People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 45

reveals-unacceptably-low-spending-on-publicmental-health/#.VFASJochl_k
Office of National Statistics (2013) in http://
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business/economicresearch-and-information /statistics / Pages /
Research%20FAQs.aspx
OnePoll (2014) Survey of 2000 UK adults on
behalf of Friends Life. London: OnePoll.
Robertson Cooper (2013) Bank on your people:
The state of wellbeing and high performance culture in the financial sector. London: Bank Workers Charity.
Robertson Cooper (2014) Bank on your people:
The state of wellbeing and productivity in the
financial sector. London: Bank Workers Charity.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, 2007 cited in Ganster, D.C. &
Rosen, C.C. (2013) Work stress and employee
health: A multidisciplinary review journal of
management, Journal of Management, 39 (5)
1085-1122.

work environment, as well as in detecting and
enacting a response to a mental health episode
(Seymour & Grove, 2005; Seymour, 2010).
Yet, that remains a pot of luck. At RBS, as is
the case with other large organizations,
"where managers are sensitive the staff are
supported; others will often observe mental
health problems but feel unable to intervene
for a number of reasons, including not feeling
equipped to do so, and then the crisis point
can be reached when it becomes too difficult."

work after recovering from a mental health
problem (including substance abuse and
addiction) are beneficial to the profits of
business. (CIPD, 2014) Surely that's manna
for a banker's balance sheet.

Ultimately, if we were to address the enormous challenge that mental health poses in
the workplace, there is no recourse but to
engender a fundamental culture change,
where employee well-being holds not only
center stage, but takes precedence over profit.
A message the City may not take too lightly.

City & Hackney NHS Trust (2014) information
from sources at the Dept. of Psychological Medicine, Homerton Hospital.

The silver lining, from a monetary standpoint, could well be that money speaks
loud. And the return on investment when it
comes to mental health is staggering. Harder, Wagner and Rash (2014) calculated the
benefits to an employer for managing
depression, the most common mental illness. For a business employing 100 people
full-time (seven of whom, on average, will
have experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, SAMHSA, 2007) and
paying an average salary of not more than
$20 per hour, the saving would amount to
$109,530 per year. The experts' view is
unanimous: Managing a mentally healthy
workplace and facilitating a swift return to

Harder, H.G., Wagner, S.L. & Rash, J.A. (2014)
Mental Illness in the Workplace, Farnham: Gower

References

SCMH (2007) Mental health at work: Developing
the business case London. Sainsbury Centre for
Mental Health Policy Paper, 8.
Seymour, L. & Grove, B. (2005) Workplace interventions for people with common mental health
problems. London: British Occupational Health
Research Foundation.
Seymour, L. (2010) Common mental health problems at work London: Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health Report.

Boddy, C.R. (2010), The corporate psychopaths
theory of the global financial crisis, Journal of
Business Ethics. 97:1-19.

Fevre, R., Lewis, D., Robinson, A. & Jones, T.
(2011) Insight into ill-treatment in the workplace:
Patterns, causes and solutions. http://tinyurl.
com/socsi-insight.

Hermann, J. (2013) Stress and the City: Has the
banking world gone soft? London Evening Standard Jan., 1, 2013.
Gentleman, A. (2013) Atos comes under attack
in emotional Commons debate, The Guardian,
Oct., 18, 2013 p. 8
Kessler, R.C., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Alonso, J.,
Chatterji, S., Lee, S. et al. The global burden of
mental disorders: An update from the WHO surveys, Epidemiologia e psychiatria sociale 18 (1),
23-33

Yochanan Altman, Ph.D., is professor of
international human resource management and coordinator of the Mental Health
Research Group at Middlesex University
London. Email: y.altman@mdx.ac.uk.
Clive Morton, Ph.D., OBE, is a professor
and lecturer at Middlesex University
London. Email: c.morton@mdx.ac.uk.
Elizabeth Cotton is a senior lecturer and
coordinator of the Mental Health Research
Group at Middlesex University London.
Email: e.cotton@mdx.ac.uk.
Roger Kline is a research fellow at Middlesex University London. Email: roger@
kline.org.uk.
Michelle Altman is a psychologist in the
City of London specializing in cognitive
behavioral psychotherapy. Email: michelle.
altman@hotmail.com.

Mind (2014) news item of Nov., 29, 2014 http://
www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/mindVOLUME 38/ISSUE 1 - 2015

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

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