By Amrit Sandhar, CEO & Founder, &Evolve
As the conversation around workplace wellbeing continues across the globe, for business leaders, particularly in high-pressured sectors such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, the pressure can be immense, to not only innovate and grow, but to build workplaces that work. So, what responsibility do we hold as CEOs, leaders and managers, when it comes to employee mental health?
According to the Health Foundation, mental illness is now the most common cause of work-limiting conditions amongst those aged 44 years and younger. They also highlight that in 2022/23, 875,000 employees suffered work-related stress, anxiety or depression, costing the UK economy 17.1 million working days. With 85.5% of 35-49-year-olds making up the largest population of our workplaces, this has to be a concern for any organisation looking to gain a competitive advantage and deliver the very best performance.
But should those heading businesses and organisations be responsible for looking after the mental health of employees? How far do they go, before being seen as ‘overstepping’ work boundaries? Having trained mental health first aiders and having the materials to support employees, must be seen as beneficial. Yet despite many businesses implementing initiatives and services, we are not seeing any substantial improvements in mental health. Why?
There’s a risk that some employees are beginning to see the support being offered for mental health as ‘compensating’ for the work environment being created. The long hours culture, the requirement to be ‘always on’, and back-to-back meetings that lead to catching up on work in the evenings and weekends. So, the way in which many of us are now working, isn’t working, and unless we fundamentally address this, little will change.
The drive for improving profitability has meant that many workplaces are being operated with lean structures, presenting many single points of failure. Many organisations have managed to attract and retain highly committed, loyal and dedicated employees, and herein lies the challenge. These employees, due to their commitment and dedication, are working longer hours and doing more with less to get their jobs done. Their dedication is masking the shortfalls in actual resources required.
Whilst many people hated those age-old ‘time-in-motion’ audits, their absence has created a lack of data. What’s commonplace now is that the science behind understanding the resources needed to fulfil a job has been replaced by an annual uplift in sales and an annual reduction in resources.
There’s no doubt AI will help improve the world of work, but this doesn’t absolve a company from understanding the true resourcing demands of their business model, or the human cost of filling those gaps through goodwill. The advances in AI are constantly being highlighted as the saviour that will change the way we work, but according to the ONS, the average weekly hours of full-time staff over the last 10 years has only dropped by 48 minutes.
The pursuit of measuring engagement seems stronger than ever, yet the courage to remodel the way we work seems lacking. Despite advances in technology, the average weekly working hours have barely shifted. Many organisations argue there’s only so much they can do to support mental health, but are they even examining whether their ‘workplaces’ are contributing to poor mental health?
According to the WHO, ways to protect mental health include training managers and individuals to recognise symptoms and respond appropriately. But training doesn’t address the root cause. This is not to say that our workplaces are causing mental health issues, but if the way in which our businesses are structured and operate is exacerbating mental illness, then trained managers alone won’t fix it.
Cynicism is growing. Employees see mental health initiatives as ways to keep productivity high, not as genuine care. Companies may update their values and mission statements, however, what matters is whether their decisions reflect them. With Gallup’s report showing global engagement levels dropping and manager scores dropping the most, one has to ask: are we creating cultures where women and people in leadership feel supported, or just surviving?
And with Edelman’s Trust Barometer showing that 61% of respondents believe government and businesses serve narrow interests, the erosion of trust is real. For women building the future of business and tech, this is a call to action.
For industries like pharma and healthcare, where human resilience is already stretched, this issue demands attention. Companies must recalibrate their business models, remove dependence on employee goodwill, and start measuring values in action as rigorously as they measure revenue. Because ultimately, it’s not perks, posters or policies that protect mental health, it’s the decisions that leaders make every day.
