Posted on 20/11/2018 by

This rose to 85% when individuals were asked if someone close to them had experienced mental health issues and 90% said they had been “touched by mental health challenges”, research from management consultancy firm Accenture found. 

The positive news was that 82% felt more able to talk about such issues than they did a few years previously. 

However, 61% have not spoken to anyone at work about their mental health and 51% believe raising concerns about it might have a detrimental affect on their career. 

“It’s clear that mental health is not a minority issue; it touches almost all employees and can affect their ability to perform at work and live life to the fullest,” said Barbara Harvey, a managing director and UK mental health lead for Accenture. 

More than three quarters (76%) of respondents said that mental health challenges, either their own or others, affected their enjoyment of life with 30% “occasionally, rarely or never” able to “fully take part in everyday life”. 

More than half (57%) reported at least one of the following: feeling stressed, feeling lonelier, lacking confidence, being less productive or “feeling worse”. 

Harvey suggested that employees start thinking about how to deal with this differently as a reactive approach is no longer sufficient. 

“Employers need to take a proactive approach by creating an open, supportive work environment that enables all their people to look after their mental health and support their colleagues,” she said. 

More than a quarter (27%) of respondents said they’d seen a positive change in employees speaking openly about mental health, while 20% reported improvements in training to help manage their own mental health and 19% to support colleagues. 

The benefit, she said, is a healthier and happier organisation with staff able to perform at their best. 

The figures seem to support this, as 81% of those that spoke to someone about mental health at work had experienced a positive reaction and 44% described opening up as “a relief”, while a third (31%) said it encouraged them to seek help. 

In August, research found that 30% of business leaders had noticed an increase in the number of staff taking leave due to mental health issues in the past three years. 

This came on the tail of research in June, which found that more than half (53.3%) of accountants had considered resigning due to lack of mental health support.

Source: Economia