A manager holds a tiny umbrella over a small wooden figure of a human that represents a worker, shielding them from the stress raining down on them.

Support line: Training managers could ease the worrying rise in absences for mental health sickness

Mental health training for line managers could save companies millions of pounds in working days lost to sickness each year, new research shows.

The study, published in PLOS ONE, is part of a major programme of work on mental health and productivity led by the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) and Warwick Business School.

It showed a strong association between mental health training for line managers and improved staff recruitment and retention, better customer service, and lower levels of long-term sickness absence caused by mental health sickness.

The study was led by Professor Holly Blake from the School of Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham and Dr Juliet Hassard of Queen’s University Belfast.

Both are part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers which also includes Dr Maria Wishart, Dr Vicki Belt and Professor Stephen Roper of the ERC - who is also the research programme’s principal investigator.

Professor Blake said: “Mental ill-health at work is costly to organisations in terms of sickness absence and lost productivity.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that training line managers in mental health is linked to better business outcomes.

"This is an important finding that strengthens the business case for why employers should invest in mental health at work.”

The cost of sick leave for mental ill-health

One in six workers in the UK experience mental health challenges and 12.7 per cent of all sick days are attributed to mental ill-health.

The estimated cost of poor employee mental health to British employers is over £50 billion, annually.

Mental health training for line managers aims to give them the skills to support the mental health of the people they manage.

Ongoing research is exploring whether such training increases the knowledge, skills and confidence of managers to support their staff and benefits employees.

However, few studies have addressed its potential business value for companies.

To explore the benefits, the researchers analysed anonymised survey data from several thousand companies in England.

That was collected by the ERC between 2020 and 2023 as a part of a larger programme of research on workplace mental health and productivity, funded by the Midlands Engine and the ESRC.

The survey included questions about the companies’ mental health and well-being practices, including whether they offered mental health training to line managers. To avoid errors in their analysis, the researchers statistically controlled for the age, sector, and size of the companies.

Why firms should do more to support workers with mental health

The results suggest that mental health training for line managers may hold strategic business value for companies.

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend that organisations provide mental health training to line managers and implement workplace policies that clarify the line managers’ role in supporting employee mental health.

Research published earlier this year by the ERC showed there was a nine per cent rise in the proportion of businesses with staff absent from work due to long-term mental health issues between 2023 and 2024.

Previous analysis by the research team estimated that firms experiencing workplace mental health issues could see their productivity drop by 25 per cent.

Dr Maria Wishart, from the ERC and Warwick Business School, said: “Our research shows that over a quarter of businesses have experienced mental health-related absence in the past year.

"The rise we are seeing in long-term sickness absence for mental health is worrying.

"We know there are major implications for business performance as well as individual wellbeing. This isn’t an issue that is just going to go away by itself.

"It is time for more concerted action from government, mental health organisations, and crucially, employers themselves. They need to create psychologically safe working environments and provide better training for managers.”

 

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Maria Wishart is a Research Fellow and a member of the Enterprise Research Centre.

Learn more about employee wellbeing on the four-day Executive Education course Behavioural Science for Organisations and Innovation at WBS London at The Shard.

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