‘One in three employees has experienced mental health issues’

A new report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) has revealed that employers are taking a reactive approach to employees’ mental health issues, when preventative steps make better business sense.

According to the research, the number of people that have experienced mental health issues while in employment has climbed from a quarter to a third over the last five years.

It explained that despite this, the majority of employees still do not feel that people experiencing mental health issues are supported well enough at work.

Responding to the finding, the CIPD, the professional body for Human Resource and people’s development, calls on organisations to take a more preventative approach to employees’ mental wellbeing, encouraging a culture of openness in their workplace, whilst at the same time, training line managers to provide and signpost support for employees, in order to create healthier, more engaged and more productive workplaces.

The report discovered that in 2016, almost a third 31 percent of the over 2,000 employees surveyed said they have experienced a mental health problem at some point during their working life, compared with a quarter 26 per cent in 2011. Of those who have had poor mental health at work, more than four in ten 42 per cent have experienced a problem in the past 12 months specifically, to the extent it has affected their health and wellbeing.

Despite this increase, the number of respondents who say their organisation supports employees with mental health issues either ‘very’ or ‘fairly well’ remains less than half 46 per cent. While this is a significant improvement of nine percentage points since 2011 – when just 37 percent of respondents said their organisation was able to support employees either fairly or very well – it highlights that there is still a significant way for employers to go to better support staff with mental health issues.

Worryingly, just four in ten employees 44 per cent would currently feel confident disclosing unmanageable stress or mental health problems to their current employer or manager, a similar proportion as reported five years ago 41 percent.

Employment Relations Adviser at the CIPD, Rachel Suff, said: “With people’s experiences of mental health problems at work on the increase, it’s disappointing not to see more employers stepping up to address them. Mental health should get just as much attention, awareness and understanding as physical health, and employers have a responsibility to manage stress and mental health at work, making sure employees are aware of, and able to access, the support available to them.”