More and more companies are talking about their performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, and with good reason: it affects brand reputation, alignment with emerging regulations, and business performance and sustainability. The same is true for workplace mental health. However, a recent study of 100 of the largest publicly listed companies globally by CCLA Investment Management found that while nine in 10 companies recognize the business relevance of mental health, less than half have formalized their commitments. With this in mind, LifeWorks* and Corporate Knights embarked on a collaboration to understand if ESG leaders are also leaders in workplace mental health.

In June, we offered the Top 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada of 2022 the opportunity to complete the LifeWorks Workplace Strategy Index for Mental Health (WSI-MH). The WSI-MH offers insight into how an organization’s policies and programs compare to established frameworks in workplace mental health, such as the International Organization for Standardization, and how organizations benchmark against peers.

The WSI-MH is an online assessment tool broken down into four levels: compliance to basic risk management, foundational responses to mental health concerns, programming that can positively affect mental health and well-being, and cultural integration of mental health policies and practices. The assessment is typically completed by a senior human resources representative. (LifeWorks also offers an employee-level assessment, the Mental Health Index, to pair with the WSI-MH if requested to determine employees’ mental health needs.) Once they’ve completed the assessment, companies receive a confidential report that provides recommendations on where and how to improve.

Canada’s corporate leaders are making progress but still have work ahead when it comes to supporting workers on mental health.

So, what did we find? Canada’s corporate leaders are making progress but still have work ahead when it comes to supporting workers on mental health. Twenty percent of top corporate citizens completed the assessment, and they scored 5% above LifeWorks’ cross-industry Canadian benchmark. The key to their higher score was having comprehensive foundational practices, such as providing generous paid sick days and mental health benefits (6% higher than benchmarks) and more comprehensive programming to support the mental health needs of their employees (8% higher than benchmarks).

A handful of companies averaged 18% higher than the overall benchmark, with the primary driver being cultural integration of mental health policies and practices.

The Co-operators Group stood out for its commitment to fostering an organizational culture responsive to employee mental health needs. The insurance firm scored high in cultural integration (e.g., visible commitment to mental health), helping them earn a good overall score. “Over the years, we have learned how willing and open our employees are to sharing their mental health stories, participating in education sessions, and genuinely taking a vested interest in each other’s well-being,” says Laura Mably, executive vice-president and chief human resources officer at Co-operators.

Insurance company Sun Life Financial has an array of policies, programs and processes to ensure their employees have supports when needed. That helps explain why it had leading scores in both foundational practices (e.g., mental health coverage within standard benefit packages) and programming (e.g., manager training in mental health), contributing to a high overall score. “The pandemic forced us to flex our wellness strategy,” says Katrena Munsch, Sun Life’s director of mental wellness. “We needed to ensure our employees had flexibility to manage their personal responsibilities, access to digital care, and navigational support for the many resources in our program, to ensure they could access the right resources at the right time based on their unique needs.”

Alectra Utilities had balanced scores in each section, leading to a high overall score. Adele Snetsinger, manager of learning and organizational development, says that Alectra’s wellness framework reflects the fact that “a person’s well-being is made up of interdependent elements. Our framework ensures a holistic approach to employee well-being and addresses all the elements that support a healthy body, mind and lifestyle.” That includes mental health counselling for needs ranging from acute to long-term and policies enabling psychological and physical workplace safety to drive cultural change.

Our research confirms that Canada’s corporate leaders are working to improve their employees’ mental health. It is, of course, a journey, and more work remains. If companies around the globe want to be genuine leaders in corporate responsibility, they’ll have to ensure that their employee mental health is as sustainable as their environmental footprint.

Paula Allen is senior VP of research and total well-being at LifeWorks.

*UPDATE: On February 1, 2023, LifeWorks was officially rebranded as TELUS Health.

The post What are top companies doing to support workplace mental health? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Unfortunately, only 55% of workers agree that their organizations are both socially and environmentally responsible in their business practices. There is clearly an opportunity here for companies to do better.

In recent years, the use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators to measure a company’s performance has exploded in popularity – and with good reason. In addition to mounting public expectations for companies to be “good corporate citizens,” a 2021 meta-analysis conducted in partnership with NYU and Rockefeller Asset Management points to a growing body of evidence that good corporate management of ESG is tied to improved financial performance.

But beyond higher stock valuation and shareholder returns, the findings of the LifeWorks Research Group’s August 2021 Mental Health Index also showed that an organization’s behaviour can significantly impact workers’ mental health and productivity. We found that workers who report that their employer is environmentally and socially responsible also report, on average, having better mental health.

It turns out that those who feel a sense of belonging or acceptance have higher productivity than those who don’t. That warm and fuzzy sense of belonging is an important marker of psychological safety, one that can be activated when the company you work for aligns with your personal values, whether it’s support for action on climate change and plastic pollution or a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.

How did polling play out in different parts of the world? The results for all four countries surveyed are fairly similar. However, Australians rate their employers the best on social justice, while the Brits are last on this front. U.K. respondents are the least impressed by their employers’ ESG efforts, while U.S. workers are the least likely to say that ESG is important to them.

By and large, respondents in the bottom third of mental health scores in all four countries were significantly more likely to not feel a sense of belonging and acceptance at work. They were also significantly less likely to agree that their employer is socially and environmentally responsible. The workers who would recommend their organization as a “great place to work” (an indicator of engagement) just so happen to be on average 11% more productive than workers who would not.

