Drawing the Line Under Mental Health

Entrepreneur

22-05-2025

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According to The Health Foundation, mental illness is 'now the most common cause of work-limiting conditions amongst those aged 44 years and younger'. They also highlight that in 22/23, 875,000 employees suffered work-related stress, anxiety or depression, leaving the UK economy losing 17.1 million working days. With 85.5% of 35-49 year olds making up the largest population of our workplaces, this has to be a concern for any organisation looking to gain a competitive advantage and deliver the very best performance.
But should entrepreneurs heading businesses and organisations be responsible for looking after the mental health of employees? How far do they go, before being seen as 'overstepping' work boundaries? Having trained mental health first aiders and having the materials to support employees, must be seen as beneficial. Yet despite many businesses implementing initiatives and services, we are not seeing any substantial improvements in mental health. Why?
There's a risk that some employees are beginning to see the support being offered for mental health - as 'compensating' for the work environment being created. The long hours culture, required to be 'always on', and back-to-back meetings resulting in catching up on work in the evenings and weekends. The way in which many of us are now working, isn't working, and unless we fundamentally address this, little will change.
The drive for improving profitability has meant that many workplaces are being operated with lean structures, presenting many single points of failure. Many organisations have managed to attract and retain highly committed, loyal and dedicated employees, and herein lies the challenge. These employees, due to their commitment and dedication, are working the longer hours, and doing more with less, to get their jobs done. Their dedication and commitment is masking the shortfalls in actual resources required be asked of them by business leaders.
Whilst many people hated those age-old 'time-in-motion' audits, which you don't hear about anymore, has subsequently resulted in a lack of data. What's commonplace, is the science behind better understanding the resources needed to fulfil the job, has been replaced by an annual uplift in sales and an annual reduction in resources.
There's no doubt that AI will help improve the world of work, but this doesn't absolve a company for not understanding the resources required for the work they are employing people to do, or, resolve the gap being filled through goodwill.
The pursuit of measuring engagement, therefore, seems as strong as ever, yet the courage to remodel the way we work seems a long way off. The advances in AI are constantly being highlighted as the saviour that will change the way we work, but according to the ONS, the average weekly hours of full-time staff over the last 10 years has only dropped by 48 minutes.
Many organisations may argue that there's only so much they can do to support employee mental health. But what isn't being reviewed well enough is whether our workplaces are adding to poor mental health.
According to the WHO, ways to protect mental health include training managers and individuals to recognise symptoms and respond appropriately. But training doesn't address the root cause. This is not to say that our workplaces are causing mental health issues, but if the way in which our businesses are structured and operate is exacerbating mental illness, trained managers will do little to help.
The cynicism from employees that mental health initiatives are implemented to keep companies productive and to keep generating profits, highlights another challenge. Despite them spending money on revamping their values, mission statements, and showing the world how much they care, the true test for employees is alignment…
Are companies making decisions based on their values? Are leaders behaving in ways that demonstrate and align to what the organisation says is important? The true test of how much an organisation cares is when it aligns its actions and decision-making to its company values. With Gallup's latest report showing engagement levels dropping globally, and managers' scores dropping the most, one has to question the cultures we are creating. The same report shows that only a third of employees feel they are 'thriving in their lives overall'. This combined with the latest insights from the Edelman Trust Barometer, showing that '61% of respondents have a moderate or higher sense of grievance, believing that government and businesses make their lives harder and serve narrow interests', shows that trust in business to truly care and look out for employees could be significantly challenged.
Can organisations draw a line under mental health and accept there is little they can do, and acknowledge their role is not to make up for government resources to help society? If companies had no negative impact on mental health, one might argue that this could be one perspective that many might agree with. However, until we face into the challenge of understanding the demands our workplaces are having on people, with the resources provided, and understanding the impact of our current ways of working, we cannot argue this point.
Companies will need to fundamentally review their business models and factor out the goodwill, which is adding to the stress and anxiety of many employees at work, who through their commitment and dedication, are plugging the gap, resulting in increased levels of personal stress and anxiety.