Cutting the cost of stress and mental health problems to your business

Stress and mental health problems are something that affects every business, no matter what size it is.

For an organisation with 100 employees the annual cost of sickness absence attributed to mental illness is £26,973*. In addition, there are the hidden costs to your company from employees suffering from stress and other mental illness in terms of presenteeism (working whilst sick), lost productivity, poor morale, high staff turnover and a damaged company reputation.

Steps to take to mitigate stress and mental health problems:  

Have a strategic approach – integrate mental health into your policies and procedures, promote a culture of participation and equality, create an understanding of mental health issues, ensure employees have the skills and support to meet the demands for the job.

Positive leadership – run workshops to help your managers recognise the sign and symptoms of stress and to assist with managing stress and mental health issues, ensure your manager are all upskilled to do their roles, know when to refer to Occupational Health Services for help with managing sickness absence.

Manage the risks – have a system or survey for assessing and monitoring the mental health of your workforce, complete stress risk assessments, manage absence to identify stress early, educate employees on managing their own mental health, offer wellbeing assessments for employees.

Research published in HR magazine (April 2017) revealed that ‘46% of respondents felt more stressed at work than they did 12 months ago, compared to only 12% who felt less stressed’. It also reveals how nearly two-thirds of UK employees surveyed said they experience stress in their jobs with the top causes including inadequate staffing, low pay followed by a lack of work life balance and unclear job expectations.

At Lincoln Occupational Health we work closely with you to determine how we can assist you in increasing employee wellbeing and in reducing the cost to your business of stress and mental health issues.

“Making a meaningful difference to the health of your employees”

*Source: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

Contact Details

If you would like to understand more about how Lincoln Occupational Health could help your organisation, please do not hesitate to contact Katie Eastwell on enquiries@lincolnoccupationalhealth.co.uk