So, would you like to make more money in business?

How could you resist a title like that? Of course you do. Who wouldn’t like to find a hidden pot of money in their business? I have some good news for you…

As everyone knows, if you want to make more profit you need to either increase income or decrease costs in some way. It’s a pretty simple and straight-forward formula – even though there is often a lot of complexity behind it.

Allow me to introduce another concept before I reveal the good news. Let’s imagine that you purchased an item of equipment that cost around $100,000 to produce. While you managed to obtain it for nothing, basic maintenance was going to cost you around the same amount per annum. That’s obviously a pretty important item of equipment if you think it’s worth investing that sort of money in it. In fact, you’re going to want to maximise your ROI on that item – and rightly so.

What if I told you that there was a maintenance scheme that would add $2.30 for every $1.00 you spent. That’s right – your ROI would improve by 230%! Why wouldn’t you adopt it? It would perhaps be one of the most valuable decisions you could make to improve your bottom line.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’m talking about your employees. You may not have guessed the nature of the maintenance scheme, though – so I won’t make you wait any longer. It is the promotion of workplace mental health and well-being. That’s right – just by partnering with a suitable provider of workplace mental health initiatives you can achieve significant economy, efficiency, and effectiveness gains in a short period of time.

If that doesn’t convince you, there is another significant benefit to providing such a program. To the extent that your employees are working in a stressful environment, if you aren’t providing such an initiative you are increasing your organisation’s OH&S risk profile. Claims for psychological stress and trauma are increasing as we come to understand the impact of the workplace on mental health, and with the potential litigation and run-off costs being so significant it would be wise to address the issue as quickly as possible.

There are many providers of these services, but there are some things to consider before you engage them. Firstly, they need to work with you to gain an understanding of the environment in which your organisation operates. This is just as important as understanding the factors that directly affect your employees, because they may need to work with you on improving business practices. Everything must be understood in context.

Secondly, they need to be accessible. This certainly includes being available when people need them, but it also means being accessible to employees who may find it difficult to travel to an appointment, such as employees working in remote locations or even employees who can’t afford travel time from the office. This would include the ability to provide services via Skype, in addition to a physical location.

So, I’m hoping that you can see that you have an easy way of improving your ROI and decreasing your risk profile just by partnering with an organisation who provides workplace mental health initiatives. It just makes sense.