Global mental health crisis hits workplaces

Financial Times

A recent study by Oxford university researchers, using data from the recruitment website Indeed, illustrated the business case for investing in improving workplace mental health.

Analysing responses from 1mn workers at 1,782 publicly listed US companies, it found a “strong positive relationship between employee wellbeing and the firm’s performance”, said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Oxford economics professor and the project’s leader.

A simulated share portfolio of the 100 companies that scored highest in Indeed’s wellbeing surveys consistently outperformed the main stock market indices.

“We have found that how people feel at work is consistently a good leading indicator of future market and financial performance,” said De Neve. Since January 2021, the portfolio had performed 11 per cent better than the S&P 500, he added.