I am a Performance Manager
It could be disastrous for your business if it continues to overlook the cost and impact that poor mental health has on the performance of your employees.
I have been a business owner and employer for 38 years and 7 months and I consider myself a performance manager. I now know that the only real rule of business is that one needs to make enough money to survive. Even the public sector needs to stick to budget, or else suffer running a deficit and/or cuts. In a capitalist society such as the UK, money rules. And whereas some countries – Scandinavia comes to mind – have evolved arguably much more progressive social policies and support mechanisms, the UK does lag behind somewhat in the type and level of support it gives to employees or citizens who find themselves struggling.
To talk of ill-health in monetary terms can be hugely distasteful. It might smack of insensitivity, callousness even, to try to quantify the cost of poor mental health in hard cash. That’s because every case of anxiety, stress, depression or low mood that leads to an employee having to take time from work is much more than a line on a Human Resources spreadsheet, or a red entry on a CEO’s profit and loss account; it is actually a very personal case of human suffering on many levels.
Yet employers in the public, private and third sector, really cannot lose sight of the monetary costs and productivity impacts. Recent statistics indicate that poor mental health in a workforce over a sustained period could even pose a threat to a business or an organisation’s future. Therefore, it really is vital that every business, service, or government department monitors the situation closely and does what it can to improve the things that lie within its compass of control or influence.
Despite the predictions of technologists – or doomsayers – that computers, robots and artificial intelligence will shortly make people and ‘work’ more or less redundant, human involvement and creativity remain absolutely vital to every sector of the economy. At the time of writing, unemployment is below 4 per cent, and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports, “The UK employment rate is 75.7%,” more or less unchanged from before the Covid pandemic. There are more people in work in the UK than ever before.
In terms of crude money, people remain the lifeblood of the economy. In the UK, the service sector employs a proportionately high number of people, and in such organisations the wage bill is typically by far the largest single cost. People, in that sense, really are money. Economists will often say that how ‘productive’ people are can make all the difference to the ‘profitability’ of a business or even a public-sector service. Businesses need people, and they need them to be well so that the business can survive and prosper.
There are some worrying figures.
The UK does not fare well in terms of productivity. According to a recent ONS report, “The G7 countries’ average output per worker was 13% above the UK in 2019”, so even before we consider days lost to ill-health, UK businesses are at a financial disadvantage.
Let’s now consider the impact of poor mental health in the workplace each year. The UK’s Health and Safety Executive calculates that, “Stress, depression or anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders accounted for the majority of days lost due to work-related ill health in 2019/20, [with] 17.9 million [lost to mental ill-health].”
Throughout the developed world, mental ill-health is the single largest reason for absence from work. Mental ill-health also accounts for substantially the longest amount of time off – 23.8 days on average – of any named condition.
Most businesses, on average, do not make enough profit to absorb the costs in terms of money or productivity that are involved when employees need to take time off. If an employee on an average salary is off for 23.8 days it might cost an organisation hundreds or even thousands of pounds in lost earnings or extra costs.
In a nutshell, if a company does not work hard to ensure that the workplace minimises days lost to poor mental health, its profits could easily be eaten away entirely. ... That’s how important it is.
By some measures, the pandemic made things worse. According to the World Health Organisation, “The pandemic led to a rise in anxiety, depression and substance misuse, together with an increased demand for mental health services around the world. At the same time, provision of these services has suffered. In a survey conducted in 130 countries in July to August 2020, 93% of countries reported disruptions in such services.”
Indeed, healthcare workers were particularly hard-hit: “Between 40% and two thirds of surveyed health care workers in four countries (Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, United States of America) reported mental health problems during the pandemic.”
What, then, are employers to make of all this? That even though the situation needs to be taken seriously by HR and Finance departments, it is not all gloom. Steps can be taken and employers can influence the nature and therefore the success of their workplace environments by means of enlightened practices, an empathetic approach, good monitoring of staff well-being, a culture of openness and having leaders who themselves model good practice.
Mostly, it comes down to being attuned enough to the people you employ so that you can identify possible issues early on. Prevention or early intervention really do represent the best approach. This is not the performance manager we typically think of, but it is one that can get sustainable results.
In 1992 an enlightened charity employer gave my business some great advice, and we re-drafted our employment contracts to include a right to days off for no reason. Staff can just ring up and say “I’m taking today off”, with no need to give a reason. Perhaps they just feel they need a time-out, a break, a duvet day. No problem; no questions asked. If anyone were to take more than, say two or three in a given period, that might trigger a wellbeing review. Along with our other practices, it really works. We, or should I say our employees, have lost virtually no days because of mental ill-health in that time.
So, for employers and businesses the costs and impacts of poor mental health can be substantial, profound enough to represent a threat to the profits or even the viability of an organisation.
Businesses go bust for all sorts of reasons, but fortunately with excellent workplace practice, mental ill-health need not become one of those reasons.
END
References
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00048674211031159
https://www.statista.com/statistics/291299/average-profit-of-smes-in-the-uk-by-enterprise-size/
https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/dayslost.htm
