resource and tight deadlines, it’s crucial to know where to begin and how to be efficient in your efforts. At This Can Happen, we consult with businesses – of all shapes and sizes around the world – on their mental wellbeing strategies, helping to deliver transformative change and results to our clients around employee mental health. Here are our recommendations on where to begin to not only deliver value staff, but also to reap the benefits of increased productivity too.
Firstly, it’s important for staff to feel that that they can speak about mental wellbeing in the workplace, whether that be with their colleagues, line managers or overall bosses. As leaders, sharing emotional vulnerability can be the strongest way to garner trust with your staff, and build psychological safety with your team too. This will be especially impactful within a small business, where there is less anonymity. Be brave in speaking about mental wellbeing and if you’re comfortable, any challenges that you personally have faced – leading by example will be the best route for employees to also feel safe and supported to share their own journeys here too.
Secondly, ensure that you have the essentials in place – we’re talking about an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and line manager training too. An EAP will be the always-on service that your staff can turn to in order to access support, and line manager training in mental wellbeing is essential to ensure that staff feel well-equipped to handle these difficult conversations.
As part of the above, don’t be afraid to ask your staff about their mental wellbeing as part of regular line manager conversations. It’s important to understand the bespoke needs of your workforce, so that you can tailor your efforts to best supporting them. For example, the Deloitte report specifically raises concerns about working parents, suggesting that 46% of working parents are concerned about their children’s mental health, ultimately costing UK employers £8 billion annually due to performance, taking time off work or leaving their roles altogether. Offering working parents flexible working arrangements, where possible, and an EAP provision that covers not only themselves but also their family, will help to manage concerns that they might have, supporting the mental wellbeing of both the employee and their children, and consequentially increasing productivity and retaining this talent within your business.
Finally, once the above foundations are in place to foster psychological safety and your staff feel that you are looking after their mental wellbeing, consider how you can join the dots to create an overarching, holistic mental wellbeing strategy that supports employees throughout the year. As part of this, develop a 12-month calendar of activity that aims to support employee wellbeing all year round, touching upon relevant cultural moments to open up specific mental wellbeing-related conversations around certain topics to drill deeper into the conversation and understand where they might be looking for support. For example, this could be related to Pride Month in June, or Black History Month in October. Whilst these should be conversations that are taking place across the whole year, the awareness days, weeks and months can be a brilliant time to heighten activity through webinars or internal panel discussions, offering representation and helping to create positive change when it comes to workplace mental wellbeing.
Overall, the scale and impact of poor mental health in the workplace is incredible. With the Deloitte report suggesting that 63% of employees are experiencing at least one characteristic of burnout – an increase from 51% in 2021 – there has never been a more urgent time to act. As entrepreneurs and leaders within small businesses, you have a real opportunity to step in, step up and create a mentally healthy workplace for your employees – putting a stop not only to the high rates of burnout, stress and other mental health-related issues at work, but also to the overall cost to your business in terms of lost productivity too.
