Board Priorities in 2025: Mental wellbeing
16 January 2025
Tracking mental wellbeing risks
The mental wellbeing of staff should continue to be a priority for Boards in 2025. When an organisation has a poor understanding and management of mental wellbeing risks, it has a profound impact on its productivity, staff retention rates and reputation, and therefore an indirect financial impact. In addition, regulators and lawmakers globally are focusing on mental wellbeing, thereby increasing regulatory and compliance risks, with many jurisdictions looking to Australia's approach to embedding mental wellbeing into broader workplace risk management.
For Boards, the effective management of mental wellbeing:
- Ensures compliance with their legal and regulatory obligations and reduces potential exposure to tribunal claims.
- Increases staff morale, lowering absenteeism and boosting staff retention.
- Lowers costs as productivity improves.
- Enhances the reputation of the organisation as a good place to work with a positive culture.
However, many organisations either do not track mental wellbeing or do so in an ad-hoc and reactive way, and therefore the risks and impact remain hidden. To tackle mental wellbeing issues effectively in the workplace, directors should understand their current mental wellbeing risk factors and whether they fall into categories such as social, environmental, governance and work design. This will allow them to identify any trends and take informed actions to mitigate their exposure to these risks.
Directors should also consider a data-driven approach to identifying areas of mental wellbeing risk so that targeted risk mitigation strategies can be devised. Disparate data sources, such as absence/leave, employee engagement surveys, and assistance programme usage can help to pinpoint areas of potential risk. Analysing the data allows deep-dives on possible root causes and lets directors address areas of potential concern, before they morph into potentially significant and systemic issues.
