Giving employees access to mental health support is not only the right thing to do, it’s also a business necessity. The case for investing in employees’ mental health by providing them with access to support has become glaringly obvious.
By 2024, mental health issues cost an employer around £1,230 per employee per year in the average office environment. So in a business of 100 people, mental health issues would cost around £123,000 a year.
This calculation is based on data analysis* carried out by Employee Wellbeing Partner, Kara Connect.
Measurable costs are based on:
- Staff absences
- Exhaustion at work
- Lost productive days
- Unwanted attrition
For younger employees (Generation Z), mental health care is considerably more important than standard health care, in part because they have higher levels of self-awareness and are particularly sensitive and responsive to the unpredictability and stress of our modern world. It’s fair to say that employees in their 20s are less likely to benefit from private healthcare, but are much more likely to need and value mental health care.
If employers are willing to pay large sums for their employees’ private healthcare, why wouldn’t they pay even an eighth of that amount for appropriate mental wellbeing support that their employees will actually use?
At Kara Connect, we offer services in over 60 specialist areas, from mental health to menopause, fertility to finance, conflict resolution to career coaching, in over 30 languages. With usage rates 6 times higher than the industry average and a customer satisfaction rate of 4.9/5, our customers and their employees finally have a solution that works.
*Calculation based on an average of 3 days of absence per year (Deloitte and UK Govt). Absence estimated at 28%, mainly due to poor well-being (Deloitte and UK government). Average attrition rate of 13.8% (Cendex UK), 50% of which is due to poor wellbeing (Vitality). Cost of lost productivity due to burnout = 1.8x the cost of absenteeism (Salisbury Centre)
