1. Our attitudes towards mental ill-health are improving. We’re more likely to disagree that people who disclose a diagnosis of depression will be treated differently.
However, that doesn’t translate into having the confidence to speak up ourselves. We’re no more likely to speak up about a diagnosis than in 2020.

2. A gap appears in the overall mental well-being of respondents from media agencies vs creative agencies (creative agencies include advertising, full-service, design, and production). Media agency respondents appear mentally healthier, and their workplaces are generally seen to be more effective in addressing mental health than their creative counterparts.

3. We need to watch out for the younger people in our industry more than ever. They have the best stigma levels, but those under 29 are more likely to show signs of depression than respondents over 40.

4. Workplaces that are perceived to put profit before people are also more likely to have employees that display signs of mental ill-health and who are reporting negative experiences at work.

5. The concept of ‘tolerable demands’ defined by the SMART WORK framework developed at Curtin University has a strong negative correlation with mental ill-health across respondents.

6. We have a clearer idea than ever before of the signals, signs, experiences, and solutions that can make a difference in the mental well-being of people in our industry. From more empathetic leaders to appropriate structure and resources and support in making the demands of our jobs tolerable, we also found a high correlation between signing the Mentally-Healthy Minimum Standards and a perception of a more effective approach to mental well-being by employers.

When we first started the Mentally-Healthy Change Group, our primary goal was to ‘smash the stigma of mental health in our industry.’ The 2022 study confirms that we’re continuing to make great strides toward achieving this. Between 2020 and 2022, we saw a 24% increase in disagreement with the statement, “People in my industry would be treated poorly if they were to disclose they had been diagnosed with a mental illness.” This improved from 32% in 2018, 39% in 2020, and 49% in 2022. While we can’t take all the credit (Societal attitudes toward mental health have also been improving), it’s comforting to know that we’re making a dent in the stigma issue. This year, the Australian government’s National Mental Health Commission recognised Mentally-Healthy and the work that Never Not Creative and Unltd have been doing as 1 of a handful of successful industry-specific case studies on addressing mental health in workplaces. 

Of course, we don’t get to pat ourselves on the back, turn around with a smug grin and proclaim our job is done. There’s a further step that we need to address. While we all seem open to others being vulnerable and disclosing their challenges, we’re not yet as willing to take that step ourselves. When specifically asked, “in my industry, I would not tell anyone if I had been diagnosed with depression,” only 36% disagreed, while 39% answered ‘agree’. 

We’ve shone a very bright and intense spotlight on mental health in the last few years. We’re more aware of it and even more educated about our own mental well-being (69% of respondents believe they could recognise if they had a mental health problem). Still, we don’t think that our personal perceptions will be matched by the reactions of our managers or peers. From verbatim as well as experience from our Asking For A Friend initiative (a monthly event where anyone can ask questions to an industry leader and a psychologist anonymously), we’ve found that when some people have chosen to speak up, they’re perhaps not matched by a manager who knows how to deal with the conversation. In this respect, extending the opportunities for all managers or employees in general to get access to Mental Health First Aid training is an excellent way to train people to listen, validate and point colleagues in the right direction for the correct type of support. The response, “Well, you either suck it up or perhaps find another industry if this doesn’t feel right for you”, is no longer morally or legally acceptable.

This change and progress grows in importance when it comes to the younger people in our industry. 66% of under-25’s disagreed that people would be treated poorly (even better than the average). Still, when it came to themselves, 52% agreed that they wouldn’t tell anyone if they had a diagnosis of depression. 

There are a couple of hypotheses relating to this finding. Firstly, it appears that the confidence to speak up improves with age and experience. While 26% of those under 25’s disagreed that they wouldn’t tell anyone, this improved to 36% at 25-34 and 40% at 35-44. It seems a little easier or perhaps expected to disclose mental ill-health once you’ve got some wins under your belt or are closer to the top of the ladder. 

Secondly, the younger people entering our industry have grown up with a much more positive mental well-being culture throughout their education, and peer groups than older members of the industry will have done. Schools and universities now teach a ‘growth mindset’ and resilience and have dedicated counsellors on staff. Very little (if any) of this was present more than ten years ago. So when graduates and school leavers enter our industry, and workplaces do not have the same attitudes, support, and services, is it any surprise that they close up?

In further analysis, we again found a gap between media and creative agencies. Only 16% of media agency respondents agreed that someone would be treated differently, while this more than doubled (34%) for creative agency respondents.

After friends and family, our first port of call in seeking help with our mental health are colleagues, bosses, and peers in the industry. Respondents were as likely to consult a boss, colleague, or peer as a GP (47%). Almost a third of respondents had seen a psychologist in the last 12 months. 

The levels of help-seeking are encouraging (even if they haven’t moved significantly between 2020 and 2022). When digging deeper, though, we found worrying, although not totally surprising, differences between male and female respondents. Across the range of help-seeking solutions, men were less likely to reach out for support.

The masculine norms appear to be alive and kicking, and when we analysed further, we found that the top reasons for not seeking help were, “If I ignore it, it will go away”, “I’m ashamed”, and “I can’t afford it.” When comparing with women, the reasons were similar, apart from one. Women were much more likely to say they wouldn’t seek support because they couldn’t take the time away from other commitments.

This study wave saw evidence of employers beginning to step up in addressing the challenges of mental ill-health in their businesses. In a significant improvement, we observed a 33% increase in respondents believing that companies are making mental health a medium-high priority and an almost identical increase in the perception of the effectiveness of their strategies.

There’s still room for improvement, of course. The scores for priority are some way from matching the ratings for effectiveness, but the signs are heartening. Other watch-outs in the data included leaders ranking their businesses as 51% more effective in their mental health strategies than employees and media agencies, who were rated as 72% more effective than respondents in creative agencies.

