59% of employees suffer from a mental health condition

• 65% of employees say there’s a stigma around mental health
• 9 in 10 say their mental health condition effects them at work
• 40% don’t feel comfortable telling their manager about their condition
• 1 in 4 worry their employer will want to get rid of them

February 1^st marks Time to Talk Day and, according to research conducted on behalf of Citation, six in 10 employees currently have a mental condition.

Employees aged between 18 and 24 are most likely to be experiencing a mental health condition (72%), and those aged 65+ are least likely (29%).

Furthermore, 100% of the working population said they’d suffered from a mental health issue at some point.

Nine in 10 of those that currently have a mental health condition said it affects them at work. The most common impacts are:

Area impacted	Percentage
Difficulty concentrating	50%
More sick days than usual	38%
Lost enthusiasm for the job	37%
Deterioration in performance	34%
Takes longer than normal to perform tasks	30%

Concerningly, almost four in 10 (38%) employees do not feel comfortable approaching their manager or employer about their condition – men are 10% more likely to feel on edge than women.

Of those that did open up, 15% said their manager or employer was not supportive.

Furthermore, 82% fear disclosing a mental health condition will negatively impact their career:

Career worry	Percentage
They won’t be trusted to do their job	40%
They will be treated differently	39%
It will prevent them being promoted	29%
They employer will want to get rid of them	34%

In addition, two thirds (65%) of employees feel there’s a stigma around mental health in their workplace.

When it comes to support, most people with a mental health condition seek help from a doctor or therapist (65%), family members (50%), friends (41%), anonymous helplines (10%) and charities (6%).

However, almost one in 10 (8%) said they haven’t sought any support at all.

Jenny Ware, Citation’s HR Business Partner, spoke: “It’s very clear that mental health conditions are affecting a significant proportion of the working population. What’s concerning is the number of employees who feel they can’t approach their manager or employer.

“It’s important to educate managers and colleagues to help normalise the issue, remove the perceived stigma and support the employees as best as possible. Whether it’s internal support groups, pointing employees to useful resources or offering extra support and flexibility, it’s incredibly important for businesses to make sure they actively promote mentally healthy workforces.”

*3gem questioned a nationally representative sample of 2,000 working adults aged 18 and over between 28th November and 1st December 2017.