The 7 mistakes every organisation makes around mental health

Regardless of what industry a business sits in, we consistently see the same mistakes they make around mental health and it’s tiring and coming from a lived experience background it’s frustrating.  It’s frustrating to see and be on the receiving end of companies and managers who are willing to ‘talk the talk’ but not ‘walk the walk’ or the worst of all; those are think they are walking the walk but are still failing their employees in the most basic of ways.

The irony is, it doesn’t take much money to fix the issue, it takes something more valuable; time.  Time and often a cultural change and most companies, despite their outward insistence on the latter, are short-sighted and therefore simply throw minimal money at mental health hoping the problem will go away; ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

But we get it, you’re a business and as much as we like promoting ourselves to be ‘people-centred’, at the core of any successful business is making a profit so, let’s talk figures shall we?

Mental ill-health and illness costs the UK economy approximately £94bn a year which is a mix of absenteeism (time physically out of work) and presenteeism (being in work but unfocused with reduced productivity) but those of us who struggle with mental health/illness contribute £226bn.

PWC’s seminal Return on Investment (ROI) report suggests that ROI was $2.3 for every $1 spent on mental health training within companies.  The Lancet study of Australian firefighters went one step further demonstrating that ROI jumped to $9.8 for every $1 spent on team leader/manager mental health.

There were two caveats to PWC’s successful ROI however and they were that in larger companies and institutions, ROI was largely dependent on leadership of specific teams and employee engagement/buy-in; statistics backed by the Lancet Study.  This is certainly what we’re seeing within the police i.e. patchy leadership and support for mental health.

The real question as an employer isn’t ‘can we afford to invest in my employees’ mental health?’ it’s ‘can we afford not to’?

The problem is, no matter the size of the company or institution I come across, I consistently see them making the same mistakes:

1. They are reactive, not proactive. They create vague mental health policies buried in wider staff policies, under the guise and assumption that their employees will come to them for help if and when they need it (which statistically is not the case)
2. Mental health support is seen as a job left for HR Departments and Supervisors missing the point that regardless of mental illness, everyone has natural mental health ups and downs and therefore it’s something we must all look after for ourselves and each other
3. Following on from the above point, most companies go ‘in-house’ to create their mental health policies and on-going support however, employees at every level are handicapped by bureaucracy and status management meaning you’ll never see the ‘true’ issues and therefore can’t mitigate their negative impact on employees (increasing presenteeism)
4. Most companies fail to recognise/understand and therefore educate that mental health and mental illness are two separate entities often requiring different types of support, despite the former often leading to the latter if left unaddressed.  Many suggestions listed on kitchen posters speak to mental health, not mental illness!
5. Many companies assume that mental health/illness can be ‘fixed’ instead of managed and fail to recognise many employees are chronically (for a variety of reasons in today’s economic climate), not episodically, ill and therefore require consistent support to varying degrees
6. Companies think creating a mental health policy means their ‘job is done’ but by not having continual humanistic company/managerial buy-in, it can leave employees feeling that any help is disingenuous meaning they fail to engage with any potential support put in place
7. They don’t acknowledge differences in gender/ethnicity etc.  Whilst mental ill-health and illness are non-discriminatory there are subtle differences that do warrant certain people or groups within an organisation receive specialist support.  75% of all suicides in the UK are men for example; they need our attention.  We need to accept these realities and address them not ignore them for fear of being seen as not politically correct.

Do you want waste your money on PR announcing your new mental health policy whilst potentially struggling with low staff morale and high turnover (and therefore poor professional reputation) or do you want to invest in your staff, retain them & help them thrive for you which could increase your net income of up to 756% over ten years?

So how do we address this?

We create and nurture a climate of authenticity.  In other words, a culture that encourages and validates employees’ honesty and vulnerability using something I call a vulnerability loop.  In non-bullshit terms it means we create a culture that allows employees’ to be honest with how they’re feeling without dismissing or mocking them for it.

When someone says they’re struggling and you reply with “so is everyone else”, it isn’t just dismissive but runs the risk of leaving the employee feeling uncared for which can have detrimental effects to their work and morale.  If however, someone says they’re struggling and you reply with “let’s have a coffee and talk”, you acknowledge and validate their feelings allowing them to feel that they are cared for and more than just a payroll number increasing morale and productivity.  That’s the vulnerability loop and though it may sound like common sense, as the saying goes ‘common sense isn’t so common’.

Getting workplace wellbeing right may seem a thankless and never-ending task but if you listen to your staff, engage them in helping them build the initiatives that they feel would support them the best and continually invest, many issues surrounding morale etc. improve as a natural by-product.