Can we explain the gaps between priority and effectiveness, leaders and employees? Well, one of the most telling findings we observed came from the question, “Which of the below are most important to you in terms of improving your mental well-being at work?” 

This observation continues to shine a light on the path to a solution that has been staring us in the face if we just ran our businesses responsibly. The mental-health checklist isn’t going to make a dent in this problem we’re tackling. Posters, yoga Thursdays, mindfulness sessions, healthy food and snacks, and an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) do not dig us out of the hole. They probably won’t make things worse, but they’re more likely the equivalent of passing a Kleenex to someone with pneumonia.

No, the overwhelming and majority response came in the form of how we are set up to do THE WORK. ore than 90% of respondents agreed that if we're going to make a difference to mental well-being, then our workplaces would…

- Develop more empathetic and educated leaders
- Hire and develop leaders who lead by example
- Provide flexible working conditionsAllocate appropriate structure and resources, and
- Communicate clear objectives to employees
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We’re crying out for workplaces that understand it’s the people who do the work, and we need to let them do their work in the most conducive environments. Again (if it didn’t sink in beforehand), the best way to improve mental well-being is to take a serious look at how the work is done and the relationships involved in getting it done. 

This is further reinforced by existing research. One framework, the SMART WORK framework, the result of a research review by The Centre For Transformative Work Design at Curtin University, looks at how good work and role design can lead to healthier, happier workplace cultures that prevent harm, enhance well-being, and allow their employees to thrive. 

In a nutshell (and you can read more here), the framework consists of 5 key pillars that can affect someone’s ability to thrive (or not) at work. 

Stimulating - the extent to which a job involves skill variety, task variety, and problem-solving demands.
Mastery - the degree to which your job provides role clarity, feedback, and task identity. 
Agency - the extent to which you can organise your own schedule, choose the methods to achieve your work goals and the freedom you have to make judgements and decisions.
Relational - the extent to which an individual experiences a sense of support, purpose, and social contact in their role.
Tolerable Demands - the extent to which a job involves time pressure, emotional demands, and role conflict.

To investigate their effect on the creative, media, and marketing industry respondents, we asked two questions (while also explaining the framework as part of the exercise). 

1. Which of the below do you believe is most important in being able to manage your mental health at work?
2. And how well does your current workplace deliver on your needs relating to the SMART Work framework?

Regarding importance, relational support (83% essential or very important) and tolerable demands (78%) were the top 2, closely followed by mastery, agency, and stimulating. While there is no direct evidence, an inference here is that ‘stimulating’ is arguably built into the industry and so less desired, given it’s a table stake for the type of work.

We found significant gaps when comparing whether current experience in their role matched the importance they reported. We also all but confirmed our inference about stimulating work as 58% of respondents agreed that they experienced ‘stimulating’ either 100% or very well, in comparison with 64% placing it as essential or very important.

More importantly, the gaps we found were most prominent in the ‘tolerable demands’ pillar. Only 33% of respondents agreed that their experience was 100% or Very Well (vs 78% importance), and 35% claimed they experienced tolerable demands somewhat or not at all. While relational support and agency fared slightly better, mastery was the other gap (77% importance vs 40% experience). 

The take-out? Design roles, job processes, work methodologies, and manager-employee relationships that have clarity around tasks and objectives and give people the right amount of time and emotional pressures to allow them to achieve their goals. Sounds pretty obvious when you put it like that. And not a mental health checklist in sight!

The numbers were accentuated when looking at respondents with moderate to very severe anxiety. 51% reported a poor experience with tolerable demands vs 28% with only low / mild anxiety. Mastery displayed a similar correlation (40% vs 23%).

Our final creative vs. media investigation also highlighted significant gaps in this area. 24% of creative agency respondents experienced positive tolerable demand vs the 81% who had underscored its importance. Agency and relational support were also clearly better experienced in media agencies (60% and 52%, respectively, vs 50% and 38% in creative agencies). 

After this review of the data and comparative studies, we arrive at a pretty solid conclusion. We must fix the systems, the ways of working, the relationships, and the managerial capacity (to be a good manager) to ensure that our industry can do the work it craves and is more than capable of. Work that can and has solved many problems across the world.

There is no silver bullet in making significant shifts in the mental well-being of the people in our industry. However, many signals point to the type of sentiment, communication, tone, and culture aligned with a mentally-healthier workplace.

Our analysis found a strong correlation between lower levels of mental well-being and a belief that a respondent’s workplace prioritised profit over people (and vice versa). This correlated further with the attitudes and behaviours experienced by people at work. Significant differences were observed between profit first and people first when it came to being interrupted in meetings, having opportunities restricted by a manager, feeling undervalued compared to colleagues… and more. 

But if leaders needed one more straw to break the back of the argument, it’s that only 17% of employees who believed their business put people first are likely to leave in the next 12 months, compared to their peers who thought it was all about the money (44%).

A further signal was evident in participants who recalled that their workplace had signed the Mentally-Healthy Minimum Standards. A caveat – signing the standards does not make your business mentally healthy. I didn’t really have to say that, right? We have found that most companies who have signed the standards also have a clearly defined and communicated approach to their mental well-being strategy. They will put other policies in place, train leaders and managers in mental health first aid, and add additional mental well-being days to leave. As explained before, not necessarily making inroads into the problem, but certainly doing a better job managing it. 

While the Minimum Standards are not an aspirational strategy for better mental health at work, they are a clear explanation and guide to a line that (with new psychosocial hazard legislation here / incoming) faces the consequences for being crossed.

Andy Wright,
Founder, Never Not Creative