Cost of ‘Presenteeism’ and Poor Mental Health Due To Work Stressors to The UK Economy: £99 billion per year!

Thriving at work — The Stevenson / Farmer review of mental health and employers https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/654514/thriving-at-work-stevenson-farmer-review.pdf

Thriving at work — The Stevenson / Farmer review of mental health and employers

On 9 Jan 2017, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Theresa May, called for an independent review into “how employers can better support the mental health of all people currently in employment including those with mental health problems or poor well-being to remain in and thrive through work.”

This report, called “Thriving at work — The Stevenson / Farmer review of mental health and employers” was recently released by the UK Government.

The release of the review couldn’t have been timelier. It highlights that:

“UK is facing a mental health challenge at work that is much larger than we had thought.”

It further states that:

“not only is there a big human cost of poor mental health at work, there are also knock on impacts for society, the economy and Government. Employers are losing billions of pounds because employers are less productive, less effective, or off sick.”

Some salient points from this report are as follows:

1. 300,000 people with a long term mental health problem lose their jobs each year — at a much higher rate than those with physical health conditions and about the size of a good-sized city.
2. Mental health costs per employer in health sector is around £2,174 — highest amongst all public-sector departments.
3. 2016 NHS Staff Survey found that 37% of National Health Service (NHS) employees had experienced work-related stress.
4. Large annual cost to employers of between £33 billion and £42 billion — over half attributed to individuals being less productive due to poor mental health at work — a phenomenon now described as “Presenteeism”.
5. Cost of poor mental health to UK Government is between £24 billion and £27 billion.
6. The cost of poor mental health to the economy as a whole is more than both of those together from lost output, at between £74 billion and £99 billion per year. (Astonishing!!!)
7. The human cost is huge, with poor mental health having an impact on the lives of many individuals and those around them.

What is known already:

Ultimate human cost of loss of life through suicide — An estimated 400 physicians die of suicide in the USA every year — grossly under-reported as most deemed “accidental or natural” deaths.

Pertinent Recommendations from this report:

The Stevenson/Farmer report has further laid out Core Standards as well as Enhanced Standards to ensure wellbeing at work. Furthermore, it has also described in detail the role government can play in dealing with this epidemic.

Some of the salient recommendations from this report are:

1. The need for a self-sustaining and measurable change process that is visible.
2. The Importance of Transparency & Leadership: Legislation and guidance, to encourage employers to report on workplace mental health on their website or other channels.
3. Senior management in the public-sector should have their employees’ mental health and wellbeing as one of the criteria by which their performance review is assessed and linked to the regular delivery of measurable results so as to ensure that there is real meaning behind the assessment.
4. External Support for Employers: External groups can provide vital guidance and support to enable employers to implement the mental health core standards, and take steps to support increased employer transparency and accountability on workplace mental health — by helping develop standards, and by developing online comparison tools, for e.g.
5. Role of Regulators: Professional bodies with responsibility for training or accrediting professional qualifications should include workplace mental health in their training programs and assessments.
6. Support for private SMEs: Government and other organizations should focus information, support and funding to support small and medium sized enterprises to help with implementation of the mental health core standards, and ensure the impact of this is evaluated.
7. Support Research and Innovation in workplace mental health: Government streamlines research and activity relating to workplace mental health to drive evidence-building and innovation, putting it at the heart of their future strategy.

Perhaps the most important recommendation is about increasing employer transparency as it presents the biggest opportunity to encourage a greater breadth and depth of employer action on mental health.

Strong leadership is vital to ensuring this change is felt throughout organizations.

“In my experience, there is a strong correlation between the authenticity of an organization’s support and commitment and the willingness of staff to speak up. This is governed by how supported individuals feel and how visible, active and credible their most senior leaders are on this front.” — Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary, UK

Conclusion

While it’s a long list of recommendations — it really boils down to two types of actions.

1. Meaningfully supporting people who have or developed mental health issues due to work stressors. This means not only increasing mental health awareness, increasing availability of digitally-based treatments — enabling people to get help that fits around their working life.
2. Identifying and addressing the upstream causes, or triggers, of mental ill-health due to work stressors. This would require brave leadership — hence the importance of increasing employer and leadership transparency.