Mental health risk can be created by the way work is designed, organised and managed, even when an organisation has strong values and a genuine commitment to employee wellbeing. The UK’s Duty of Care Guidelines for Workplace Wellbeing set out nine areas organisations should consider when creating healthy, sustainable and productive work. The guidance puts a strong emphasis on prevention: looking at how work is designed, organised and managed, rather than only responding when people are already struggling.
Knowing what to do, where to start and what to do next can be challenging. We help organisations put the right foundations in place, in the right order, so you can build a more effective approach to workplace mental health.
In this series, we’re exploring each area and what it could mean for organisations in practice.
Every organisation has values. People first. Safety first. We care about our people. We work together. But there is an important question behind those statements:
Do your employees actually experience those values in the way work is designed and managed?
The Duty of Care Guidelines identify Aligning Work Design With Organisational Purpose and Values as the second area organisations should consider. The guidance highlights the risk of a gap between what an organisation says it values and what employees actually experience. When that gap becomes significant, it can contribute to stress, disengagement, cynicism and sickness absence.
When Good Values Don’t Match Everyday Work
Imagine an organisation that says “people come first”, but employees are routinely working excessive hours because the organisation is understaffed.
Or an organisation that says “safety is our priority”, but employees feel pressured to meet targets at the expense of their wellbeing.
Or perhaps an organisation says “we trust our people”, while employees have very little control over how they organise their work.
The problem isn’t the value itself. It’s the contradiction between the value and the reality.
This matters because mental health risk can develop through everyday decisions about workload, staffing, working hours, performance expectations, management practices and organisational change. What appears to be a culture issue can become a health and safety issue when those conditions create sustained pressure.
And the cost can be significant.
The latest HSE figures show that 964,000 workers in Great Britain were suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, resulting in an estimated 22.1 million working days lost.
Deloitte estimates that poor employee mental health costs UK employers £51 billion a year, with presenteeism, people working while unwell and not performing at their full ability, accounting for around £24 billion of that total.
These numbers make one thing clear: mental health risk isn’t only a wellbeing concern. It is an organisational cost.
Your Values Are Tested When Things Get Difficult
It is easy to demonstrate organisational values when everything is going well. The real test comes when the organisation is under pressure: a major deadline, staff shortages, organisational change or a sudden increase in demand.
This is when difficult decisions have to be made.
Do you protect workloads, or simply ask people to work longer? Do you maintain safety standards, or prioritise output? Do you give employees clarity and control, or leave them to cope with uncertainty?
The Duty of Care Guidelines recommend using organisational values as a practical decision filter, particularly when making trade-offs around workload, staffing, shift patterns and time pressure.
Because your values matter most when they are difficult to uphold.
What Does This Mean for Mental Health Risk?
A values statement tells you what an organisation intends. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what employees experience.
That’s why organisations need to look beyond policies and statements and understand what is actually happening across the workforce.
If you say “people first”, are staffing levels and workloads consistent with that?
If you say “safety first”, are people ever put under pressure to choose between safety and performance?
If you say “we trust our people”, do employees have meaningful control over how they work?
If you say “we support work-life balance”, are excessive hours and constant availability actually being addressed?
These questions can help expose mental health risk that may otherwise remain hidden.
You Can’t Prevent a Risk You Don’t Understand
This is where mental health risk assessment becomes important.
Sickness absence, complaints, turnover and reduced productivity can tell you that something may be wrong, but they don’t necessarily tell you why.
A preventative approach needs to go deeper: Where are the risks? What is driving them? Who is affected? And what needs to change?
A structured mental health risk assessment can help organisations identify and understand the workplace factors that may be contributing to risk, while Mental Health Risk Intelligence can provide a more systematic view of an organisation’s mental health risk profile and highlight areas that may need attention.
The goal isn’t simply to collect more information. It’s to turn information into preventative action.
Is Your Organisation’s Reality Matching Its Values?
Most organisations have good intentions and strong values. The harder question is whether those values continue to shape decisions when the organisation is under pressure.
Because what protects your people isn’t simply what is written in a values statement.
It’s what happens in practice.
If you’re not confident that you understand where mental health risk exists within your organisation, this is something worth looking at before the consequences become more expensive, through absence, complaints, turnover, reduced productivity or loss of trust.
Turning the Guidelines Into Practical Action
Understanding where mental health risk may exist is the first step, but organisations also need a practical way to see what is happening across the workplace and identify where action is needed.
Mental Health Risk Intelligence has been built based on the principles set out in the UK Duty of Care Guidelines, helping organisations move from broad commitments to a clearer understanding of the factors that may be affecting people at work. It provides a structured way to identify and understand workplace mental health risk, helping organisations look beyond individual symptoms and consider the conditions in which people are working.
This can sit alongside a Mental Health Risk Assessment, giving organisations a stronger foundation for identifying areas of concern and deciding where prevention should begin. Rather than waiting for sickness absence, complaints, turnover or other problems to become more significant, organisations can use better insight to identify potential risks earlier and take action where it matters.
Not sure where your organisation stands? A conversation with Richard and our team can help you think through your current approach, where mental health risk may be emerging, and what the most appropriate next step could be.