“Latest research into workplace mental health stigma”

In June 2006, Shaw Trust published ‘Mental Health: The Last Workplace Taboo’, an independent research report that investigated attitudes towards mental health in the workplace. The report found that ‘understanding of mental health in the workplace is still at a relatively low level’. It revealed that 80% of businesses did not have any formal mental health policy in place, a third were unsure of how to define mental ill health and over 40% of employers believed that none of their employees will be affected by mental health problems during their life.

This new report link published in December 2010 is a follow up to the 2006 report and is based on the results of the latest survey of business leaders’ attitudes to mental health in the workplace. Its aim is to see what changes in both attitudes and practice, if any, have taken place in the four years since the publication of the first report.

“The Shaw Trust is to be commended for this report as part of its ongoing commitment to tackling the last workplace taboo. On the one hand it shows a remarkable increase in mental health literacy amongst business leaders and a greater willingness to recognise and talk about mental health over just four years, on the other hand shamefully 40 per cent regard hiring a person with experience of mental distress in a customer facing role as a “significant risk” just a 6 per cent change. The stubborn stigma that we are broken, tarnished or downright dangerous remains”. Jonathan Naess, Director of Stand to Reason.