The stress and pressure of the holiday season can take its toll on your mental health, and the impacts can carry over to the workplace. The World Health Organization estimates that 12 billion working days are lost annually due to depression and anxiety. Shareholders, including Mercy Investment Services, are using a recent analysis of company efforts to encourage workplace mental health awareness and benefits.
The CCLA Mental Health Benchmark evaluates how companies are managing the risks and opportunities related to workplace mental health including management commitments, policy, performance reporting and impact. More than 50 companies engaged in the assessment, and results showed some improvement from last year; 5 companies are in the top two tiers, noting a mature, strategic approach to workplace mental health and 12 companies moved up a performance tier, benefiting almost 1.5 million workers. Companies received the highest scores in management commitment and policy and the lowest in performance reporting and impact.
Although most companies provide mental health support services and are raising awareness of mental health, the assessment found that more mental health training needs to be provided to managers. In addition, the results indicated that companies need to link workplace culture and good work with mental health.
As a founding signatory to the CCLA global investor statement on workplace mental health, Mercy Investment Services will use the benchmark as it engages companies including McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble and Walmart on advancing mental health benefits and services in the workplace, publishing a commitment on workplace mental health and setting goals to improve workplace mental health.