# Mental Health in the Workplace: What Employers Are Getting Right and Wrong

> Workplace mental health has risen dramatically up the corporate agenda. Here is what the evidence says about effective interventions and what is simply wellness washing.

*Section: Health — By Dr. Nadia Okoro (Science & Health Writer) — Published October 26, 2025 — 1 min read*

Canonical URL: https://dailyjunction.org/health/mental-health-in-the-workplace
Tags: mental health, workplace, wellbeing, stress, burnout

## Key takeaways

- One in six workers experiences common mental health problems in any given week
- Managerial behaviour has a larger impact on employee mental health than formal wellbeing programmes
- Prevention is more effective than treatment — addressing root causes matters more than resilience training
- Return on investment for workplace mental health interventions is consistently positive in the research

## The scale of the problem

The Thriving at Work review found that poor mental health costs UK employers between £33bn and £42bn per year in absenteeism, presenteeism (working at reduced effectiveness) and staff turnover. The majority of the cost comes from presenteeism rather than sick days. One in six workers experiences a common mental health problem — anxiety, depression or stress-related conditions — in any given week.

## What the evidence says works

The most robust evidence is for interventions at the work design level: giving employees more autonomy and control over their work, ensuring manageable workloads, providing clear job requirements, and training line managers to have effective conversations about mental health. These primary prevention approaches address root causes.

## What has less evidence

Many employers invest heavily in employee assistance programmes, wellbeing apps and resilience training. These are not worthless, but the evidence for their impact on population-level mental health outcomes is more limited. Critics argue that resilience training in particular places the burden of coping on individuals rather than addressing systemic causes.

## Measuring it properly

Workplace wellbeing surveys are widely used but often poorly designed and selectively reported. Robust measurement requires anonymous surveys with high response rates, tracked longitudinally against objective measures like absence rates and retention, not just satisfaction scores.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is this article accurate?

We apply a two-source minimum for factual claims and update articles when information changes significantly.

### When was this published?

See the publication date in the byline above. We note significant updates with a revised date.

## Sources

- [NHS UK](https://www.nhs.uk)
- [The BMJ](https://www.bmj.com)

---
Daily Junction — https://dailyjunction.org/health/mental-health-in-the-workplace