This report, produced by the Shaw Trust in partnership with Trajectory, represents the third time the Trajectory team has worked with the mental health charity to explore the nature of mental health in the workplace, and specifically, the continued taboo nature of mental health at work.
Following on from our work with Shaw Trust in 2006 and 2009, the data in this report surveyed 550 professionals – 500 senior managers and 50 HR directors – from a range of small, medium and large businesses from a variety of sectors. This survey, repeating many of the questions asked in 2006 and 2009, allowed for the creation of trend data, in order to identify the pace of change across businesses, as well as to discover new developments for mental health at work. To provide depth of insight, 6 experts were interviewed, both to understand their general feelings on mental health at work, as well as to gain their understanding of what our newly gathered data meant for workplace mental health.
The report identified significant increases in awareness of mental health conditions, and an increase in workplace policies to help those who may be suffering. With this awareness however, came an increase in mental health attitudes. Taken as read, you may consider the positive findings in awareness and policy to be negated by the increase in stigma, however a number of experts saw this as an inevitable outcome in the widespread growth of knowledge. First comes awareness, then comes understanding.