Mental health issues will affect one in five Australians at some point. So it makes sense that employees will need mental health days as well as “normal” sick days off work.
Many large corporations have formal policies which allow for Mental Health Days. Others allow a certain number of days off regardless of the reason. For example, an employee could be sick, or need a mental health day, or be caring for a family member, or just need to do extra activities outside work.
After all, stress and mental health is now the cause for the longest absences from work – outranking physical injury.
Here’s an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald on the rising acceptance of mental health days.
Employers are investing a lot of time and money in helping employees manage stress. This is partly to reduce the cost of stress leave, but also partly to boost overall productivity.
If prevention is better than cure, then is it reasonable to leave it to each employee to decide when they need a bit of me-time to de-stress?
What do you do at your workplace? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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