Poor mental health is often a normal and predictable response to a pathological environment, not a pathological response to a normal one. For many cultures, “Resilience” has become a cynical euphemism for pushing the responsibility of coping with a poor environment onto the individual. This has to be thrown out and replaced by a shared focus on individual, team and company-wide behaviours, systems and practices - all of which shine the light on opportunities for creating pro-social environments with cultures that support the good mental health of its people.
Poor mental health is often a normal and predictable response to a pathological environment, not a pathological response to a normal one. For many cultures, “Resilience” has become a cynical euphemism for pushing the responsibility of coping with a poor environment onto the individual. This has to be thrown out and replaced by a shared focus on individual, team and company-wide behaviours, systems and practices - all of which shine the light on opportunities for creating pro-social environments with cultures that support the good mental health of its people.
Mental Health is still largely framed in the negative, because leadership has not yet embraced the potential upside, or how mental health can be used as a lever for higher function, engagement and performance. The wide-held belief that good mental health is the norm has proven to be flawed during the pandemic, so we need to start by seeing mental health as aspirational.
“The loss of productivity as a result of anxiety and depression - two common mental health disorders that stem from dysfunctional mood and emotion - costs the global economy $1 trillion each year.”
MCKINSEY 2021
“The loss of productivity as a result of anxiety and depression - two common mental health disorders that stem from dysfunctional mood and emotion - costs the global economy $1 trillion each year.”
MCKINSEY 2021
“I was never exposed to the knowledge, training and tools CHX have been sharing, if I had then I might never have had to suffer the c.3 years of depression and heartache that I went through. Your programme is special, it’s pitched at every kind of human level where everyone will take something away with them that will stay with them through their careers.”
MEMBER SLT, GLOBAL CONSTRUCTION FIRM
of employees believe a company’s culture should support mental health.*
reported >1 mental health symptom in past year (stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and PTSD).*
The potential return on every pound invested in a wellbeing programme that has 3 elements: “Offers large scale culture change, focuses on prevention, uses diagnostics.” Deloitte 2021
Millenials
Gen Z
left roles for mental health reasons in 2021.*
*Statistics from HBR Oct 2021, Mind Share Partners’ 2021 Mental Health at Work Report
