Deloitte’s 2024 mental health report showed that 63%, nearly two in three UK workers, are experiencing at least one characteristic of burnout. And it’s rising significantly from previous years.
Why do we continue to get this so wrong when it’s widely known to be so costly? Stress, burnout and employee disengagement are accounting for absenteeism, presenteeism and poor productivity, to the tune of £51 billion a year, Deloitte reports.
One of the key reasons is that mental health and wellbeing at work is still being tackled primarily reactively, with not enough proactive consideration.
If we look back over the last four to five years, and how we responded and adapted to Covid-19, most employers responded in much the same way. Mental health became a boardroom priority. Mental health awareness training was rolled out at a company-wide level. Efforts were made to increase traffic to employee assistance programmes while the uptake for wellbeing apps was unparalleled.
A strong reactive approach that served us well at the time. Or did it? If recent stats are anything to go by, it might seem as though we are still fighting a losing battle.
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We need to take much more meaningful and proactive action to address the issue. By doing so, we can continue to break down the stigma that still very much exists, while further deepening our commitment to a happy and healthy workforce.
Four areas for getting proactive
It’s not a one-size-fits-all. In an ideal world, most organisations would opt for a multifaceted, highly personalised approach that can speak to their employees on a case-by-case basis. But we’re not there yet. In the meantime, here are four key areas you should look at:
- A committed senior leadership team
The executive committee simply has to fully understand the problem, and regularly demonstrate that they want to make it work. What is the tone from the top they are setting? What signals or messages do they convey through their words, actions and behaviours? From policy to process, through role modelling the right behaviours, senior leaders can really make a difference here. In return for their commitment, they’ll see increased engagement and productivity, and a reduction in attrition rates and preventable sickness absence. - Well-resourced line managers
Have you got the right people on board? Do your line managers have enough empathy and awareness to fully support themselves and their teams? Do they understand the pivotal role they play in impacting the mental health of others? Can they spot the early warning signs, ask the right questions, and signpost well?
High-quality line manager training that’s done well, and fully embedded into the business, can make a massive difference, as well as improve the bottom line. For every £1 invested by you in mental health intervention at work, you can expect £4.70 return per employee when it comes to improving workplace wellbeing and organisational performance. - Open and honest discussion about work design
An organisation’s working styles and patterns, the demands of different job roles, relationship management, overall support and levels of control are considered core areas where workplace stress can build and accumulate, as identified by the HSE.
To address those areas, you’ll need open and honest conversations within teams and departments as well as across various stakeholder groups including human resources, employee relations, reward and benefits, recruitment, comms and more. Crucially, key metrics must be captured within those groups and fed back into the overall wellbeing strategy. This is what’s required to achieve real cultural change, and improve performance as a result. - A user-friendly toolbox of resources and support for employees
It's important that this is accessible, and done in a holistic and meaningful way. Listen to your people. What are the demographics? How will each group or individual respond to the tools that are available to them? And importantly what are the key metrics the tools can provide? This will help you to assess ROI and increase overall effectiveness of support.
There’s plenty more things to consider, but looking at these four areas will help you build towards being a workplace that tackles mental health in the proactive way that real change demands.
Mark O’Grady is principal consultant at work behaviour and culture specialists Byrne Dean