In a study of several thousand companies in England, mental health training for line managers was associated with organisational benefits including lower levels of long-term mental health-related sickness absence and improved business performance, customer service and staff recruitment and retention. The project was led by Professor Holly Blake from the University of Nottingham and Dr Juliet Hassard from Queen’s University Belfast, UK, who present these findings in the open access journal PLUS ONE on July 17th.
Mental health training for line managers aims to equip them with skills to support the mental health of the people they manage. Ongoing research is exploring whether such training increases managers’ knowledge, skills and confidence to support their staff and benefits employees. However, few studies have addressed its potential commercial value to companies.
To explore the benefits at an organizational level, Hassard, Blake, and their colleagues analyzed anonymized data from surveys of several thousand companies in England conducted between 2020 and 2023 by the Center for Business Research at Warwick Business School. The survey included questions about companies’ mental health and wellbeing practices, including whether they offered mental health training to line managers. To avoid bias in their analysis, the researchers statistically controlled for company age, sector, and size.
The analysis showed that mental health training for line managers was associated with significantly better outcomes in terms of business performance, customer service, and staff recruitment and retention. Having line managers trained in mental health was also associated with lower levels of long-term sick leave due to mental health problems.
These results suggest that mental health training for line managers may have strategic business value for companies. Based on their findings, the researchers recommend that organizations provide mental health training to line managers and institute workplace policies that clarify the role of line managers in supporting employee mental health.
Meanwhile, the researchers highlight the need for further research in this area, including analyses based on objective data rather than subjective survey responses, and a comparison of the potential benefits of different mental health training approaches for line managers.
Blake adds: “Across businesses of different types, sizes and sectors, we have found that mental health training for line managers is associated with improved staff recruitment and retention, better customer service, improved business performance and less long-term sickness absence due to mental health problems. This is the first study to show that mental health training for line managers is associated with improved business outcomes.”