NEWS & INSIGHT
“Encouraging employers to invest in employee mental health can be challenging. Knowing that improving line managers’ knowledge, skills and confidence in managing mental health at work is linked to better business outcomes will help to highlight the strategic value of this approach to employers,” reasoned study co-author and reader at Queen’s Business School Juliet Hassard. “Mental ill-health at work is costly to organisations in terms of absence and lost productivity. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that training line managers in mental health is linked to better business outcomes. This is an important finding that strengthens the business case for why employers should invest in mental health at work,” added principal investigator and University of Nottingham professor Holly Blake. The research analysed survey data from several thousand companies in England collected between 2020 and 2023 by the Enterprise Research Centre at Warwick Business School as a part of a larger programme of research on workplace mental health and productivity. EB “Improving line managers’ knowledge, skills and confidence in managing mental health at work is linked to better business outcomes”
STUDY SHOWCASES STRATEGIC VALUE OF MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING FOR MANAGERS
with better staff recruitment, retention and customer service along with fewer long‑term mental health‑related absences. In the UK, one in six workers experience mental health challenges and nearly 13 per cent of all sick days are attributed to these types of issues. The annual cost to UK employers is estimated at more than £50 billion. The potential for impact in this arena is therefore sizeable. The study concluded that all organisations should provide suitable training to line managers and have policies in place ensuring that they are aware their role must encompass supporting staff members’ mental health.
SCHOOL Queen’s Business School Queen’s University Belfast COUNTRY UK
ental health training for managers could help curb an acute problem in society,
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according to a new study from researchers at Queen’s Business School and the University of Nottingham. It found that when managers received mental health training, there was a direct positive correlation
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Business Impact • ISSUE 3 • 2024
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