How to do something about the 12 million days a year Aussie workplaces lose to poor mental health

A BeyondBlue/PwC Report indicated that untreated mental health conditions cost Australian workplaces $10.9 billion per year — $4.7 billion in absenteeism, $6.1 billion in presenteeism and $146 million in compensation claims. More recent research estimates utilising a human capital approach, estimate the global economic burden of mental illness is skyrocketing from US$2.5 trillion in 2010 to US$6.1 trillion in 2030. Most of this burden was due to lost productivity, defined as absenteeism and presenteeism.

One of the big shifts that resulted from Covid-19 lockdowns was that employees really pulled back from the system of work, and had time to reflect on what was important to them — perhaps it was their families or their ability to live a life they enjoyed, which also means having the freedom to do that. We have heard many people talk about the ‘Great Resignation’, and the corporate world now needs to embrace digital nomads in ways that we never thought possible.

With the advancement of technology, we can automate various processes in our business systems; however, the roles that deliver human services are not easily replaced with technology. Elements of each role can be streamlined, but we are a long way from eliminating human resources completely. Despite this, many organisations don’t really value the cost of training an employee or the cost of replacing them.

The long-term impacts of high levels of stress on our mental health and wellbeing are now really clear. The pandemic has provided a fantastic example of how long-term hyperarousal, caused by prolonged activation of our natural fear response, can erode our mental health state over time. Prior to the pandemic, one in five people reported a mental health issue, now it’s four in five people who report psychological distress. There are significant reasons why we should seek to reduce stress in our lives and resolve the impact of traumatic events as quickly as possible.

Lost productivity comes from presenteeism, rather than the obvious absenteeism. Unhappy employees are less productive, less creative, and less likely to take initiative. This results in higher unplanned leave and higher turnover. It really does pay to foster conscientious leadership in yourself and your team.

The importance of our work environment

As human beings, we are always looking to our ‘outer world’ (our immediate environment) to help explain our ‘inner world’, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours we feel responsible for.

Any disagreement with another human being raises the potential for rejection. When you experience any form of conflict as an adult, you are drawing on the combined emotional experiences of your whole life in how you respond. Our primary emotional need as human being is for connection; how we react in any disagreement is going to be influenced by our childhood and parental relationships, and then this is mediated by how many times we have experienced rejection over the course of our lives. We are all sensitive to rejection, we have just learned to manage our responses to the potential for it in different ways.

What does that have to do with work? You may ask. An awful lot more than we think!

The notion that we can have a clear separation between life and work is a fallacy. It’s an ideological perspective promoted by capitalism to try to reduce distractions in the work environment. Thankfully, the pandemic has done a lot to elevate awareness of psychological distress in our community — so much so that we have many people who are more aware that they may need some help or therapeutic support. 

Happiness at work

As human beings, we strive for happiness, yet most people find happiness difficult to define. The definition for one person is going to be completely different to the definition proposed by another. Sadly, I often hear people talk about happiness as an ideal that can’t be achieved. Yet, for most people, the idealised view of happiness is that it is a destination, not a constant state. The pursuit of happiness is something that human beings have focussed on for millennia, seemingly without real success. Perhaps we just need to adjust our perspective.

There are many leaders who would argue that it’s not their job to keep their people happy. However, if you don’t keep your people happy in the workplace, they will usually find a workplace that will.

You can start to understand why we need to prevent challenges from arising in our work as much as we possibly can, rather than trying to patch things up after an issue has developed. As I am sure you can appreciate, sometimes our concrete ways of thinking as human beings are not conducive to developing innovative solutions to complex issues. If you want to ensure a different outcome you must approach the same situation differently. If you want to heal a workplace, you must change attitudes, ensure consistency and show up each and every day with respect and compassion for your people.

Kerry Howard is the author of How to Heal a Workplace: tackle trauma, foster psychological safety and boost happiness at work and is an in-demand strategic mental health advisor, motivational speaker, executive coach, trainer, facilitator, and best-selling author who helps senior leaders and their teams to improve workplace culture, build mental health literacy and boost productivity by creating happy, healthy workplaces.