Only half of business leaders take mental health as seriously as performance

Troubling new research shows employers prioritise productivity over the wellbeing of their workforce. How can leaders turn these statistics around?

Only 50 per cent of Australian employees felt their leadership team considers mental health as important as workplace performance. Additionally, only 56 per cent felt safe to speak about their mental health concerns at work, according to a recent survey from the Corporate Mental Health Alliance Australia (CMHAA).

The most common negative workplace experiences came from having a lack of control over their work (27 per cent), the emotional aspects of work, for instance, interpersonal relationships (23 per cent), the mental or cognitive aspects of work (22 per cent), and unpredictability (22 per cent).

Importantly, the study linked negative mental health outcomes with workplace underperformance, establishing a clearer need for businesses to act on the issue.

Of the 47 per cent of respondents who rated their current performance as lower than normal, 58 per cent were experiencing some symptoms of burnout, and 26 per cent reported a persistent burnout experience. The “burnout epidemic” was the subject of a recent HR Leader article.

“When mental health is good, people are productive, happy, healthy, and can manage life’s challenges and stresses. When it is poor, we can find it hard to function, to find meaning in our work and daily life,” Steven Worrall, chair of the CMHAA, said.

“The CMHAA calls upon all organisations to create safe settings that foster open dialogue and normalise conversations about mental health; prioritise employee mental health as a core part of their business strategy.”

This connection between productivity and mental health matches the findings of Ai Group’s Australian CEO Expectations for 2023 report, in which 78 per cent of businesses noted an operational impact from staff mental health issues.

Despite this, 78 per cent of employees felt positive about the availability of support for mental health at work and that the mental health of workers was valued by organisations (73 per cent) and managers (71 per cent).

These results highlight that positive feelings around workplace mental health services are significantly outpacing the comfort of employees in sharing mental health concerns.

“Although making constructive inroads, there remains further opportunities to translate these intentions into day-to-day experiences to address workplace challenges,” said the CMHAA report.

In light of the results of the survey, the CMHAA survey suggested that organisations should focus their attention on:

1. How employees experience work
2. Supporting open discussion of mental health
3. Providing support networks
4. Building leader capability at all levels
5. Supporting leaders to make change
6. Expanding the understanding of external stressors
7. Delivering targeted support for high-risk groups
8. Building a comprehensive data-driven picture