Mental health issues are impacting many New Zealand businesses. Younger employees and managers are facing increased risks of mental illness due to occupational stress, long work hours, and changing responsibilities. As a result, businesses are seeing absenteeism, high employee turnover, and declining productivity. Recommendations include developing a culture of mental wellness, encouraging help-seeking behaviors, and increasing awareness of mental health issues among workers and professionals.

1. Mental Health issues and
impacts in New Zealand
Businesses
Submitted by -

2. Introduction
• Real world situation investigated – New Zealand Businesses.
• Purpose – Investigating major managerial/business issue faced by NZ businesses
and developed overcoming strategies.
• Objective – To investigate the managerial/business issue that NZ businesses are
facing and address the issues identified.
• Scope – To help the industry understand the severity of the issues countered and
incorporate resolving strategies.

3. Background and History
• Mental health and wellness of the employees under threat.
• Business leaders, managers and employees facing mental illness risks (Asare-Doku
et al., 2022).
• Occupational stress, overtime, longer working hours and changing work responsibilities
resulting to mental illness and instability.
• Younger staff professional facing major mental illness leading towards managers and
business leaders facing consequences (Health Navigator, 2022).

4. Managerial issue investigated
• Increasing mental illness amongst the workers across the NZ businesses
• Psychological wellness, work-life imbalance conditions (Suter et al., 2022).
• NZ businesses facing continuous complaints from employees regarding burnout, stress and
mental illness conditions
• Results like absenteeism, increasing employee turnover recorded (Chambers & Frampton,
2022).
• Business management, leaders and working professionals leading to mental illness and
workplace tensions (MBIE, 2022).

5. Practical business situations
• Small-scale business managers, employees, leaders around 36%; facing mental stress and
continuous illness conditions (Scoop NZ, 2022).
• Labor shortage issues across major service industries of NZ.
• Absence of attractive wages, uncontrollable working conditions and growing work burdens resulting to
occupational stress of dairy farming industry led employees in NZ (Burton, 2022).
• Work from home facilities affecting work-life balance of major industry employees
• IT industry in NZ facing employee’s burnout complaints on continuous basis (Maclennan, 2022).
• Restaurant industry in NZ bringing up continuous mental illness issues amongst the chefs and wait staff
leading to declining productivity (Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, 2022).

6. Impacts of issue identified
• Absenteeism (Bubonya et al., 2016).
• Declining job-satisfaction levels (Cao et al., 2022).
• Burnouts, occupational stress led declining productivity
• Declining credibility and competitiveness of the firms across NZ
• Self-confidence, creative thinking and problem-solving abilities diminishing (Gupta, 2020).
• Increasing unemployment conditions and decreasing economic stability (Follmer & Jones,
2018).

7. Recommendations
• Developing culture of mental wellness and stability (Jansson & Gunnarsson, 2018).
• Generating and developing help-seeking behavior amongst the staff professionals across
NZ businesses (Aris & Othman, 2022).
• Strengthening and spreading mental health related awareness and knowledge amongst the
working professionals (Kyumana, 2021).

8. Conclusion
• Mental illness to be considered well
• Most ignorant factor must be considered well.
• Employees, business managers and leaders must consider mental wellness of the
employees.

9. References
• Asare-Doku, W., James, C., Rich, J. L., Amponsah-Tawiah, K., & Kelly, B. (2022). “Mental health is not
our core business”: A qualitative study of mental health supports in the Ghanaian mining industry. Safety
Science. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753521003271
• Bubonya, M., Cobb-Clark, D. A., & Wooden, M. (2016). Mental Health and Productivity at Work: Does
What You Do Matter? EconStor. Retrieved from
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/141638/1/dp9879.pdf
• Cao, X., Zhang, H., Li, P., & Huang, X. (2022). The Influence of Mental Health on Job Satisfaction:
Mediating Effect of Psychological Capital and Social Capital. Front. Public Health. Retrieved from
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.797274/full

10. References
• Health Navigator. (2022, Aug 9). Stress at work. Retrieved from https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz:
https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/health-a-z/s/stress-at-work/
• Jansson, I., & Gunnarsson, A. B. (2018). Employers’ views of the impact of mental health problems on the ability to work.
Work, 585-598. Retrieved from https://content.iospress.com/articles/work/wor2700
• Kyumana, V. (2021). Awareness of Mental Health Challenges and its Implications for Job Performance among Library Staff
at the Workplace: A Qualitative Study. University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal, 89-104. Retrieved from
https://www.ajol.info/index.php/udslj/article/view/220991/208538
• Maclennan, V. (2022, Mar 30). Mental health in the digital technology industry. Retrieved from https://techblog.nz:
https://techblog.nz/2828-Mental-health-in-the-digital-technology-industry
• MBIE. (2022). Mental health in the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.business.govt.nz:
https://www.business.govt.nz/risks-and-operations/health-and-safety/mental-health-workplace/

11. References
• Scoop NZ. (2022, June 29). New Data Shows Increase In SMEs Experiencing Stress And Anxiety.
Retrieved from https://www.scoop.co.nz: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2206/S00438/new-
data-shows-increase-in-smes-experiencing-stress-and-anxiety.htm
• Suter, J., Irvine, A., & Howorth, C. (2022). Juggling on a tightrope: Experiences of small and
micro business managers responding to employees with mental health difficulties. International
Small Business Journal. Retrieved from
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02662426221084252