Providing Mental Health Support & Suicide Prevention in Construction

A few months ago, Stuart Binstock, CEO and President of CFMA, joined the Mobile Workforce Podcast to discuss why mental health and construction safety go hand-in-hand. If you missed that episode, listen to it here. In today’s episode, Stuart joins host Mike Merrill to dive deeper into how mental health struggles and even suicide impact the construction industry, company culture and employee productivity.

Key Takeaways:

1. When an employee’s mental health suffers, so does their productivity. According to the CDC, in the U.S., mental health struggles result in 200 million lost work days per year. That research goes on to show that in a three month period, a depressed person will miss 4.8 days of work and experiences 11 days of 0.5 days of reduced productivity. Upwards of $44 billion dollars is estimated in lost productivity annually, and a person suffering from depression consumes two to four times the healthcare resources that someone who’s not depressed.
2. Investing in mental health is good for business. The CDC also reports that one in five adults will experience some form of mental illness in their lives. That’s 43.8 million people. 60% are left untreated, 7% have depression, 18% have anxiety, and this can lead up to 27 loss work days per year. This can seem overwhelming to leaders, but the fact is investing in employees’ mental health pays off. According to Binstock, for every $1 investment in mental health, businesses see a $4 return on investment. This includes things like building awareness, starting company wide training and giving employees the incentive to take care of themselves.
3. A company culture that values mental health retains skilled employees. Having a culture that values the mental health of the team builds a safe and successful space that employees are not going to quickly want to leave for “greener” pastures. Adding value to your employees’ lives and wellbeing at work and at home will help retain employees, saving the time and money lost onboarding new employees.