Recent data from a survey conducted by Open Sourcing Mental Illness (2016) suggests 51% of individuals in the tech community have been diagnosed with a mental illness. This is a big figure compared to the 20% prevalence in the general population. While we don’t yet know why the difference between these two numbers is so big, we do know that the mental health of employees impacts the whole organization.
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. As you can imagine, a lot of decision-making, handling stress, and interacting with others takes place at work. More days of work are lost by mental illness than by other chronic health conditions including arthritis, asthma, back pain, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
70% of costs associated with mental illness are found in the indirect costs of employee absenteeism, presenteeism (i.e., when people are at work but not fully productive), turnover, and training costs for replaced workers. It’s true: happy employees are more productive, and less likely to leave their job.
The World Health Organization (2005) recommends a mental health policy for any business or organization wishing to improve mental wellness. At Keen IO, we are passionate about making a workplace culture where people are not only productive, but where they thrive. We’ve seen time and again that investments in the wellbeing of our employees pays off big time, and we thought establishing a mental health policy would be another great benefit to help people grow. Our policy addresses the vision for improving mental health in the workforce and creates a model for action.