Now more than ever, your business needs to prioritise the mental health of its employees.

Around one in five (21%) UK workers call in sick due to workplace stress, while there were an estimated 822,000 affected by work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2020/21 alone. Therefore, more needs to be done by businesses to ensure their employees’ safety at work.

Everyone wants a happy work environment (and no one wants work-related stress!), so different methods of improving mental health must be introduced throughout the workplace.

How can businesses prioritise employee mental health?

There’s a lot your business can do. In particular:

Create a supportive environment

A supportive work environment can do wonders for your mental health! Employees should be able to openly talk about their feelings, keep active, eat well, drink sensibly, keep in touch, ask for help, take a break, do something they’re good at, accept who they are, and care for others. By restricting any of these, your business is negatively impacting its employees’ mental health.

However, by enabling these, your business is doing all it can to improve their mental health. Supportive environments are essential, so create policies that reflect all of these factors.

Provide time off when needed

Your business should already implement this one, but providing time off for employees due to their mental health is more than necessary nowadays. In fact, it’s actually a no-brainer! When employees are affected by their mental health, they will be in no fit state to work in any way, shape, or form. Forcing them to carry on is cruel and could result in long-term problems for both them and your business. Therefore, it’s easier, and a lot safer, to give them time off until they are able to work once again.

Book in a mental health specialist

Where possible, your business should be making use of a mental health service such as Mind or Priory. However, if there is a local mental health alternative near you, utilise their abilities instead.

A mental health specialist can help your employees with the problems they’re experiencing with their mental health at work. This could be kept confidential if it’s not necessarily something caused by your business, or you can cooperate so that you can act upon any issues they have. Overall, this is one of the most effective solutions you can implement!

What benefits will businesses see here?

Through prioritising employees’ mental health, your business could benefit from the following:

Increase in productivity

Depression and anxiety in the workplace are said to cost businesses $1 trillion a year due to the general reduction in employee productivity. Productivity is key to production. Without production, businesses simply cannot operate in the market. Therefore, an increase in productivity will only boost the profits a business is receiving. Prioritise mental health, and your business will boom.

Improvements to brand image

Businesses that prioritise mental health in the workplace will be noticed for doing so. Word of mouth is one thing, but you can also use PR to show how the business is tackling mental health as well. It’s important for all businesses to have a good brand reputation as it helps grow the business and subsequently beat any competition.

Better safety for everyone

Lastly, you also have to consider how the mental health of your employees could affect others around them - either directly or indirectly. For example, mental illness can have an effect on families, which creates tension, uncertainty, and stress. Not only that, but it can also impact friends, colleagues and employers. So, improving that mental health will have a positive impact instead.

The information presented in this article is provided as general guidance, it should only be used as the basis for further research or requesting professional advice.