Mental health a leading driver of employee absence, survey finds

Workplace health is a commercial and operational risk, yet many Irish organisations are failing to capture accurate data of how their employees’ health is impacting the bottom line.

This is among the findings of a new survey* commissioned by The Irish Times in association with occupational health providers Medmark. While the adoption of occupational health in Ireland is comparatively low when compared with our European neighbours, new challenges impacting workforce health suggest that employers must quickly adapt if they are to switch from reactive case management to prevention.

The truth is that the health and wellbeing of the nation’s employees could be significantly enhanced if occupational health was prioritised by more businesses, says specialist occupational health physician and chief executive of Medmark Occupational Healthcare Dr Robert Ryan.

The new survey captured perspectives from more than 16 sectors, including healthcare, public sector, education, retail, finance, technology and others. Ryan says that access to occupational health services can be patchy, and significantly better in some sectors than others.

“If you’re working in certain sectors, they may have a very evolved occupational health division, and then in other sectors, there may be nothing,” he notes. Overall, adoption of occupational health remains far lower in Ireland than in the UK and across Europe.

One of the main problems for workplaces, Ryan says, is that they fail to accurately track issues such as sickness and absenteeism, making it difficult to see where help can be provided and improvements can be made. The pragmatic help and structured support offered by occupational health can have a dramatic impact, he says.

“We have worked with many large clients to track absenteeism and see what impact the delivery of our services can make,” he explains. “In those instances, we have shown a significant impact on reducing absenteeism, because you’re having early conversations with people, you’re signposting them to appropriate care, you’re providing reassurance about the return to work and what accommodations might be available, and you’re targeting a return to work as part of their recovery. So, overall a much more proactive approach.”

Paul O’Grady, Medmark’s deputy chief executive, agrees. “Anytime we’ve done that, it shows a significant positive impact,” he says. “And we can also see that the earlier you intervene, the sooner the person gets back to work.”

Also worth noting are the far-reaching benefits for the whole organisation, he adds: “From the HR person’s perspective, there is the benefit in terms of employee engagement, satisfaction and retention, but also just freeing up them from dealing with complex cases, where performance and other general work issues arise in tandem with medical complaints, often mental health issues. We can ease that burden in these cases by providing clarity to HR.”

The importance of this cannot be understated as the survey also found that mental health emerges as the leading driver of absence, with just over half of respondents identifying it as a key cause. This was closely followed by work-related stress/burnout at 43 per cent and family/carer responsibilities at 42 per cent.

In these instances, O’Grady says, practical early intervention and clinical support is key. “Our doctors can have the conversations confidentially with employees around what’s going on, this helps to find the solution,” he explains. “That’s the role we play. So if employers are raising it with us, and that’s happening earlier, there is a greater chance of there being a solution rather than it just continuing to everyone’s frustration and to no one’s benefit.”

Ryan agrees: “People come to work with all sorts of challenges, personal, financial, emotional plus mental health issues, and they really struggle because they’re just not in a position to deliver in the role that they’re employed to do,” he outlines. “But work may not have caused the problem, work is simply the environment in which it becomes apparent. So sometimes an employer needs to begin this discussion with staff, where are the issues? What are you struggling with? What’s at the heart of the problem? And how might you address that?” Simple steps such as these can help avoid long absences, he adds.

This is increasingly important as mental health issues begin to dominate any conversation on employee wellbeing; historically, O’Grady notes, it represented about one-third of their work, but as the survey mirrors, that proportion has steadily grown since the advent of the Covid pandemic. Employee mental health is, however firmly on organisations’ radar, with more than 80 per cent reporting some level of concern and more than half describing it as a significant or very significant concern.

“There are multiple aspects to it,” he says. “Neurodiversity has come into it, and you also have people working remotely now returning to the office, and we are seeing mental health issues arise as a result.” And employers are acutely aware of this; the survey also found that 73 per cent of organisations surveyed are concerned about work-related stress, while half of companies surveyed said they had concerns about employee burnout.

Indeed, new challenges such as the steady march of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and an ageing workforce are leading to a paradigm shift in the world of work. “And all those issues that businesses are dealing with,” O’Grady says, “they ultimately end up on our desk.”

“Occupational health really is about giving employers an opportunity to engage with their staff and to ensure that they are signposted to getting the care that they need, that the importance of work is not lost in that conversation, and there is a plan to retain people in work despite the challenges posed by mental health, neurodiversity, shifts, age – all of these issues,” adds Ryan.

His view is that a return to work is an “essential part of recovery”, one that occupational health can help to support. “It’s not like you return to work when everything is 100 per cent better, your return to work is part of that journey to recovery,” he says. “Broadly speaking, work is good for you, it’s good for your health, it’s about sense of purpose, structure, distraction, collegiality and therefore it’s about reassuring people that the ongoing recovery can take place within the working environment.”

Medmark offers specialist occupational health services for organisations across Ireland. To learn more see medmark.ie.

*A quantitative online survey of 455 professionals was conducted over four weeks between August and September 2026. Respondents were involved in employee health, wellbeing and workforce policy decisions, with participants recruited via The Irish Times and Medmark channels