The Conference Board of Canada
8
In our research, the MFI tool collected data to
obtain a CODN benchmark for the average cost per
full-time employee (FTE). The CODN benchmark
was calculated using employees' self-reported
income, MFI score, attendance, presenteeism,
and discretionary effort. (See Table 1.) Using
these five variables as a percentage of the
employees' average salary, the benchmark was
found to be $11,530 per employee per year.
Examples of tools that can help
implement this building block
1. ThinkMentalHealth.ca Resources
2. Mental Fitness Index (MFI)
3. Cost of Doing Nothing/Business Case Model
4. Guarding Minds @ Work (GM@W) Resources
5. HowattHR Consulting Compass
6. CivicAction's MindsMatter Online Organization
Readiness Assessment Tool
Table 1
Building the business case for senior leadership buy-in
MFI Profile
MFI score
(/100)
Absenteeism
(days)
Presenteeism
(days)
Discretionary effort
(per cent)
CODN* per year
($)
Charged (n = 108) 83 2.5 11 95 5,555
Charging (n = 394) 74 3.3 20 93 8,229
Half-full (n = 557) 65 3.9 36 91 11,094
Draining (n = 390) 55 4.7 68 89 13,834
Empty (n = 189) 43 5.7 129 87 18,357
Total (n = 1,638) 63 4.1 49 91 11,530**
*cost of doing nothing
**this means that for a 100-life workplace, this number would be $1,153,000
Source: The Conference Board of Canada.
6 Kunyk and others, "Employers' Perceptions and Attitudes."
7 Ibid.
8 Tamrakar and others, "Profiling and Predicting Help-Seeking Behaviour"; Li, "Potential Barriers and Facilitators
to Small Businesses."
9 Knaak, Mantler, and Szeto, "Mental Illness-Related Stigma in Healthcare."
Overcoming barriers
• Build the business case for psychological health
and safety to overcome resistance to developing
a strategy and to increase commitment from the
employer to promote mental health.
6
• Use the Roadmap to overcome resistance
due to the comprehensiveness of the
National Standard.
7
• Establish organizational readiness by outlining
the time and resources needed to successfully
implement a psychological health and
safety strategy.
8
• Increase relevant knowledge on why a
psychological health and safety strategy is
important. This can reduce unconscious bias,
stigma, and inadequate policies for addressing
mental health issues on the part of employers.
9
