Increasingly UK companies are recognising that managing mental health in the workplace is not only a moral imperative, but an economic one too, according to asset manager CCLA’s Corporate Mental Health Benchmark UK 100 report. The benchmark, which evaluates the global approach to workplace mental health of the largest UK-listed companies, aims to provide an objective assessment of firms‘ management controls and performance relative to their peers. This second iteration indicates that mental health is gaining recognition as a critical business issue. Each of the 100 assessed companies was evaluated on 27 criteria across four major themes: management commitment and policy, governance and management, leadership and innovation, and performance reporting and impact. The evidence suggests that the benchmark is starting to shape corporate approaches to formalising and reporting on workplace mental health. In the 2023 report, 24 companies were found to have advanced at least one performance tier compared to the previous year, resulting in an overall average score increase from 35% in 2022 to 40% in 2023. Further, 80% of UK companies now rank in tiers 1 to 4, signifying their commitment to integrating workplace mental health into their business strategies. The number of companies in the top-performing tiers 1 and 2 has nearly doubled, with 19 companies securing those positions in 2023.
