A mental health risk assessment can help organisations identify workplace factors that may be contributing to stress and poor mental health, but it is only effective when the people carrying it out understand what they are looking for and what action to take.
That raises an important question for employers:
What is the cost of not training the people responsible for carrying out mental health risk assessments?
The cost of training may be easy to calculate. The cost of missing workplace mental health risks is much harder, and potentially much greater.
Why Does Mental Health Risk Assessment Matter?
Workplace health and safety is not only about physical hazards.
Employees can also be affected by psychological and organisational factors, including excessive workloads, lack of control, poor management, difficult working relationships, bullying, long working hours and organisational change.
A mental health risk assessment provides a structured way of identifying these risks and considering what can be done to reduce them.
This is particularly important because work-related stress, depression and anxiety continue to have a significant impact on UK workplaces.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimated that 964,000 workers experienced work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, resulting in 22.1 million working days lost.
Mental health risk assessment is therefore not simply a wellbeing exercise. It can form part of a wider approach to identifying and managing workplace health risks.
What Happens When Mental Health Risks Are Not Assessed?
If an organisation does not identify potential mental health risks, problems can remain hidden.
An employee may be struggling with an excessive workload, for example, but continue working without raising concerns. A team may experience ongoing conflict that gradually increases stress. Managers may notice increased absence or declining performance without understanding the workplace factors contributing to it.
Without an effective mental health risk assessment, organisations may react to the consequences rather than address the underlying risks.
This is where appropriate training becomes important.
The people responsible for risk assessment need to know what workplace factors to consider, how to gather information and how to identify where action may be required.
The Financial Cost of Unmanaged Mental Health Risks
The financial impact gives organisations another reason to take mental health risk assessment seriously.
Deloitte estimates that poor employee mental health costs UK employers approximately £51 billion a year, including costs associated with presenteeism, sickness absence and staff turnover.
This figure is not the cost of failing to carry out a mental health risk assessment specifically. Rather, it demonstrates the scale of the wider financial impact that poor mental health can have on employers.
Work-related stress also has a significant economic impact. The HSE states that work-related stress costs Great Britain over £5 billion a year, including costs associated with sickness absence, replacement staff and lost production.
These figures demonstrate why identifying workplace risks early matters.
A mental health risk assessment cannot eliminate every cause of poor mental health, but it can help organisations identify workplace factors that they can influence and take preventative action.
A Mental Health Risk Assessment Should Look Beyond Absence
It can be tempting to use sickness absence as the main indicator of workplace mental health problems.
However, an employee does not need to be absent for a mental health risk to affect an organisation.
Someone experiencing prolonged workplace stress may still be attending work while struggling to concentrate, make decisions or maintain their usual performance.
This is one reason why mental health risk assessment should be proactive rather than reactive.
Instead of waiting for absence figures to increase, organisations can assess workplace conditions and identify potential sources of stress before they develop into more serious problems.
Who Should Be Involved in Mental Health Risk Assessment?
Mental health risk assessment should not necessarily be the responsibility of one person or department.
Depending on the organisation, this may involve:
- Health & Safety professionals
- HR professionals
- Wellbeing teams
- Occupational Health
- Managers and team leaders
- Employee assistance or people-support teams
Each may have different information about the workplace and the challenges employees are experiencing.
However, involvement alone is not enough.
Those carrying out or contributing to a mental health risk assessment need to understand the principles behind the process and how to identify workplace factors that could contribute to stress and poor mental health.
Mental Health Risk Assessment Is More Than a Checklist
One of the risks of not providing appropriate training is that mental health risk assessment becomes a tick-box exercise.
For example, asking employees whether they feel stressed does not necessarily tell an organisation why they are experiencing stress.
A useful assessment needs to look at the workplace factors behind the problem.
If employees report high levels of stress because of excessive workloads, for example, the organisation may need to consider workload allocation, staffing, deadlines or available resources.
If employees report problems with management, the organisation may need to look at management practices, communication and support.
The purpose of a mental health risk assessment is to identify the risk and understand what can realistically be done to control it.
What Does Training Add to the Process?
Training can give the people involved in mental health risk assessment the knowledge and confidence to approach the process properly.
Rather than simply recognising that employees are under pressure, trained individuals can look more closely at the workplace conditions contributing to that pressure.
They can also understand the importance of prevention and know when further action or support may be appropriate.
This can help organisations move away from a reactive approach and towards a more structured approach to managing workplace mental health risks.
The Cost of Not Training
So, what is the real cost of not training your team to carry out a mental health risk assessment?
It is not simply the price of a missed training opportunity.
It can mean workplace risks are overlooked. It can mean problems are identified later than they should be. It can contribute to organisations relying on reactive measures when preventative action may have been possible.
And with poor mental health already carrying a significant financial cost for UK employers, the potential consequences should not be ignored.
The question should therefore not simply be: “How much does mental health risk assessment training cost?”
It should also be: “What could it cost us if we don’t have the knowledge to identify these risks properly?”
Invest in Effective Mental Health Risk Assessment Training
If your organisation expects its Health & Safety, HR, wellbeing, occupational health or management teams to identify and assess workplace mental health risks, make sure they have the right knowledge to do so.
Our Risk Assessing Mental Health Course is designed to help professionals understand workplace mental health risks and develop the knowledge needed to carry out effective mental health risk assessments.
Don’t wait until a workplace mental health problem becomes a bigger and more costly issue.
Book our Mental Health Risk Assessment Course today, or contact us to discuss training for your organisation. We’re happy to help.