Why investing in mental health support matters more to business during challenging economic times

Here, Suffolk Mind’s CEO Jon Neal explains how investing in mental health support is beneficial to small businesses, your staff and your bottom line.

During an economic downturn, or recession, or just when times are looking a bit more shaky than they have done for a while, there are always ‘easy’ savings businesses tend to look for.

I used to work in PR and marketing, and those budgets were often the first to be cut when times are tough.

Another contender might be the training budget. Right now, it’s probably tempting to put off any kind of investment in the mental health of the workforce. Let’s do that when we’ve got a better cashflow situation. Or maybe it’s one of those ‘nice to haves’ that we just can’t afford at the moment.

The crucial word here is investment. If you spend money on some sort of mental health support, you’ll get a return on it, just as you would any other investment. At least you should expect a return.

Perhaps it should be seen as the cost of doing business, rather than simply an expense you don’t really need.

I would say that, of course, as I work for a mental health charity that sells workplace training, consultancy, counselling, etc. But ignore me, and Google it instead. Search ‘return on investment for workplace mental health’ and see what you find.

Actually, I’ll just tell you what you’ll find. Commissioned by Theresa May’s Government in 2019, Deloitte released a report called Thriving at Work. They wrote it, along with Lord Dennis Stevenson (who lives in Suffolk) and Paul Farmer, who was CEO of the national Mind charity at the time. Deloitte have updated this report every couple of years.

They have proven, a number of times now, that you get a £5 return for every £1 you spend on mental health in the workplace.

If you were told you could get a five to one return on any other sort of investment, you’d go for it, right?

Not only that, Deloitte also say that the biggest return, sometimes more than double the 5:1, comes from genuine culture change in a workplace.

It’s not just about having a few mental health champions around, or making counselling available to unwell staff. That’s good, of course, but to have an even greater impact on performance, and, therefore, the bottom line, you need to go a bit further.

And that means creating a workplace culture that meets people’s emotional needs.

For example, trusting everyone to do a good job without endless targets, controls or other means of monitoring them. It means giving people stretching, challenging work that they are praised and recognised for achieving. It means making sure everyone knows the meaning and purpose of the organisation as a whole, and how their role fits into that.

These are good practices – not just for mental health, avoiding stress and improving employee engagement – but for great performance that will improve the bottom line. You’ll make more money. You’ll achieve better outcomes. And you’ll also, of course, reduce staff sickness rates and improve retention.

If that’s just a cost you can do without, think about the saving in sick pay, recruitment fees and productivity losses through people turning up to work in body, but not in spirit.

Check out our award winning workplace wellbeing courses at our sister-site The Mental Health Toolkit.