Workforce Mental Health Assessment Releases 2024 Annual Report

One Mind at Work, a global leader dedicated to building the future of workforce mental health, is proud to unveil the latest insights from the Mental Health at Work Index™. The Index is a standardized assessment of organizational-level initiatives to address workforce mental health. The Index helps organizations measure their mental health efforts, prioritize areas for improvement, and strategically invest in evidence-based practices for improved outcomes.

Developed collaboratively by One Mind at Work, Columbia University’s Mental Health + Work Design Lab and Ethisphere, the Mental Health at Work Index landed One Mind on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list.

In the first year of the Mental Health at Work Index, 46 organizations completed the self-assessment - including AXA, Bank of America, Prudential, Aon, HCA Healthcare, and more.

The Index is a self-assessment tool for business leaders who are committed to being data-driven when it comes to workforce mental health. Using the Index, organizations establish the baseline maturity of their mental health programs, pinpoint priority areas that will accelerate the impact of their efforts, and tap into evidence-based resources for optimizing their programs to achieve better outcomes, both for their employees and for their organization.

The findings from the Mental Health at Work Index™ underscore the critical need for organizations to take a comprehensive and strategic approach to workforce mental health efforts. Research consistently demonstrates that investing in mental health initiatives not only enhances worker satisfaction and engagement but also drives innovation, resilience, and overall individual and organizational performance. As the global workforce continues to evolve, the importance of mental health support in the workplace cannot be overstated.

New findings show:

• Organizations that scored at or above the Mental Health at Work Index target score reported that nearly 9 out of 10 employees would recommend the organization as a good place to work.
• Only 1 in 4 organizations (26%) have a formal strategy for workforce mental health. While 67% of senior leaders express a commitment to workforce mental health, most employers are not approaching it strategically. To date, most workforce mental health initiatives are ad hoc and reactive.
• Only 1 in 3 organizations (35%) have a process to identify psychosocial hazards that may pose risks to worker mental health. While more than 9 in 10 respondents (93%) indicated that they provide resources and benefits to address mental health issues, less than half (48%) of organizations say they are redesigning the work environment to improve psychological well-being , such as modifying the way work is conducted or creating space for social and interpersonal interactions.
• Less than 1 in 10 organizations (9%) that offer mental health training are measuring subsequent behavior changes. While 74% of organizations offer mental health training, employers have no way to know whether their actions are producing the desired outcomes.

To access the full report, visit https://mentalhealthindex.org/annual-report/. To join our April 25th, 1:00 pm ET webinar in which we will discuss the key insights as well as actions employers can take to improve their workforce mental health programs, please register here.

Dr. Kathy Pike, President and CEO of One Mind at Work, said, “In today's work environment and amidst unprecedented challenges, a thriving organization relies on the collective mental health of its workers. The Mental Health at Work Index serves as a compass for organizations, providing a diagnostic tool to ensure worker mental health remains strong, fostering resilience, empathy, and sustainable performance while nurturing a culture of caring.”

Craig Moss, EVP-Measurement at Ethisphere, said, “Senior leadership needs to realize that mental health at work is more than an HR responsibility. It directly impacts personal and organizational performance. In addition to providing benefits and resources, protecting and promoting the mental health of workers needs to be integrated into the core business strategy. Completing the Mental Health at Work Index is a process that provides leaders with the data they need to do it.”

Gordon Watson, Founding Corporate Council Chair of The Mental Health at Work Index and Chair, AXA Asia, said, "The Mental Health at Work Index provides a vital framework for organizations to assess and improve their mental health initiatives, ensuring the well-being of employees and the success of the organization."

Ryan Sledge, Vice President of Workforce Health & Safety at HCA Healthcare, said, "The results that we’ve gotten back from the Index helped us to bolster some of the things we do internally already, such as our Mental Health and Wellness Colleague Network, which is the fastest-growing network across the company. The assessment provided us with an opportunity to do more and do better as an employer and as a health care system."

Helen Wray, Global Mental Health & Energy Lead at Mars, said, "The Mental Health at Work Index allowed us to not only identify areas for improvement across the protection, promotion, and provision landscape, but also clarified the importance of the programs we’ve had in place to support workers. Seeing the impact of that work reflected in our results, while learning about additional evidence-based areas we could focus on to go further, was a valuable experience."

The Mental Health at Work Index is rooted in science and research from the fields of psychology, organizational behavior, public health, and management systems. The Index was developed based on a review of the scientific literature and guidance documents, as well as input from a council of organizational leaders to ensure the practical utility of the assessment and related resources in global settings. The Index’s 3 Ps framework of protection, promotion, and provision, is applied to a wide range of organizational practices. Those practices are captured in the ten categories of the Index, covering strategy, leadership, culture, workforce involvement, work design, communication, training, resources and benefits, related practices, and measurement.

For more information about the Mental Health at Work Index, visit www.mentalhealthindex.org.

About One Mind at Work

One Mind at Work is a non-profit organization leading a global movement to improve workplace mental health. Our mission is to translate science to build workplace best practices that drive measurable impact on workforce mental health, leading to better outcomes for individuals and organizations. With science and data as our cornerstone, we partner with employers around the world who recognize that a healthy workforce is at the heart of a high-performing organization. With science and data as our cornerstone, we provide our members with guidance and recommendations built on decades of research, clinical, and translational mental health work on a global scale. https://onemindatwork.org/

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