Companies are missing targets for employee mental health, the study shows

Oct 10 (Reuters) – Only three in 20 companies have published targets for managing employee mental health, a survey by British charity investment manager CCLA said on Monday, despite “clear evidence” that such targets can save money.

CCLA’s new investor metric, which assesses 100 of the world’s largest companies, breaks the link between recognition of employee mental health as an important business issue and public commitment and disclosure.

“There may be no shortage of global workplace mental health initiatives, but most global companies have a long way to go when it comes to integrating mental health into standard management systems and processes,” said Amy Brown, head of governance at CCLA. press release.

“There is clear evidence that improving organizational mental health saves money and that the financial consequences of failing to improve organizational mental health are profound,” she added.

David Atkin, head of the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, said the CCLA’s benchmark results showed mental health was “still a relatively immature business issue”.

Deloitte, one of the “Big Four” accounting firms. In 2020, mental illness in the workplace costs companies an average of £1,652, or $1,900 based on mid-September exchange rates, for each private sector employee annually, the CCLA said.

“If we consider that the 100 companies in CCLA’s Corporate Mental Health Benchmark Global 100 employ approximately 19 million people worldwide, that means that between them, about $36 billion is spent annually on mental illness,” he said.

CCLA notes that, in the face of ever-increasing inflation and cost-of-living problems around the world, 82% of corporations have taken a clear stance on the relationship between good mental health and fair pay and financial security.

Less than a third of them, however, share a formal policy that clearly recognizes this link.

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Reporting through the Rotten Portal; Edited by Carolyn Cohn and Christian Schmollinger

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