How to solve the mental health crisis in the workplace

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A series of articles in the FT over the past week has laid bare the extent of the global mental health crisis, particularly among young people. This not only causes huge suffering but imposes an economic burden running to trillions of dollars each year in lost productivity, care and treatment costs. While greater willingness to talk about mental illness may account for some of its increasing incidence, there is convincing evidence of an underlying rise in real depression and anxiety around the world.

Whatever the reasons — suggestions range from financial pressures to loosening family ties and excessive use of social media — the consequences affect all aspects of society. In particular the corporate world, which traditionally has regarded mental health as the responsibility of families, health and social services, needs to engage actively to help staff suffering from significant psychological problems.

Companies have been devoting more resources to employees’ mental wellbeing in recent years, particularly in the financial and legal sectors where stresses on the job lead to more depression and burnout than in other industries. But international studies show that too many businesses are still neglecting their responsibilities. The incentive for action is more than a humanitarian desire to reduce suffering. Evidence is growing that investment in workplace mental wellbeing pays off in measurable ways, through better staff retention, financial returns and even stock market performance.

A study by MindForward, an international business alliance, shows the incidence of mental illness in the workplace falling rapidly with age, leaving younger workers most in need of support. Those entering employment in the mid-2020s are likely to have suffered particularly from psychological fallout from the Covid pandemic, which will have disrupted their time at secondary school or university. Working parents are another group deserving attention. The recent deterioration in children’s mental health is affecting the workplace performance of concerned mothers and fathers, costing employers in the UK alone £8bn a year, according to Deloitte.

Solving the global crisis in mental health

This is the fourth in a series examining how employers and governments are tackling the rise in depression and other conditions — and the new therapies being developed

Part 1: Financial services among hardest-hit in the crisis

Part 2: The new generation of treatments

Part 3: Mental health support on the cheap

Part 4: FT View – How to solve the mental health crisis in the workplace

Part 5: Which nations are getting it right? (coming Monday)

As with other aspects of corporate culture, nothing does more to set the tone than having a leader who speaks out about the need to cultivate mental wellbeing throughout the company. Some chief executives have spoken effectively about their own struggles with serious stress and depression, such as António Horta-Osório at Lloyds Bank and Rob Jupp at Brightstar Group. Others without personal experience of mental problems, such as John Flint at HSBC and the UK National Wealth Fund, have emphasised the importance of the issue. But more corporate leaders need to show sustained commitment.

Governments can reinforce employers’ efforts, by ensuring that public occupational health services prioritise mental as well as physical wellbeing and care is available in the community for workers who require emergency treatment for a psychiatric problem. Officials must continue to campaign against the stigma and discrimination that unfortunately are still widely associated with mental illness, despite all the recent progress made to remove them.

Indeed some mental health advocates are detecting unwelcome signs of a reversal in the previous growth of sympathy and understanding. For instance, research published in October by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London showed that, on some measures, public attitudes to mental health in the UK have become significantly more negative since the Covid-19 pandemic — perhaps a result of increasing social polarisation and feelings that mental illness is sometimes a cover for unjustified inactivity. But now is not the time for a civilised world to turn its back on many millions of people, in the workforce and elsewhere, who can be helped to overcome real psychological distress.