CEOs are struggling with their mental health and taking off more time because of it compared to their employees. However, a gap in mental health understanding remains between leaders and their workforce, according to Headspace's 2022 Workforce Attitudes to Mental Health report.
For the report, a group of 506 CEOs, presidents or the equivalent business leaders and more than 5,000 employees were interviewed about their mental health experiences and employee benefits. It found a gap in understanding of mental health in the workplace between leaders and employees, despite both groups struggling.
While 30 percent of employees interviewed said they'd never missed work due to mental health issues, only 17 percent of CEOs could say the same.
About 20 percent of CEOs said they had missed between 11 and 20 days of work due to mental health issues, where only 14 percent of workers missed the same amount.
CEOs are also more likely than their employees to utilize mental health benefits with 60 percent of leaders regularly using company mental health benefits compared to 37 percent of employees.
Despite this strain on CEOs, there remains a discrepancy between leaders and their employees when it comes to mental health benefits. Almost 90 percent of CEOs say it's easy or very easy to access mental health, but only two-thirds of employees agree. Eighty percent of CEOs also said that mental health is a really important focus for their company, yet only half of those CEOs have kept it a focus in 2022.