Presentation made by Maria Wishart to the virtual workshop held by the Lloyds Banking Group Centre for Productivity and Prosperity,

1. Dr Maria Wishart
Maria.Wishart@wbs.ac.uk
@maria_wishart
Employee well-being, mental
health and productivity in
Midlands firms: The employer
perspective

2. Workplace mental health issues
and the link to productivity
• Costs of mental health issues to UK business estimated at
£42bn to £44.7bn (Deloitte, 2020)
• Mental health issues can impact in several ways, including:
– Absenteeism (the time workers spend off work due to ill-health)
– Presenteeism (the costs associated with workers being at work but
not performing their work as expected because of ill-health)
– Staff turnover cost (the costs associated with replacing workers who
leave employment due to ill-health)
• Employers have a limited grasp of the prevalence of mental
health conditions in the workforce (Seymour, 2010)

3. Exploring the employer perspective on
mental health issues
• Aim: to explore employer perspectives on poor mental health
in the workplace, and the impact on business performance
and productivity
• Methods: survey of 1,899 private sector establishments in the
Midlands and in-depth interviews with 20 participants, during
Jan Feb & March 2020, with some follow-up interviews in July
• Main themes:
– Prevalence and causes of mental health sickness absence
– Impacts and costs of mental health sickness absence
– Identifying and addressing mental health issues in the workplace
– Implications for practice

4. Summary of findings
• Mental health issues associated with productivity reduction of 18%
to 24.5% - imperative to address them
• Mental health related absence is reported by 30% of firms, often
long term, repeated and provoked by non-work factors
• 55% of these firms report an impact on their business
• 44% of firms offer some kind of mental health activities but a
smaller minority of firms has a mental health lead at board level or
a mental health plan
• Identifying mental health issues in the workplace is often
dependent on relatively informal interactions
• Low level of awareness of mental health initiatives and no ‘go-to’
source of help

5. Prevalence & causes of mental
health absence
• 30% of firms reported mental health sickness-related absence
in the preceding 12 months
Source: ERC (2020) A baseline study for the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot project

6. Prevalence & causes of mental
health absence
• 37% of firms reporting mental health sickness-related absence said
that at least some of the absence was long-term
• 39% reported repeated mental health-related absence
• Mainly attributed to non-work & physical factors, but workplace
causes identified included:
– Lone working or remote working
– Client expectations on time, quality and cost
– Job insecurity
• Sickness related to mental health is associated with productivity
which is lower by 18.3%, and in firms which reported an impact, it
is associated with productivity which is lower by 24.5%
Source: ERC (2020) A baseline study for the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot project

7. Impacts & costs of mental health
absence
• 55% of firms reporting mental health absence said there was
an impact to the business
Source: ERC (2020) A baseline study for the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot project

8. How employers currently approach
mental health issues
• 36% have a mental health lead at board level, 22% have a
mental health plan
• Mental health activities offered by 44% of firms
Source: ERC (2020) A baseline study for the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot project

9. How employers currently address
mental health issues
• Low awareness and very low adoption of existing initiatives to
support mental health in the workplace
• Employers recognise their responsibility with regard to
mental health issues, but appear not to know the best places
to get help
• Will often not consider mental health charities or
government bodies, and more likely to seek advice from
sector/professional bodies
• Over-reliance on un-trained line managers to identify MH
issues who may lack confidence and skills to do so
Source: ERC (2020) A baseline study for the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot project

10. Impact of the Covid-19 crisis on
mental health
• Depression has doubled during the pandemic (ONS, 2020)
• The NHS has experienced ‘significant additional new demand
for mental health services’ during the pandemic (NHS, 2020)
• A recent forecast predicts that the economic fallout of the
Covid-19 crisis could provoke mental health problems in an
additional 500,000 people in the UK (Centre for Mental
Health, 2020)
• Given the link between mental health and productivity,
employer engagement will be more important than ever

11. Workplace mental health issues
during Covid-19
1. Different triggers for workplace mental health issues
‘I didn’t want to be furloughed at all, and I felt like … I wasn’t valued and I was extremely upset
and felt very vulnerable’ (HR Manager, Manufacturing)
2. Identifying behaviour changes may be more challenging
‘[a colleague] has been struggling. But [his boss] is totally oblivious to all this because he only
has team calls and, he doesn’t see what’s happening on a day to day basis’ (HR Manager,
Manufacturing)
3. Mental health issues in different people or groups
‘… the younger ones … felt that they were missing that social hub of being at work and being with
people [whereas] the older ones … were all loving the fact that they weren't going into [the city]
every day, they hadn’t got that commute’ (MD, Property Development)
4. Increased reluctance to admit mental health issues
‘I haven't seen any increase in mental health problems during this time. […] I'm sure there was an
impact, I didn't see that impact though […] I noticed that, people are tense about their jobs,
they're doing a lot more job protecting’ (Health & Safety Manager, Transport)
Source: ERC (2020) Workplace mental health and Covid-19: experiences of firms in the Midlands

12. Implications for practice
Given the link strong and significant association between workplace
mental health issues and productivity:
1. Raising awareness of the costs of mental health issues
– Encouraging recording and transparency
2. Key role of management and supervisory practices, particularly via
line managers, in addressing mental health issues
– Training agenda
– Recognition that triggers, and those affected, may have changed
– A more disciplined approach to mental health issues
3. Signposting employers towards existing resources
– Sector/professional bodies may have a role to play

13. For further details please visit :
www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk
@ERC_Uk