Should employers pay for therapy for staff?

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It isn’t always talked about openly, but employees taking time off work due to emotional/mental wellbeing is very common, and in fact most people have at least thought about phoning in sick because the idea of going in and facing the tasks that lay ahead seemed too much by the side of personal experiences that dominate mental and emotional space.

The discussion of mental health in the workplace is becoming more common – and for good reasons. It was always a relevant conversation to have, but post-pandemic has encouraged it further with sharper rises in depression, anxiety and work-related stress. Depression is ranked within the top 3 work problems, with depression and anxiety collectively accounting for 50 per cent work related ill health.

The statistics vary depending on the source you read, but the general consensus is that employee symptoms of mental illness/poor mental health can negatively affect the workplace:

Absenteeism: Mental health is said to be the number one cause of employee’s calling in absent in the UK. With 12.7 per cent of sickness absence days in the UK being directly attributed to mental health conditions (though often an employee will give a physical/different reason to explain their absence!) 

Presenteeism:  Not all employees phone in sick when they don’t feel on top of their mental health, many will come in and battle on. However, this will have implications on their productivity levels and as such  outcomes for the business. Almost half of workers questioned have been in work despite not feeling up to it, and such feel their duties have not always been performed as well as they should.

Mind/body connection: There is evidence to support that those with poor mental health are at greater risk of poorer physical health (such as cardiovascular conditions, lung conditions, and diabetes) which can create bigger problems for absenteeism and presenteeism! Those experiencing any mental health concern (be that a diagnosis or something  situational that is causing a negative impact on mental wellbeing) are likely to engage in poor sleep patterns,  unhealthy behaviours such as poor diet and increased smoking/drinking, or be suffering negative side effects of any medication they are taking to help alleviate anxiety/depression/etc. As such absenteeism and presenteeism may be accurately reported as a physical illness – but in fact have stemmed from poor mental health.

In recent research (MHFA England, 2022) up to 33 per cent of employees asked said they would like more support from their employers in accessing help for mental health, the same source suggests that since 2019 there has been a 25 per cent increase in annual costs brought to businesses due to mental health and that through investing in support for staff businesses will the financial benefit as it would bring a decrease in absenteeism, presenteeism and cost implications of staff turnover.

In my work as a therapist, nearly all of my clients (that are either employed or self-employed) report in their earlier sessions that one* of the signs/factors that brought them to me was a that they had noticed an impact in their work due to how they felt mentally. In some cases the pressure of the job being a causal factor or in many other cases an external factor that they were struggling with was causing them to feel unable to maintain a successful meeting of demands at work.

*Not that this was the key reason for coming to therapy necessarily, but that it had been one of the few/many reasons they had decided to take action in seeking help.

So how can you help your employees, which in turn could help your  business?

It is suggested that for every £1 spent on mental health support for staff companies could gain just over £5 in saved expenditure. 

By contributing to services like therapy for staff with your business you could reduce the level of staff absence, retain staff and their skills and as such reduce turnover, and improve staff morale. Investing in a course of therapy for a staff member (both in terms of financial cost and flexibility of time to attend) could  actually save your company money as you need less HR resources in recruitment and/or training new and temporary staff, and of course productivity will increase.

There is also the case of a social responsibility for staff welfare and the link between staff receiving support and a lower of risk of grievance complaints being made against company management.

To go back to the title question of this piece, you could argue that it is not the job of the employer to pay for therapy for staff, BUT ….. There is a case to suggest that it would benefit all parties of staff, management and the business!

For more information on how therapy could help your staff email jaclyn@process-counselling.co.uk or call 07305066452