cost of burnout to the company est. £1/4 to £1/2 million

James was earning over £100k a year.

Big house, nice car, luxury watch, annual bonus, loving family.

So everything must be ok with him, right?

James was once a motivated, energised, vibrant, driven, fun, and competent man.

Also highly profitable to his team and company.

But he had become stressed, anxious, nervous, scared, angry, and unproductive in his job.

His boss knew it.

His colleagues knew it.

His clients had sensed something was up.

James had a Silent Struggle.

But none of them knew why or what to do about it.

Nobody said anything as no-one really knew what to say or where to start.

The company had a helpline, but he was never going to use that.

And by the time he might have thought about it, it would be too late.

One day he didn’t arrive for work.

Something had broken and he would never turn up as the same man again.

Let’s look past the personal challenge for James anD look at the cost to the company.

James was off for 3 months on full pay.

With salary and benefits thats around £8,500 per month or £25,500 over the 3 months.

Plus, as a sales based role his clients business pretty much dried up overnight.

If he was earning around £1,000,000 in annual commission for the company that’s around £250,000 in lost revenue over 3 months.

Plus when he finally returned to work he was sadly a shadow of his former self.

Colleagues unsure what to say.

Natural sympathy for the situation, yes, but the reminder that you are there to make money and everyone needs to pull their weight.

The entire team now with a strange situation where you all know a colleague doesnt want to be there and shouldnt be there based on the ability to perform the role.

Most clients didnt return, and those who did knew they weren’t getting the premium service of James on his ‘A’ Game.

The lost revenue from the proceeding months plus salary could easily be another £250,000.

And, unfortunately, if the company decided he was unable to fulfill the role anymore they would be looking at some kind of redundancy package.

This could run to £25,000, £50,000, maybe even £100,000 depending on what contracts were in place.

And then there’s replacing James... the cost of recruitment and building back up a client base.

That’s hard to calculate, but you are looking at multiple hundreds of thousands again.

So, for one guy to take extended and unexpected leave from the desk…

Cost the company at least £500,000.

At least.

That’s ONE guy in a room full of hundreds of workers.

The big lightbulb here should be… It might have been entirely avoidable.

What if, at the point on his timeline when his Silent Struggle first became apparent…

He was able to schedule a quick 20 minute chat with someone, online or face to face, who could listen to what was going on…

And help him with one or two pointers to get things back on track.

You could pay someone with experience in this field to be on call for regular check in’s or as a sounding board for your staff whenever they need it.

Not in a clinical setting.

No padded room or ‘safe space’.

Not only when the wheels have come off, but in ‘The Gap’ where Silent Struggles exist.

Just a coffee and a friendly but helpful chat in person or over Zoom.

Or if needed, a more structured talk with specific actions steps to take.

Doing this regularly might help him navigate whatever challenges he had, maybe physically, emotionally, or financially.

It would also help to allow James to know if he needed more clinical help or if changes in his life needed to be made.

I talk about ‘The Gap’ because…

When things started getting on top of James there wasn’t a need for mental health counselling or therapy.

Just a sounding board to offload what’s going on in his mind and feel understood and that someone was helping him move forward.

But, when you look at the figures, the companies innability to offer realistic resources, or short sighted lack of investment in continued staff wellbeing meant they were likely looking at minimum £1/4 million to £1/2 million hit.

Imagine if what happened to James happens to 2-3 more staff over the year, or even over 2-3 years.

Millions of pounds.

So, the question is…

How much could you invest in someone to help avoid these situations?