Mental health is now the biggest cause of claim in group risk markets. Katharine Moxham outlines the scale of the problem.
Picking up the pieces of people’s lives is no substitute for managing mental health more proactively. There is a clear expectation from government that employers will promote mentally healthy workplaces for all, will tackle the causes of mental ill health at work and will support people with mental health problems.
The business case for this is clear. As the Deprtment of Heath’s No health without mental health strategy document states, mental health problems are estimated to cost the economy £105bn a year. Impaired work efficiency associated with mental health problems alone costs £15.1bn a year, almost twice the cost of absenteeism.
Group Risk Development’s (GRiD) latest employer research, undertaken in October 2012, found that one in five (21%) of employers questioned considered stress/mental health issues to be the number one health risk to their business.
Family concerns (20%) and maintaining a good work/life balance (19%) came in at second and third – unsurprisingly really, as all three are often related.
The findings also showed how important tackling stress and fostering workplace wellbeing are to employers. Some 31% of those questioned felt that managing stress and mental ill health was their top priority for 2013 – a 5% increase on last year’s sample. Thirty-five percent of employers questioned claimed that maintaining a good work/life balance in the workplace was key for them.
Interestingly, employers do appear to be taking active steps to reduce the impact of stress in their business and to improve work/life balance, with 34% of employers already having flexible working initiatives in place to tackle these issues.
Through group income protection, the group risk industry offers services that can help in achieving a mentally healthy workplace plus financial support for cases where staying at work is not possible (or not possible yet).
But, there is no “one size fits all” solution and it is vital for employers to understand the services and products they have and how best to integrate them. It is also vital for employers to understand where their programme is lacking.
Additionally, for employers who have group income protection in place, it is really important to understand the value of and how best to use the additional services to ensure that they play their part in better supporting those with mental health conditions to remain in the workplace and to avoid duplicating services such as HR and Legal support or an EAP.
If employers work in closer partnership with their adviser and providers, they can take a step back and integrate what they do already and consider what they could improve on to ensure that they play their part in better supporting those with mental health conditions to gain access to and to remain in the workplace.
Katharine Moxham is spokeswoman for Group Risk Development (GRiD)
