Companies obviously care about employee mental health and wellbeing. From on-site yoga classes to subsidised healthy meals, there’s a plethora of wellness programs available. But an uncomfortable truth lies beneath this – these programs, despite good intentions and hefty investments from businesses (over £61 billion in 2021!), seem to be failing to deliver on their promises.

Calculations from leading insurer, Vitality, estimate that mental health issues and absenteeism have cost UK businesses in the region of £138bn[i] in the last 12 months. In their 2023 ‘Britain’s Healthiest Workplace’ survey, the study concluded that mental health issues also had the greatest negative impact on employee and business productivity.

A recent study[ii] has also found that more than 1 in 7 UK adults report that their mental health is currently either bad or the worst it has ever been. And new figures from the Department for Work and Pensions estimate that more than 20,000 people in the UK are absent from work every month because of poor mental health – so, what’s going wrong?

Employee wellbeing programs often slip for a number of reasons – and it often boils down to a gap between what companies offer and what employees actually need. Here are some common culprits:

• Lack of leadership buy-in: If the senior leadership team aren’t genuinely invested in employee wellbeing, the program is unlikely to succeed. It can feel inauthentic to employees and become just another checkbox to tick.
• Programs not designed for reality: Generic programs that don’t consider the daily pressures of employees’ jobs are likely to be ignored. Ideally, wellbeing initiatives should complement workloads and schedules, not add to them.
• Focus on participation, not change: Just getting employees to sign up isn’t enough. Successful programs need to encourage long-term behaviour changes that contribute to overall wellbeing.
• One-size-fits-all approach: A program that doesn’t cater to the diverse needs of the workforce is destined to miss the mark. Different employees will have different priorities when it comes to wellbeing.

Adrian Harvey, CEO at Elephants Don’t Forget, explained:

“Most companies will have already adopted strategies that aim to address mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. However, in our own research –with a broad range of companies – we have found that the challenge is not the availability of mental health tools and programs per se – it often comes down to the adoption of them – alongside the personal outreach to individuals – that prevents their effectiveness.

It’s clear from the extensive coverage within the media that a significant proportion of the UK workforce is feeling overwhelmed – particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ve seen numerous features and articles highlighting new trends like ‘quiet quitting’ and the ‘great resignation’ come to the forefront of conversations within the workplace, with employees actively citing that their wellbeing is often being made worse as a direct result of the work they are doing.

It’s also very difficult to address something as personal as wellbeing and mental health in the workplace – especially at scale; to really read the ‘mood music’ of your organisation at a granular, individual level.

Considering these challenges, for the past two years we have been working hard to develop a meaningful employee wellbeing offering in collaboration with a number of our valued customers. In the early research stage, we polled lots of customers and researched the issues and pitfalls with many of the ‘off-the-shelf wellbeing’ offerings that are on the market.

After an exploration of these insights, we have come to a proposed solution that looks to address the critical need from organisations. That being to consolidate the many resources and tools already in use by firms to personalise employee wellbeing pathways, build wellness profiles and give employers the ability to read the ‘mood music’ across their business.

We’re proud to be launching our collaborative solution during Mental Health Awareness Week – which runs from 13 to 19 May – and we’d like to encourage organisations to get in touch with us to discuss the science behind it. We’re really excited for how it can help individual employees – and we’ve seen some excellent results from pilot studies we’ve conducted.

Fundamentally though, it’s important to remember that every year one in four of us will experience a mental health problem. There are over two million people waiting for NHS mental health services – and since 2017 the number of young people struggling with their mental health has nearly doubled.

These statistics show the importance and urgency for every company to place a high priority on promoting and supporting positive mental health within the workplace. The responsibility to enact positive change rests with HR teams, managers, and company leaders.”

[i] https://www.ftadviser.com/protection/2024/02/01/workplace-sickness-costs-uk-138bn-but-what-can-advisers-do-to-help/

[ii] https://www.forthwithlife.co.uk/blog/mental-health-statistics-uk/