Mental Health And Wellbeing In The Creative Industry
Andy is on a mission to cultivate happier and healthier creative businesses. With over 20 years of experience in creative, media, and marketing, he has worked on both the client and agency sides. Andy has even founded his own agency, won prestigious awards, and gained invaluable insights from his time in the UK and Australia.
Andy has skillfully guided numerous organisations regarding the intricacies of mental health, shedding light on the challenges, realities, essential leadership aspects, and the care duty with facts and science behind it. Read all about it by downloading The Agency Growth Book 2024.
What is the state of mental health in the creative industry?
In 2018, Andy founded a non-profit organisation called Never Not Creative. Together with industry professionals, mental health experts, and organizations, they conducted the largest study ever on mental health in the creative, media, and marketing industries. This groundbreaking study, named Mentally-Healthy, included nearly 2,000 participants from Australia and New Zealand. The results revealed that over half of our industry exhibited signs of anxiety and depression.
The study has been repeated and evolved in 2020 and 2022, with a new wave of research to be conducted in 2024. Here are some of the key highlights for you:
46% of our industry display mild to severe signs of anxiety and depression.
If you’re under 29, you’re 1.5x more likely to show signs of depression than respondents over 40.
People in creative agencies are almost twice as likely to show moderate to severe symptoms of depression vs media agencies.
The 3 largest sources of stress are the pressure of our own expectations, pressure from others, and multiple responsibilities.
The stigma associated with talking about mental health has improved significantly between the waves of research (although while we welcome it from others, we might be less forthcoming in talking about our own mental health challenges).
We’re as likely to consult a boss, colleague or peer about our mental health as we are a GP – are you ready for that conversation?
We observed a 33% increase in respondents believing that companies are making mental health a medium-high priority vs results in 2020.
However, there’s still a significant gap between the perception of making it a priority and the reality of how effective businesses are in their strategies to deal with it.
“If you’re an employer, you have a duty of care to carry out risk assessments relating to health and safety at work, and these include psychological safety.”
What’s the answer?
What does it mean to change the way we work? And, what now? For a start, if you’re an employer, you have a duty of care to carry out risk assessments. Hopefully, Andy’s article will have given you food for thought on how to start or change the way you’re assessing and addressing mental well-being at work as the leader of your agency pack.
