Mind’s (2011) “Taking Care of Business” study reveals that one in six workers experiences depression, anxiety or unmanageable stress. A further one in six experience symptoms of mental ill health such as sleep problems and fatigue. It has been revealed that work-related mental ill health costs the UK economy up to £26 billion every year through lost working days, staff turnover and lower productivity. This evidence is supported further in Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (2007) findings suggesting mental illness results in 70 million sick days per year, making it the leading cause of sickness absence in the United Kingdom. However, mental health is still taboo in the workplace with many employees holding back information about their mental health, for fear of discrimination from managers or colleagues. This means problems spiral and are often not identified until too late, exacerbating business and human costs, as well as placing added strain on colleagues.
Do you believe that your employees are a fundamental part of your business?
Counselling for employees can help:
- Benefits to the Company
- Company reputation and profile
- Improve employee performance and work output
- Reduced sickness/absence and lower this cost to your business.
- Improved retention and concentration levels
- Happier and healthier employees
- Staff morale
- Engage employees
Employee counselling is an invaluable way of managing people’s mental wellbeing. Counselling gives staff a safe and confidential environment to work through stresses and challenges they may be experiencing within and outside the workplace. Providing your employees with the confidential space to make sense of stresses and worries offers an invaluable way of increasing engagement, motivation and productivity in the workplace whilst making employees feeling valued, motivated and engaged. This investment can make a huge impact to your business; for example, McLeod (2010) research suggested that workplace counselling interventions have been found to reduce sickness absence rates in organisations by as much as 50%. This demonstrates the cost-effective nature of counselling, and the positive impact it can have on an organisation’s productivity.
As an experienced counsellor, I offer one to one employee counselling, group counselling, personal development sessions, mental health reports (with employees’ permission), mental health audits, staff training and workshops. Each approach is bespoke and tailored towards your business and employees themselves, to effectively empower your workforce and get the best results.