Everything you need to know about World Mental Health Day.
When is World Mental Health Day 2024?
World Mental Health Day is on the 10th of October, 2024. It takes place on the same day every year.
Marking the occasion allows for deliberate pause and reflection. It’s a reminder to slow down, practice self-care, and take stock of your mental wellbeing.
For employers, it’s an excellent opportunity to evaluate your current mental health offerings and support and make adjustments to cultivate a happy and healthy workforce.
What is the theme for World Mental Health Awareness Day 2024?
This year’s World Mental Health Day theme is “Mental Health at Work.”
Each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) chooses a campaign theme for mental health. In 2023, the theme was “Mental Health is a universal human right.” To find out more about this year’s campaign, you can visit the official campaign page here.
This year, the spotlight shines on mental health at work. The campaign aims to increase awareness of how workers face risks to mental health, the impact it has on people, and how employers and employees can do more to improve mental health at work.
Each year, an estimated 12 billion working days are lost to depression and anxiety, costing $1 trillion per year in lost productivity, according to the World Health Organization. Poor mental health may decrease work performance, increase sick days, and worsen employee turnover.
Providing mental health support and training at work can help create a productive, happy, and healthy workforce.
When you care for your employees, they do better work.
How to Celebrate World Mental Health Day 2024
While a more long-term approach is needed to improve and sustain better mental health at work, you can begin by acknowledging and celebrating World Mental Health Day.
In the weeks prior and on the day, strive to increase awareness. You can do so by creating posters, sending an internal newsletter signposting the company's efforts to support mental health and how to get help, or even being vulnerable and sharing personal stories.
Furthermore, for a more interactive approach, you can host a virtual or in-person mental health talk to help employees build positive mindsets and habits and learn strategies to understand mental health better.
If you’re not in a decision-making role, you can still make a difference. Start a conversation with a colleague and ask how they’re doing, practice self-care, host a workout or group support session, or even start advocating for change in your community.
How to support mental health year-round for employers
Change doesn't happen overnight. However, World Mental Health Day is an excellent opportunity to reassess what systems your organization currently has to support employees' mental health.
While most companies will take down the mental health posters and switch topic the next day, almost as if nothing happened, focus on creating systems to support mental health year-round.
For example, you can:
Upskill managers and company leaders on how to talk to their team about mental health and spot signs of poor mental health
Increase awareness and education surrounding mental health via workshops and health talks
Create a culture of wellbeing (monthly challenges, fitness activities, and better work-life balance)
Tackle the root cause of mental health problems at work (burnout, financial stress, poor communication, no breaks, job insecurity, etc.)
Regularly take stock of employee wellbeing
There’s a lot you can do, and it all starts with being brutally honest, assessing what support you currently have in place, and working from there. For more advice, read our blog post on how to improve mental health in the workplace.
Key takeaways:
World Mental Health Day is on the 10th of October, 2024
This year’s theme is “Mental Health at Work”
Acknowledge the day by increasing mental health awareness and education
Host a virtual or in-person health talk to increase education
Take the time to reflect on your current mental health systems at work
Create an action plan to increase support, such as upskilling managers and creating a culture of wellbeing
For a more long-term approach to improve mental health and wellbeing at work for a happier, healthier workforce, talk to us today.
Looking for more? Contact a Wellbeing Manager to discuss your organizational wellbeing needs.
We provide workplace teams with mindful practices, personal and professional wellbeing growth, fitness instruction, and opportunities for social connection. We aim to inspire the highest potential in people at work, in life, every day, so they can show up healthy and at their best.
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