More than 40% of Americans report increases in mental distress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving employers with their own crisis, resulting in increased absenteeism, negative impacts on productivity and profits, and an increase in healthcare costs.
Encouragingly, employers that support mental health see a return of $4 for every dollar invested in mental health treatment, according to new research released May 13 from the National Safety Council and NORC (National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago. When employees receive effective treatment for mental distress, organizations realize reduced total medical costs, increased productivity, lower absenteeism and decreased disability costs.
The analysis also revealed organizations spend more than $15,000 annually, on average, on each employee experiencing mental health issues. This data highlights the costs pre-COVID-19 and likely underrepresents the current cost to employers due to the increase in Americans experiencing mental distress.
Mental distress has long been a hidden issue in the workplace, with 85% of workers reporting the workplace itself affects their mental health and wellbeing. One risk factor for mental distress is experiencing stress, which can be caused by workplace conditions. Chronic exposure to stressful workplace conditions can lead to a variety of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, an inability to concentrate and emotional exhaustion. Add this to stressful conditions in the home, and the problem can quickly grow.
To help employers understand the pivotal role they play in supporting employee mental health and safety, NSC and NORC at the University of Chicago created the Mental Health Cost Calculator, funded by Nationwide. This authoritative, easy-to-use tool provides business leaders with data-driven insight about the costs of employee mental distress in their workplaces and identifies the specific ways untreated distress impacts employers’ costs. These costs include an estimate of the dollars lost in days of work missed, excess turnover and replacement costs, and greater healthcare use by distressed workers and family members. The calculator also offers research-proven steps employers can take to help employees and their family members recover, while increasing the safety, health and productivity of their workplaces.
Other findings from the analysis include:
- Employees experiencing mental distress use, on average, nearly $3,000 more in healthcare services per year than their peers.
- Occupations with high levels of distress are entertainment, sports, media and communications, technicians and related support occupations, while low prevalence occupations include executive, administrative, managerial, financial, protective services and construction.
- Employees who have experienced mental distress in the past year are more likely to have reported driving under the influence of alcohol, marijuana or other drugs.
- Mentally distressed workers are 3.5 times more likely to have substance use disorders. Learn more about the costs of employee substance use to the workplace with NSC and NORC’s Substance Use Cost Calculator.
- The Mental Health Cost Calculator for Employers combines results from the 2015 to 2018 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health with the latest research on the costs of mental health problems for employers. The cost calculator is available at nsc.org/mentalhealthatwork.
About Arizona Chapter National Safety Council
Our purpose Is to educate and motivate people to live safer and healthier lives, whether at home, work, school, play or on the highway. We offer a wide variety of safety programs that include first-aid/CPR, defensive driving and work place safety.
Rick Murray is president and chief executive officer of Arizona Chapter National Safety Council.
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