On the other hand, when aspects of mental health are neglected, individual and company-wide harm has been reported. Let\u2019s start this discussion by taking a look at some research on the topic.<\/span><\/p>\n The first fact any business leader should understand is that employee mental wellness is already affecting your organization. If you aren\u2019t convinced of this already, read on\u2014the employee mental health statistics are overwhelmingly convincing. Consider just a few:<\/span><\/p>\n The costs of employee mental ailments, along with the losses of productivity, are <\/span>mostly paid for by employers<\/span><\/a>. In fact, employees with mental health vulnerabilities have the highest healthcare costs of any group\u2014even higher than employees with obesity or addiction issues like smoking\u2014<\/span>while having the lowest productivity rates<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that 12 billion work days are lost every year to depression and anxiety alone, with a total annual cost of over $1 trillion due to lost productivity alone\u2014not to mention the associated healthcare costs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But regardless of the clear costs mental health ailments create, employees\u2019 mental problems largely go unaddressed. For example, only 40% of employees with severe depression\u2014one of the most harmful and common mental health problems\u2014<\/span>receive any treatment at all<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n High healthcare costs are not the only way employees\u2019 mental health problems cost companies. Our best current data suggests that, in cases of depression, <\/span>a staggering amount<\/span><\/a>\u2013somewhere between 20% and 35%\u2013of employees\u2019 productive work time is lost.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s sum up the situation purely in business terms: Every year there is at a <\/span>minimum<\/span><\/i> a trillion dollars to be captured, and the way to capture that money is to strategically employ tools that increase employee mental health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The World Health Organization provides a clear and useful framework for thinking about the relationship between work and mental wellbeing. They use a concept they call \u201cdecent work\u201d to mean the sort of work and work conditions that promote employee wellbeing, and they then outline some of the most common ways jobs can fall short of providing healthy environments and decent work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to the WHO\u2019s Decent Work model, a healthy, decent job has the following <\/span>four traits<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n The research using this model also helps identify the most common threats to employee wellbeing. <\/span>The top 12 threats are<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n The differences between healthy and unhealthy workplaces and workers translate into clear differences in how well an organization runs, <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> in how profitable it is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There is simply no question that mentally healthy workplaces make for far more profitable businesses. Consider the value of just one of the WHO\u2019s aspects of a mentally healthy workplace: jobs that feel engaging and purposeful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Employees who consider themselves \u201chighly engaged\u201d with their work are 21% more profitable than others. However, only 36% of employees describe themselves as feeling <\/span>engaged by their work<\/span><\/a>. The consequence? <\/span>According to <\/span>Forbes<\/span><\/i><\/a>, companies with low employee engagement are outperformed by high-engagement companies by 147%.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s more, employees overwhelmingly <\/span>want<\/span><\/i> to be healthier<\/span><\/a>, more productive, more engaged workers (by 73%), but they also overwhelmingly (by 63%) believe that their employer has no interest in investing in them in this way. And it\u2019s not as if employees are not pursuing mental health in their own time; <\/span>nearly 70%<\/span><\/a> report that they have tried, but found help inaccessible.<\/span><\/p>\n When we understand what helps cultivate mental health, and what corrodes mental health in the workplace, we can begin considering how to improve our own organizations. We can break it down into a three-step process:<\/span><\/p>\n The most essential first step for any organization is to set aside a budget of resources\u2014both time and money\u2014to use to promote mental health, prevent losses in productivity, and lower long-term costs of employee mental healthcare. In light of the data we have available today, there is no reason for any organization to neglect creating an annual mental health budget.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The second step is to openly communicate the organization\u2019s concern for employee wellbeing to its workers, and to try to assess employee wellbeing before making a plan. Assessing employee wellbeing is as easy as sending out an anonymous survey, and a great, free one is the CDC\u2019s <\/span>Worker Wellbeing Questionnaire<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The third step is to create and communicate resources and avenues for employee mental health. Initial ways to do this include helping employees find and pursue mental healthcare. Some smart steps include:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To go even further, next steps should include taking an active role in advocating for employee wellbeing. This means:<\/span><\/p>\n If your organization has the resources, it can take even more proactive steps. These could include:<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s obvious at this point that, regardless of the size of your organization or its resources, there\u2019s no shortage of meaningful, effective steps it can take toward encouraging your employees\u2019 mental health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that employee mental health is important not just because employee\u00a0 lives matter, but because employee wellness is essential for businesses to survive and thrive. It\u2019s just as clear that investments in employee wellbeing are smart, high-yield investments. We at KnowledgeCity are here to help you make those investments.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of our chief goals at KnowledgeCity is to make positive change convenient and accessible to professionals with busy schedules. We have courses designed to help leaders like you grow the knowledge and skills it takes to cultivate wellbeing in employees, have better conversations with your colleagues, and increase employee performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, if you are ready to take serious steps toward investing in healthier employees, great places to start would be our course, <\/span>Having a Healthy Work Culture<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>or<\/span> Navigating and Managing Emotions in Life Situations<\/span><\/a>. We\u2019re prepared here at KnowledgeCity to help you improve your teams\u2019 emotional wellbeing!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How to Reap the Benefits of Mentally Healthy Employees In the past few years, employee wellbeing has become more of a focus, and this includes mental…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[4001,4003,119],"tags":[1441,401,146,2287,3045,136,1439,266,1877,2717,2713,2705],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Confident](\"https:\/\/www.knowledgecity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/How-to-Reap-the-Benefits-of-Mentally-1000x667pix.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSome Important Statistics on Mental Health and Job Performance<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Job Factors That Deplete or Cultivate Wellbeing<\/b><\/h3>\n
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The Benefits of Mentally Healthy Employees<\/b><\/h3>\n
Ways Workplaces Can Invest in Themselves by Investing in Employee Mental Health<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Summary<\/b><\/h3>\n