World Mental Health Day: Don’t Wellbeing Wash

World Mental Health Day (WMHD), which takes place every year on 10th October, offers us all an opportunity to gather and talk about mental health, demonstrating to everyone that this is a subject worthy of open, honest discussion and explanation. 

In 2024, Inspire is marking WMHD by highlighting the important issue of wellbeing washing.

A bit like greenwashing, wellbeing washing is a relatively new phenomenon. It happens when employers do not practice what they preach, concentrating more on being seen to care about staff mental health than they do on delivering actual, proactive and effective support.

Celebrating national or global mental health campaigns (WMHD, for example), organising events to raise awareness and posting supportive social media content may well constitute wellbeing washing if these activities are little more than an illusion.

When Mental Health Ireland polled 900 employees in 2022, it found that only 39% of respondents felt their workplaces had strong mental health policies in place. A third did not think that their employers were adhering to the policies or putting them into practice.

Elsewhere, according to a survey of 1,000 employees and 250 HR professionals, conducted by law firm Winckworth Sherwood and released in June, an extremely large majority (86%) of employers believe that their wellbeing strategies have lowered sickness absence rates. They conceded, however, that these efforts were largely concerned with boosting productivity – not their team members’ mental and physical health.

Furthermore, Investors in People’s recently published whitepaper, When the Perks Don’t Work, revealed that most workers do not rate dedicated wellbeing initiatives – such as apps, gym memberships and workshops – very highly. On the other hand, 90% view flexible working as the biggest driver of workplace wellbeing.

The truth is that people can become cynical when they perceive employers to be interested only in mere box-ticking exercises and this can damage team culture and output, raise attrition rates, curb the ability to retain talented colleagues and, ultimately, hurt the bottom line.

On the other hand, it’s easy to avoid these pitfalls. Responsible companies adopt strategic practices around wellbeing by planning and assessing existing or proposed strategies. They invest in creating healthy, thriving workforces and go the extra mile.

Inspire is well placed to help with this. Alongside the many resources available on the Inspire Support Hub, we offer an extensive suite of training programmes on a range of topics, including mental health awareness, lifestyle and wellbeing, leadership and management, and development and coaching. In addition, our 24-hour workplace counselling service is staffed by professionals, easily accessible and, of course, completely confidential. Beyond this, we also operate specialist mental health interventions for individuals requiring long-term support.

If you would like to find out more about our services, please feel free to contact enquiries@inspirewellbeing.org