Business leaders have come to recognize that poor mental health among the workforce imposes huge costs on companies in the form of short- and long-term disability claims, poor performance, absenteeism, and employee turnover.
“About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be defined as the general neurosis of our times.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
Approximately 13% of the global population suffers from some form of mental illness. The total impact of poor mental health on the world economy is a cost of US$2.5 trillion every year.
Companies can reverse this by investing in their people through mental health and wellness programs, which tend to show an immediate return on investment that grows as programs mature.
Communicators will increasingly be called upon to internally market these programs throughout the enterprise, normalize open conversations about mental health, and promote a culture of positive well-being.
Communicators will also need to help executive leaders craft messaging that is clear and unequivocal regarding their commitment to employee mental health, and establishes the leaders as authentic in their own wellness behaviors.
Communicators may help the HR function develop training programs, peer support workshops, videos, and other material in order to involve as many managers and workers as possible across the company, at all levels, to keep awareness high.
The bottom line is that how successfully mental health and wellness offerings are communicated will make or break the initiatives, directly impacting the benefits to the company and its people.
I hope your organization has a mental health and/or wellness initiative. If so, I’m confident you’ll start to notice positive changes coming from it.
“One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of. They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking
The Global Business Collaboration for Better Workplace Mental Health
In January 2021 executive leaders of BHP, Clifford Chance, Deloitte, HSBC, Salesforce, and Unilever announced the formation of The Global Business Collaboration for Better Workplace Mental Health.
“This new business-led collaboration will advocate for and accelerate what it believes is critical change for workplace mental health on a global basis,” the founders said in a release. “This is not just a business initiative, but a social imperative that will drive positive and long-lasting effects for society. We invite other leaders of businesses to join this global movement to advance the desperately-needed conversation around creating an open, welcoming, and supportive workplace environment for all when it comes to mental health in the workplace.”
“The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain.”
― William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
The hard return on employee wellness programs
Harvard Business Review way back in 2010 took a look at employee wellness programs to see what return on investment existed. Some excerpts from their findings:
“Johnson & Johnson leaders estimate that wellness programs have cumulatively saved the company $250 million on health care costs over the past decade; from 2002 to 2008, the return was $2.71 for every dollar spent.”
“In a study of a random sample of 185 workers and their spouses at a single employer who received cardiac rehabilitation and exercise training, of those classified as high risk when the study started, 57% were converted to low-risk status, medical claim costs declined by $1,421 per participant, and every dollar invested in the intervention yielded $6 in health care savings.”
“MD Anderson Cancer Center created a workers’ compensation and injury care unit within its employee health and well-being department, staffed by a physician and a nurse case manager. Within six years, lost work days declined by 80% and modified-duty days by 64%. Cost savings totaled $1.5 million; workers’ comp insurance premiums declined by 50%.”