How to do something about the 12 million days a year Aussie workplaces lose to poor mental health

A BeyondBlue/PwC Report indicated that untreated mental health conditions cost Australian workplaces $10.9 billion per year — $4.7 billion in absenteeism, $6.1 billion in presenteeism and $146 million in compensation claims. More recent research estimates utilising a human capital approach, estimate the global economic burden of mental illness is skyrocketing from US$2.5 trillion in 2010 to US$6.1 trillion in 2030. Most of this burden was due to lost productivity, defined as absenteeism and presenteeism.

One of the big shifts that resulted from Covid-19 lockdowns was that employees really pulled back from the system of work, and had time to reflect on what was important to them — perhaps it was their families or their ability to live a life they enjoyed, which also means having the freedom to do that.