‘It’s not 1 in 4, it’s all of us.’ 

This is the title of a major joint Accenture and This Can Happen report on supporting the mental health of younger workers. And the results are staggering.

By the time they are 30 years old, 95% of workers in the UK will have been touched by a mental health challenge, either their own or that of someone they know.

Work-related stress and mental health problems often go together, and the symptoms can be very similar.

Work-related stress can aggravate an existing mental health problem, making it more difficult to control. If work-related stress reaches a point where it has triggered an existing mental health problem, it becomes hard to separate one from the other.

Under health and safety at work legislation, employers have a duty of care to their staff. This duty of care encompasses having staff take a stress and mental health risk assessment and then acting on it. This means they should take all steps which are reasonably possible to ensure their health, safety, and wellbeing. Legally, employers must abide by the relevant health and safety and employment law, as well as their common law duty of care.

Shifting the conversation on mental health and employee wellbeing

Many businesses want to do training on mental health, to make it part of the induction process or roll it out to tens of thousands of employees in multiple sites. But the problem is that the vast majority of mental health training solutions require onsite, day-long, classroom-based external sessions—a significant time and cost investment that often only the largest or most progressive companies can afford.

The growth of mental health first aiders has of course greatly expanded the numbers of workers who have contact with a trained professional, but this still does not solve the problem of how to get everyone in a company to understand the key issues and aspects of mental health.

Around one in four adults in the UK experience mental health issues. These problems can often be exacerbated by work. The problem is that the vast majority of mental health training solutions require onsite, day-long, classroom-based external sessions that require a significant time and cost investment. Only the largest or most progressive companies can afford this form of training.

Convincing leadership to include company-wide mental health training in their budget and that effective training doesn’t need to come at a huge cost has proven to be a real challenge. VinciWorks has created a short guide to help present a business case for mental health training and get board buy-in.

The guide covers:

• Some of the difficulties in getting board-level buy-in for action on mental health
• Shocking statistics surrounding wellbeing at work
• Guidance on how to get buy-in for mental health training
• Business’ legal requirement to provide mental health training

Download the guide

With new research showing that poor mental health costs UK employers £45 billion a year, now more than ever is the time to take action on wellbeing. Mental health-related problems for businesses, including presenteeism, absences, and staff turnover, have increased 16% since Deloitte’s last survey in 2016.

Changes in work practices, particularly the ‘always on’ culture, have made it harder for employees to disconnect during their downtime, and employers haven’t yet figured out how to adapt to this new work culture.

Research from the CIPD found that two fifths of UK businesses have seen an increase in stress-related absences, with management style increasingly identified as the source of stress.

The estimated cost of mental ill-health to UK employers each year is between £33 billion and £42 billion, totalling around 91 million lost working days. About 10% of these losses were due to staff replacement costs, 30% down to people being off sick (absenteeism) and 60% of the cost due to reduced productivity at work (presenteeism).

Two-thirds of UK CEOs considered the mental health of their employees as a priority, but only 16% had a defined strategy in place to help them.