What’s the single most important thing to your business? Staff, as David Brent proudly proclaimed during an episode of The Office set at a staff training day? Or is it in fact, the customer?
Brent was ahead of his time. 15 years later, employee health and wellbeing is now firmly on the agenda for corporates and multinationals. The now well-established mantra that people are a firm’s greatest asset has matured into a recognition that human capital assets require just as much care and attention – if not more – from a risk management point of view as any other key business asset.
Some large corporates, however, are still stuck in the era of The Office when it comes to mental health reporting. At Lockton, our research uncovered that 88 per cent of the FTSE 100 did not report on their mental health statistics in 2014.
Why is mental health reporting important?
According to the OECD Policy Framework published in March 2015, at any given moment, some 20 per cent of the working age population suffers from a mental illness, and 50 per cent of workers will suffer a period of poor mental health during their lifetime.
If labour markets are to function well, it is therefore critical that policy makers and UK Plc address the interplay between mental health and work. We need a call to action in the UK to enable our largest companies to start reporting their mental health statistics in order to enable better discussion and outcomes when it comes to mental health in the workplace.
The downside risks of getting it wrong are clear. It is no coincidence that employee risk strategies are being put at the centre of leading organisations’ approach to people management just as mental health becomes the issue of the day for many Boards.
Chris Rofe, senior vice president, Lockton Benefits
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
