Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Mental Health Drives Indirect Absenteeism Costs



HR Web Cafe has a great post today on highlighting mental illness as the leading driver of indirect absenteeism costs for employers according to an Employee Benefit News Survey.

Of interest is that only 12% of employers screen for mental health and primary care providers are not compensated in many cases. Compounding the issue is the fact that managers and supervisors are not trained to recognize at risk employees.
Another reason employees may not be utilizing mental health benefits is that managers do not encourage it. Less than one-fourth of the HR-benefits directors surveyed believe the managers in their companies have an overall understanding of the toll mental health takes on a person and family members. Furthermore, only a third say their companies provide managers with education on mental health issues, and only 15% say they train managers in recognizing mental health problems and directing employees to treatment.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good post Dan!

It's amazing that we live in a society in which the Virginia Tech gunman can easily purchase a handgun, with only a cursory background check, while the same individual would have had to see a doctor, and be diagnosed and issued a prescription to treat depression or whatever psychological malady he suffered from. It tells me that the AMA is a more powerful lobby than the NRA!

robert edward cenek, RODP
www.cenekreport.com