What are the costs of work-related stress, anxiety, and depression to an organisation?

Published by Jessica in stress, health, wellbeing, mental health · Wednesday 05 Oct 2022
Tags: stress, health, wellbeing, mental, health

Mental health research from Deloitte has revealed that the cost to employers of poor mental health has increased and is up to £56 billion in 2020-21 compared to £45 billion in 2019. There was an increase of 25% in the cost of poor mental health to employers compared to 2019, based on a new Deloitte study.

Some of the costs are due to high levels of sickness absence where stress or a mental health disorder is identified, lost productivity which can be due to presenteeism. Long hours, unrealistic targets, lack of support for staff, also inadequate training for managers on how to identify and prevent stress within the workplace will and does lead to poor mental health. An example was when a member of staff had been absent with work-related stress for six months and had no communication from their manager or human resources. This led to the member of staff being absent for a longer period of time as there had been a complete lack of ‘duty of care’ and a breakdown in communication.

Another high cost can be due to conflict and bullying at work which can at times be insidious initially but can have a huge impact on individuals involved.

Litigation, legal or settlement costs can be high and add to this the cost of management time, human resources, health and safety and the impact on the health of all those involved.

Additional costs to replace staff such as bank, agency, overtime, and the cost of training staff to enable them to carry out the job efficiently.

The cost of Employee Assistance Programmes should be considered and how it is being used or in some instances not being used often. Other therapy costs can be counselling and/or physiotherapy.

The report from Deloitte suggests employers can see a return of £5.30 on average for every £1 invested in staff wellbeing so it is essential to make staff mental health a priority. This can be by hybrid working or working from home but being more flexible to meet the needs of the business but also those of all staff.

Should you wish more details on an easy-to-use template to identify costs to your business of the costs of work-related stress, anxiety, and depression to an organisation, please get in touch via info@ysmsolutions.co.uk

YSM Solutions can help businesses of all sizes with the Stress Risk Assessment process

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YSM Solutions can help with training and consultancy at Tel. 0141 354 1431