Each year mental ill-health among employees costs UK businesses around 42-45bn each year.
The huge figure is mostly made up of the cost of absences, turnover rates and a problem that has always detrimentally impacted businesses across the world: Presenteeism.
Presenteeism refers to employees attending work despite suffering poor mental health and instead hiding the impact that their mental ill-health is having on their performance and productivity. This is why many companies will schedule annual employment physical examinations to monitor their workforce’s physical and mental health.
Often employees feel they have no choice other than to attend work despite their health as they fear judgement or prejudice from their employers, as well as unemployment. In addition, most employees do not feel they have someone they can confide in within the workplace.
This is where mental health workplace training courses come in. Mental Health training courses train employees in being non-judgemental listeners, able to support their colleagues and identify when their peers could be suffering from mental ill-health.
Whilst this is the primary reason businesses should undertake mental health training courses, other just as important reasons are:
1. The Workforce is Educated and Supported
Employees are given knowledge and resources to help support them in improving their mental wellbeing through counselling, or holistic methods such as exercise and healthy eating.
Thanks to this knowledge, employees feel confident to support and discreetly talk with their colleagues if they feel that they, or another colleague, is at risk of suffering with mental ill-health. This prevents small problems snowballing into much bigger and serious issues.
2. Managers Exceed in their Roles
In mental health first aid courses, managers and line managers become Mental Health Champions.
This prestigious title means they receive training as to how to better prevent mental ill-health by learning how to identify and prevent common triggers, such as negating a stressful working environment, safely managing and assigning workloads, and encouraging a work/life balance.
They also become more supportive of their teams, able to identify when somebody could be struggling and are therefore able to provide them with the best resources available.
3. Improved productivity
In the United States last year, an estimated $1trillion was lost due to reduced productivity.
Employees suffering from mental ill-health are unable to perform at their cognitive best, which leads to lack of productivity, focus and concentration leading to project delivery delays and other incurred costs.
On the other hand, employees that are supported with mental health training frameworks and in a healthy workplace environment are more productive, able to excel in their roles because they are not suffering from presentism. Instead, potential triggers are identified and avoided, and employees do not feel overwhelmed by unmanageable, unachievable workloads or detrimental office environments.
4. Increased staff morale
All businesses know that staff who are happy at work, work better. Staff happiness is dependent on a variety of factors, including manageable workloads, a good sense of work/life balance and most importantly, a happy, friendly team.
If the office environment is prone to gossip or office politics, this can have detrimental effects on the mental wellbeing of staff and managers.
Instead, mental health first aid courses aim to avoid this issue by instead creating close-knit, supportive teams. In the training seminars themselves employees are encouraged to talk openly and sensitively about their experiences and worries, and the non-judgemental listening skills that mental health courses empower employees with makes for naturally better listeners and more empathetic people.
This creates a sense of team unity, and in addition builds employee relationships by identifying designated members of staff colleagues can turn to in the event of a problem or worry.
5. Prevent staff turnover
Staff suffering mental ill-health in a negative working environment are likely to leave their roles prematurely in order to escape the situation from spiralling.
This costs employees both financially and professionally. In the United Kingdom, per person the average cost of employee turnover is around 11,000. This number only increases when considering training costs for the replacement, and also time lost which must be dedicated to doing the hiring and handover process.
However, happy staff with good mental wellbeing will be less inclined to leave their roles because they will feel satisfied with their employer, environment and duties which is great for contingency planning.
6. Better ROI
Whilst it may sound callous, there has been research undertaken into the return on investment that businesses receive from investing into mental health training.
The results of Deloitte’s ROI analysis returned a positive case for businesses to invest in the mental wellbeing of their employees, and the calculations displayed a return of 5:1 – 5 for every 1 spent.
Increasingly across different industries return on investment of mental health training varied from 0.4:1 up to nearly 11:1 depending on the sector and size of the business.
Overall, the resounding answer to the question of whether businesses should invest in mental health courses is a resolute yes. Not only are there benefits to be had on a personal scale, there are professional ones too.
