According to data provided by Mentiness, the online platform for preventing and caring for mental health in the workplace, less than 10% of Spanish companies have a specific program on mental health.
The average duration of mental health leave is between 9 and 12 months, which represents a huge direct cost.
Accurate management of people and their care in the work environment helps to reduce direct and indirect mental health costs in organizations.
An analysis carried out by Mentiness and based on 150 interviews with large and medium-sized companies estimates that only 40% of Spanish organizations measure the work climate once or twice a year, and less than 10% carry out studies on the state of emotional well-being of their employees.
Talking about mental health in companies is closely related to other issues such as engagement, culture or climate. They are not independent issues that have to be dealt with in different contexts, since mental health or well-being difficulties affect the organization and its culture, and vice versa.
Currently, there is a change in the work and business model that tends to focus more on people, so concepts such as emotional salary or satisfaction are starting to become a trend. In the opinion of Javier Serrano, CEO of Mentiness: "Offering solutions to improve mental health in companies is part of the normalization that has occurred over the last two years. There is less stigma, there is more talk about it and people are asking for psychological help earlier than in pre-pandemia".
The experience of Mentiness, the online platform for preventing and caring for mental health in the workplace, shows that for smaller companies or startups the challenges they face are closely related to rapid growth, teleworking or the difficulty of attracting talent. For these types of organizations, the response should focus on teaching prevention strategies and creating a culture of wellness from the ground up.
With respect to large companies, challenges have been detected related to the management of large teams, with an international scope or located in different geographical locations, in addition to the retention of technical profiles or transformational leadership. In this regard, the platform offers solutions to predict which profiles are most at risk, identify challenges in different departments or locations and offer a fully adapted solution for the entire company.
Mentiness' approach is based on the idea that technology can prevent mental health problems by providing data and tools to build an organization's wellness strategy. Its solutions include metrics to assess the state of employee and company well-being, training for managers and individual sessions with psychology and coaching professionals.
Mentiness has also measured the direct and indirect impact of not taking care of mental health, both on individuals and on the organization itself. In this regard, they confirm that the average duration of sick leave for any mental health issue is between 9 and 12 months, which represents a huge direct cost. However, detecting the problem and solving it before taking a leave or rotation implies directly eliminating this cost.
With regard to the indirect costs with the greatest impact, there is a reduction in productivity, a decrease in innovation indicators, a worsening of the working environment and the company's image, as well as increased difficulties in attracting or retaining talent... These amounts go beyond the individual affected, and have a negative impact on the group and the organization.
TEIMAS is a Spanish organization dedicated to the development of innovative and efficient technological solutions to digitize the waste value chain and boost the circular economy and sustainability. Since they start working in the organization, the 42 TEIMAS employees - including the CEO and area managers - follow the Mentiness program to prevent and care for mental health in the work environment.
This platform offers employees online and weekly attention through which people can monitor three fundamental pillars: stress, personal satisfaction and job satisfaction. On the other hand, the company also obtains metrics in relation to the state of its culture, engagement or climate in the different teams. Depending on the demand and needs of the person, the attention is completed with individual sessions with a psychologist.
In turn, TEIMAS receives weekly metrics to analyze the results of the mental health of its workforce as a group and to be able to make decisions on the three aspects analyzed, including happiness, quality of life, emotional management, job satisfaction (extrinsic and intrinsic), general well-being, family reconciliation and equality. All this information obtained by the company is always anonymous, with no possibility of identifying the employee.
For Tamara Cutrín, Head of People and Culture at TEIMAS: "The agreement is very positive because it provides us with a more precise management of people and the necessary tools for their care. At a business level, a good mental health of our employees contributes to generate a harmonious work environment, strengthening the identity and culture of the company." "It also helps us to prevent the harmful problems derived from poor mental health such as depression, sleep imbalance, memory failures or low self-esteem, among others," he concludes.
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