It’s past time to take action on employee mental health. By 2030, mental disorders are projected to cause $16.3 trillion in cumulative loss in economic output. Mental disorders will affect between 25-50% of the world’s population at some point in their lives.
While employers share in the financial burden, employees globally are individually struggling with depression, anxiety, burnout, substance abuse, and more. As employers, we often tell ourselves that the reasons are personal or caused by global forces external to our organization (wars, politics, the COVID-19 pandemic) that impact us all. But whatever the causes behind individual mental health challenges—there are many—the reality is employees are struggling to access needed support and they need us to do something different. We need to do more.
