#185: Suffering in Silence w/ David Beeney, Breaking The Silence

Mental health and substance abuse cost US businesses between $80 and $100 billion annually. Another study showed that serious mental illness costs America up to $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year. Depression is thought to count for up to 400 million lost workdays annually. Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S - that’s 18.5% of the population - experience mental illness each year

Research shows that mental health problems in the workplace cost UK employers £26 billion per year, averaging £1,035 per employee. In Canada, the figure is around $1,500 per employee.

Whilst mental health & support is better than ever, mental health in the workplace is something that still needs bringing to the forefront of people’s minds and we'll be considering it in this episode of the HRchat podcast. Our guest this time is David Beeney, Founder at Breakingthesilence.co.uk and advisor to business on how to reduce the stigma of mental health in the workplace.

David Beeney suffered for over thirty years, not wanting to tell his colleagues or employer that he was battling mental health problems; believing that it would damage his career, he was embarrassed and scared of the potential consequences.

David is now using his experience, commercial background, and business knowledge to help organisations implement mental health & wellbeing strategies within the workplace.


This episode of the HRchat show is supported by Espresa, a firm helping to define and ignite the HR tech space to disrupt culture for good.

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared in this episode are entirely independent of our show sponsors. There is no relationship between the guest and companies advertising within the podcasts published by The HR Gazette or it's partners.