Financial services firms Aviva, Legal & General and Prudential are among the top companies in the UK for managing and reporting on workplace mental health.
The latest CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark – UK 100 has found Aviva is a ‘top improver, climbing two tiers in the benchmark to the second tier, while Legal & General and Prudential have moved up one tier to the very top group.
For the fourth year, CCLA, with support from consultancy Chronos Sustainability, assessed 100 UK-listed corporates against 27 criteria relating to mental health including management commitment, policy, governance, reporting and impact. It gives each company a percentage score and places them in five tiers. The benchmark is backed by 56 investor firms representing £7.7trn in assets.
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This year, the average company score in the benchmark rose to 46% – up from 41% last year. Some 53 companies increased their score, but 36 saw their score fall.
Alongside Aviva, International Distribution Services, Intertek, Mobico and Ocado were the most improved with all increasing their scores by more than 25 percentage points.
Amy Browne (pictured), director of stewardship at CCLA and co-author of the benchmark report, commented: “We have seen real improvement among the UK’s largest listed companies since we began benchmarking their performance on mental health in 2022. Twenty-one companies have moved up at least one tier this year, showing increasing recognition by employers of the importance of good workplace mental health to a thriving business. From our discussions with companies, many cite better productivity, lower staff absence, the ability to attract talent and better employee retention as the key drivers for managing workplace mental health.”
The report highlighted poor mental health causes annual economic losses of around £110bn in England alone, and globally an estimated 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), at a cost of $1trn per year in lost productivity.
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It added addressing mental health benefits employers with every pound spent supporting the mental health and wellbeing of employees generating £4.70 in increased productivity.
However, Browne highlighted, despite the improvements in the CCLA benchmark, there is still much work to be done.
“Many companies are still not dedicating sufficient time and resources to employee mental health, and a small number are failing to engage with us, as shareholders, on this important issue.”
The report said 60% of companies are failing to ensure operational management of mental health, and fewer than half of CEOs demonstrating leadership on the issue. Further, 49% of companies assessed do not appear to offer mental health training to line managers, and just 21% of firms publish KPIs aimed at measuring impact on mental health.
Although the number of companies engaging with the benchmarking process – due to the investor pressure – increased to 76%, up from 69% last year, 24% of firms did not engage with investors at all.
Peter Hugh Smith, CEO at CCLA, said: “While performance on mental health is improving, there is more that every company can do to provide environments for employees to thrive and reap the benefits of increased productivity and improved staff recruitment and retention.”
