The Challenges of Mental ill-being at Work

Poor mental health at work poses two major challenges. One is the deterioration of general employee wellbeing and the other is the economic threat to employers.

There is substantial evidence of an ongoing decline in mental wellbeing in workplaces, and the numbers are staggering:

• Up to 44% of workers in the EU suffer from poor mental health symptoms.
• €136 billion reduction in productivity per annum in the EU.
• $65 billion in employer costs per year in the UK alone.
• $1 trillion in productivity losses worldwide because of anxiety and depression disorders alone.

These figures are only a handful of many examples, but should worry anyone who runs a company, handles business strategies, is responsible for policy or leads a team.

The rise in organisational costs comes from employee absenteeism, presenteeism, reduced productivity, and increased turnover.

Besides the company level challenges, poor mental health also has a significant impact on individual employees and their teams. The misery of each individual employee who suffers from mental ill-being is not only devastating to that individual, but often has serious repercussions for the person’s colleagues, family and friends.

Sick leave for mental health issues is typically lengthy, the return to work is often treacherous, and preventing future recurrences of absence is a complex challenge.

Ill mental health leads to reduced performance for the individual, which can have serious consequences for the quality of work, impact team performance, and lead to increased workloads for colleagues and supervisors.

“Mental illness has a greater impact on overall wellbeing than physical illness, which makes poor mental health the biggest risk to everyone’s overall wellbeing.”

Companies may struggle with what to do to overcome the challenges – reducing ill-being, looking after those who already suffer, promoting better wellbeing, and building stronger wellbeing and resilience for the future.

Leaders may also be concerned about costs of dealing with these challenges and find better solutions, but the more important question might be if they can afford not to.

Our goal is to help any organisation that is willing to explore options to improve organisational as well as employee wellbeing. We have developed our Work Wellbeing Framework to support organisations with a systematic approach to identify problems and implement solutions.

We have just published another article The Failure of Wellness Programmes which you might find interesting too.

You will also find more content within our resources, addressing many other issues around work wellbeing.

If you learn more about what we do, please get in touch and we will get back to you.

1. Survey conducted by European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2022)
2. Micklitz, K., Wong, G, & Howick, J. (2021). Mindfulness-based programmes to reduce stress and enhance wellbeing at work: A realist review. BMJ Open, 11(3),
3. Deloitte (2022). Poor Mental Health Costs UK Employers up to £56 Billion a year.
4. Heron, R. J. L., Kawakami, N., Thirumalai, R., Morganstein, J. C., Jetly, R., Glozier, N., & Greenberg, N. (2024). The world’s psychiatrists update their position on Workforce mental health. Occupational Medicine, kqad143. https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqad143