Poor mental health costs UK employers an estimated £34.9billion each year – for your organisation, that’s the equivalent to £1,300 per employee.

Almost 37% of all work-related ill-health cases are linked to depression, anxiety or stress, and perhaps even more striking, is that 95% of staff say their organisation is unhelpful when managing mental health.

So, what does all this mean? The maths suggest you can’t afford to sweep mental health under the rug – as a manager it is your responsibility to be tackling it head on, for the benefit of both your staff and your organisation.

One of the ways in which you can begin to tackle and manage mental health in your organisation is with the introduction of mental health training. Putting simple steps in place to improve the management of mental health in your organisation, such as creating a Wellness Action Plan, will bring benefits to you, your staff and your workplace.

Mental Health awareness training is an important step to removing the stigma of mental health, so it is important that your staff are trained in issues relating to mental health. With sufficient mental health training, your staff will understand the main signs of someone dealing with mental health problems, as well as begin to create an open culture in your organisation.

There are a number of mental health training programmes you should be looking towards: the main one being the mental health charity Mind, who hold in-house workshop training for your staff.

Another thing to think about when implementing a mental health strategy is calculating the return on investment of your overall process. 

While it is fundamental to your organisation that you manage mental health in a successful way, how do you know what is working and what isn’t? How do you know which parts of your mental health strategy are cost effective, and which are making real change to your organisation?

With our new Mental Health analytics dashboard Lumien, you are able to bring together your mental health strategy and understand the big data and analytics behind it.

Lumien allows you to make adjustments to your mental health strategy by giving you the data you need to make positive change, ensuring you are tackling mental health in a cost-effective way.