Hey there fellow reader,

Recently I wrote a post entitled “Is mental health messing with your budgeting” which you can read HERE

The truth is that if you don’t include mental health into your business budget, it’s going to mess with it in some way. Poor mental health in the workplace affects so many different areas. The obvious one is absenteeism. Mental health is becoming one of the largest reasons for absenteeism in today’s workforce. Of course, that’s only the known cases. Many people hide sick days because of mental health by using other reasons such as stomach bugs and migraines.

 

So, what are the key areas in your budget that need to include a mental health aspect? 

 

A study in 2021 showed that around 40% of people who moved jobs did so for less stress. That same study showed that nearly 50% of staff said they would chose a company with a mental health support program over one without. Depending on your industry, replacing staff is expensive. Spiralling costs around acquisition of a new staff member, inductions and training all mean that the overall cost could be as much as 2 times their salary. That needs planning for!

 

All businesses set goals and targets around productivity. Whether it’s a factory who are producing and end product or a sales team who need to meet sales targets, everyone has goals to hit. Of course, these goals form part of your budget. If they don’t get met there’s a good chance the budget doesn’t get met either. It’s a long established fact that poor mental health affects the productivity of a business. Do you take poor mental health into account when budgeting and planning targets for your team or business?

 

Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly. Customer service is affected by poor mental health and as customer service plays a huge part in your business it needs budgeting for. Take a look at the three areas we have discussed already:

 

Absenteeism – with staff off sick customer service suffers

Staff turnover – when staff leave an untrained staff come in, customer service suffers

Productivity targets – when goals are not met, customer service suffers

 

Of course, the easier way to ensure that mental health is budgeted for is to give it a budget line of its own. Adding mental health support to your expenses budget can lower the impact of all of the above. In fact, depending on the report you ready, mental health support can give you a return on investment of between £5 – £8 for every £1 you spend. That’s a 500% – 800% return on investment.

 

Any forward thinking business has to have a mental health support budget line. It just doesn’t make sense not to. However, like any other part of your budget you need to be able to measure it and the effectiveness of any support program. You wouldn’t set a goal or target without being able to measure it, would you? Of course not. You also wouldn’t start a new project or capital investment without a measure for its success. That would be poor management and leadership.

 

So why would you employe mental health support without being able to measure its effectiveness? Well, now you don’t have to. The Priority Academy, in conjunction with Projekt Rising, have developed a Workplace Mental Health Assessment that measures the mental health landscape of your business. This means we can measure the effectiveness of your mental health support program and you can make informed decisions. Would you like to know more? Click the link below for more information.