Mental health is a sustainable growth strategy for Singapore Inc

ANXIETY and depression collectively cost Singapore’s economy S$15.7 billion in productivity every year, according to a study by Duke-NUS and Institute of Mental Health. This works out to 2.9 per cent of our gross domestic product (GDP) for 2022.

Separately, a 2019 study by Cigna found that stress-related illness costs the country S$3.1 billion a year. This amounts to about 0.6 per cent of GDP.

It’s simplistic of course, but if we could manage Singaporeans’ mental health better, we’re looking at as much as a 3.5 per cent boost to GDP. Imagine 4 per cent to 5 per cent growth in these challenging times!

All this, by the way, does not yet include upsides in innovation, work performance, social wellbeing and community resilience that we would enjoy with good mental health management.

The theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day is “Mental Health is a Universal Human Right”. It is, but I am even more convinced that we must begin to frame mental health also as a growth strategy.

A healthier and happier workforce fosters more sustainable human-centred economic growth, especially for a country whose biggest asset is our people, and a workforce that, according to Milieu Insight and mental health app Intellect, has the dubious honour of the poorest mental health in South-east Asia.

At the top of agendas

We often view employee mental health as a healthcare and benefits problem, in other words, a human resource (HR) responsibility. But if a company is only as good as its people, mental health and wellbeing must be at the top of corporate and board agendas with appropriate investments.

An NCSS study with over 500 companies in Singapore found that for every S$1 invested in workplace adjustments for mental health, organisations saw a return of S$5.65 in improved productivity, reduced sick days/medical claims and increased staff morale.

For the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), a founding member of WorkWell Leaders, investing in mental wellbeing has led to its lowest attrition rate in its history. This is a significant business outcome as the work AIC does with vulnerable communities is emotionally complex and hard-going at times.

Investors are realising that worker wellbeing directly affects company performance and are viewing this as a business risk. The stock prices of companies with high employee engagement performed twice as well as companies with low engagement, according to a 2022 study in the US.

The entities that are developing environment, social and governance (ESG) reporting frameworks, including the World Economic Forum, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, are formalising guidance around disclosures related to mental health and worker wellbeing because it is financially material to the sustainability of a business.

So ESG reporting on mental health is going to come. Some companies are already including disclosures about how they are handling mental health and worker wellbeing to investors. They know that detailing their efforts in this area is important not only for the investor community, but also to attract and retain key talent.

For these reasons, boards and executive teams must lead and invest in a clear, comprehensive and committed corporate mental health strategy that will deliver measurable business outcomes for their teams and organisations to thrive.

Setting the tone

Mental health as a strategy cannot merely be addressed with counselling hotlines and yoga classes because of the deeply entrenched stigma (self, social and systematic) attached to it. Introducing wellbeing initiatives without addressing leadership behaviour and workplace culture is not helpful.

CEOs and leaders set the tone and culture of the organisations. When they champion mental wellbeing as a strategic priority and walk the talk in sharing their mental health experiences and role modelling healthy behaviours, the trickle-down benefits are enormous in employee satisfaction, innovation and performance.

However, leaders themselves must also be provided the tools and resources to be well in order to lead with courage, compassion, commitment and clarity.

Singapore Pools CEO Lam Chee Weng initiated a 100-day challenge for his leadership team to engage in a wellbeing practice for 50 minutes every day for 100 days. This signals a strong commitment to leading mental wellbeing by walking the talk.

Human development needs

Having run multinationals and small firms, I have experienced the astronomical difference in resources and mind space between the two when it comes to taking care of the wellbeing of my teams, especially those with special needs and vulnerabilities.

There are about 200,000 SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) in Singapore that support 70 per cent of our total employment. These leaders’ needs as business owners are markedly different from salaried CEOs of large organisations, and their resources are also limited.

Most SMEs do not have a full-time HR manager. HR is sometimes conflated with finance, personnel and payroll administration so the mental wellbeing of their staff and managers is left to chance and episodic interventions, not as a strategic consideration.

As part of our smart-nation push and digitalisation efforts, we started a Chief Technology Officer-as-a-Service under the Infocomm Media Development Authority in 2020 to give SMEs the confidence and convenience to go digital.

In the same token, should we not have a Chief Human Resource Officer-as-a-Service under the Ministry of Manpower/Institute of HR Professionals to give SMEs the confidence and capability to take care of their human development needs including employee mental wellbeing as a business strategy?

Until we view the mental wellbeing of our workers as important as digitalisation for our businesses, we will be hard-pressed to address our manpower challenges and workforce transformation for sustainable growth as a nation.

We rise by lifting others. I hope that, as mental health increasingly becomes an ESG priority, public corporations and large organisations that have matured in their journey may give a leg-up to their SME suppliers and partners by sharing their expertise, experience and resources in workplace wellbeing.

A fundamental human condition

The future of work is necessarily human as we become more digitalised as a world. Wellbeing is a fundamental human condition.

In May 2019, New Zealand attracted international attention for launching the country’s first wellbeing budget, which committed to putting people’s wellbeing and the environment at the heart of its policies.The Wellbeing Budget was allocated NZ$25.6 billion (S$20.5 billion) over four years for five million citizens. Together with Scotland, Iceland, Wales, Finland and Canada, New Zealand is also part of the global Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

Mental health expenditure in Singapore has remained consistently at 3 per cent of total health expenditure from 2019 (S$300 million) through 2022 (S$435 million), even as the latter has increased since I first asked the parliamentary question in 2019.

As we ask businesses to invest in mental wellbeing at the workplace, so must we as a society as a global strategic advantage. The recently launched National Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy by the Interagency Taskforce for Mental Health is a step in the right direction, with a new National Mental Health Office proposed under the Ministry of Health.

Similar to an organisation, if our nation is as good as our people, mental wellbeing must not merely be a health issue but one that is existential to Singapore’s progress. And on par with digitalisation and climate change which come under the strategic oversight of the Prime Minister’s Office through the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) and National Climate Change Secretariat respectively.

What is the level of investment that we need to make for a thriving workforce and society in order to reclaim the S$16 billion and more lost every year? Can we make the subjective wellbeing of our people central to our strategy for a better, fairer and flourishing Singapore in the next 50 years?

We can, when we change the way we think about mental health, how we act and the way we measure success “so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation”.

The writer is a former Nominated Member of Parliament, a coach, a social entrepreneur, and author. She founded WorkWell Leaders, a charity focused on mental wellbeing as a leadership priority, which is running a campaign calling on leaders to pledge to prioritise mental health at their workplaces. Make your pledge at tinyurl.com/WMHDPledge by Nov 21, 2023.