Healthy Business

Taking Care of Business: solutions for better mental health at work

Over the next few weeks here on Healthy Business we’ll be posting a series of articles based on the review of Mind’s business summit – which took place in May 2011 and was held in conjunction with AXA. Forming part of Mind’s Taking Care of Business campaign, the objective of the summit was ‘to explore why the business case for managing mental health positively at work has not translated into widespread good practice’.

The introduction to Mind’s Taking Care of Business report illustrates the scale of the challenges faced by UK business:

1 in 6 workers is experiencing depression, anxiety or stress – at a cost of £26 billion to the UK economy

The recession is increasing the strain on employers and, in turn, their workforces: MIND’s research found that 7% of workers in England and Wales had started taking antidepressants due to the effect of the recession on their workplace, and one in ten had visited their GP for help.

The introduction to Mind’s report goes on to describe mental health as ‘the elephant in the room at work’ with 41% of workers saying that ‘even stress is a taboo subject’. But in the current economic climate, Mind advises that workplace wellbeing initiatives – particularly those centred on mental health – are now a business necessity.

The recommendations made by Mind from themes that emerged out of the business summit include the following:

The government should keep the current tax-exempt status of Employee Assistance Programmes. Also, the government should explore ways to improve GPs use of the Fit Note.

All employers should ‘take steps to create an open, supportive workplace environment and facilitate disclosure of all mental ill-health’. All employers should also ‘introduce and promote an Employee Assistance Programme’.

Large employers should ‘prioritise employee mental health as a boardroom issue, on a par with physical health’.

Owner/ managers of SMEs should ‘promote positive mental health’ and regularly review levels of employee health and wellbeing’.

According to research carried out by Mind, over a third of workers are currently ‘stressed or very stressed’ by their jobs, causing a higher level of stress than ‘money worries, marriage, relationships or health issues’. Is mental health in the workplace an issue we can afford to ignore any longer?

Please let us know your views in the comments, or if you have any questions one of our experts will be happy to help.

In the next Taking Care of Business post, we’ll be looking at the coalition government and how it is addressing mental health in the workplace with the mental health strategy, the public health white paper and sickness absence review.