The data is clear on a number of fronts. Improving a company’s performance on environmental and social metrics brings more value to shareholders, yes, but also, employees who feel good about their companies’ environmental and social behaviour reported better worker productivity, engagement and psychological safety. The triple bottom line: organizations would do well to deepen their commitments to environmentally and socially responsible business practices if they want to keep their workers happy.

Paula Allen is senior vice-president of research and total well-being at LifeWorks.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic wore on, we saw an astounding decline in the mental health of Canada’s working population. Burnout levels are triple those of 2019. Suicidal ideation among employees seeking counselling services has doubled. Even those who usually have good mental health are feeling more anxious and strained. Indeed, 80% of the working population indicates that the pandemic has negatively impacted their mental health.

Our mental health has always been important to our quality of life and participation in the economy, but until recently, it was largely considered an issue for only a troubled few. For the most part, it was taken for granted that the majority of us wouldn’t need mental health support. Now it’s a frequent topic of conversation in newsrooms and living rooms – and a central concern in a growing number of boardrooms.

For some time, investors and the broader public have been demanding that companies meet higher environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) standards. While the urgency of climate change has thrust the “E” into the spotlight, the social component of ESG has recently garnered more intense attention.

Simply put, the “S” represents the human impact of business activities – everything from data security and human rights to diversity, equity and inclusion; health and safety; and workers’ well-being. Under that umbrella, we are now seeing an emerging “M,” for mental health – and calls for recognition of that M are growing louder every day. Corporations in industries as different as warehousing and high finance have recently been in the public eye for the gruelling number of work hours required of employees – a long-standing issue that has captured the attention of a public that also felt burned out by the pandemic.

Source: LifeWorks Mental Health Index

The pandemic also prompted many companies to take positive action, recognizing the importance of workers’ mental health to the resilience of their businesses. Some extended mental health support to part-time and contract workers, who previously were not eligible.

LifeWorks (formerly Morneau Shepell)’s monthly Mental Health Index for June 2020 found that workers who indicate strong workplace support for mental health fared significantly better in terms of their overall mental health during the pandemic than those with employers who were seen as either inconsistent or inadequate in their support.

As our economies become more knowledge-based, a spotlight is placed on human capital, putting greater emphasis on worker mental health. On the opportunity end of the spectrum, Google’s Project Aristotle (an internal study that looked at what made 180 Google teams effective) showed that psychological safety was the top characteristic of the highest-functioning teams. As well, several studies have shown that companies that score well on their investment in worker mental health saw average stock price increases of up to three times that of their peers. Well-being supports offer workers the mental freedom to innovate as well as the energy to focus, all of which are factors in business success.

On the other end of the spectrum, a Lancet Commission report projected that between 2011 and 2030, the number of working days lost to mental health conditions will cost the global economy US$16 trillion in lost output. For companies, financial impacts can be seen in the rising costs of health and disability claims, accidents, absences, reduced productivity, as well as the loss of talent. LifeWorks research found that three in four workers (76%) say that the way a company supports mental health is a factor in whether or not they will stay.

Reputational risks are also a concern. One U.S.-based suitcase company suffered a 90% drop in sales after it was accused of having a toxic work environment. Since then, the company’s new CEO has been focused on building a culture of well-being in order to rebuild the business, emphasizing work-life balance and expanding policies that support leaves, including 16 weeks of paid leave for parents of any gender, and wellness days off.

The swift and very significant drop in ratings that followed reports of a toxic work environment at the Ellen DeGeneres Show is another very public example of the intensity of public sentiment on this topic. It has been said that the “S” gives companies the licence to operate; it also appears that failure in this respect can be felt quickly.

Society is evolving, as are business models and therefore business risks. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) has taken a leadership role in responding to the need for evolution by filling critical gaps and modernizing ESG disclosure standards. SASB recently launched a project that addresses human capital management, with the noteworthy inclusion of workplace mental health.

“SASB was driven to take action by investors who indicated that workplace mental health issues are important to them and needed to be understood at an industry level,” notes Kelli Okuji Wilson, SASB’s project lead for the human capital project. SASB completed public consultations on human capital and worker mental health in February and is continuing with next steps.

Coalitions of employers are also taking action. One Mind at Work convened a group of top companies, including Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson and EY (Ernst & Young) in a working group to advance and shape the progress of mental health in ESG. They’re not only taking action within their own firms but are hoping to shape broader industry-wide approaches to workplace mental health.

Doing the right thing is good for business. ESG-aligned companies wouldn’t be receiving the attention they do now from global investors if they didn’t produce attractive financial outcomes. ESG makes sense. We know good governance and responsible engagement with the environment ensure a company’s sustainability. The social component of ESG, however, could be the most powerful – and the most indicative of near- and long-term business success. Happy customers are essential to the bottom line. Happy and healthy workers are essential to a functioning business.

Savvy business leaders know that boosting employee wellness doesn’t just reduce costs and reputational risk. It drives business success – all while saving lives.

Looking to improve mental health standards
at your workplace? Here’s what to keep in mind.

• Mental health is an issue for all workers, not a select few. Make sure your company supports mental well-being as well as the needs of those with mental illness, and every point in between.
• Managers are key to any human capital issue. Ensure that managers are trained and equipped to understand the value of workplace mental health and deal appropriately with mental health issues when they arise.
• Stigma is isolating and prevents workers from leveraging mental health resources. Review workplace policies, communications and norms, and seek opportunities to reduce stigma.
• If you are not measuring, you are not managing. Make sure you have measures in place to understand your risk, progress and whether your practices support a positive impact.

Paula Allen is the global leader and senior vice-president of research and total well-being at LifeWorks (previously Morneau Shepell).

This story appears in the upcoming Summer 2021 Issue of Corporate Knights.

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