Large-Scale Survey of Businesses Across the East and West Midlands of England, Plus Companion Surveys for Ireland and Sweden, 2022-2025

The 'productivity gap' between the UK and its international competitors has been widely discussed. In 2019, UK productivity was 83 per cent of that in France and the US and 86 per cent of that in Germany. In 2020, UK industrial productivity growth rates were also negative, potentially widening the pre-pandemic productivity gap. OECD evidence also suggests that mental health in the UK may have been particularly seriously affected by the pandemic. Between 2019 and 2020, the proportion of people experiencing anxiety increased in several countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France and the UK), with the UK recording the highest level of anxiety of any country studied in 2020 - 33 per cent (OECD 2021, Figure 1.20, p. 179). This trend is likely to have worsened the pre-pandemic costs of poor mental health and well-being in the UK, which were estimated at £42bn - £45bn.

Despite the scale of the impact of poor employee mental health and productivity, we know little about the outcomes (causal effects) when employers implement mental health and well-being practices on employees' mental health and wellbeing, and even less about the causal mechanisms through which poor MH&W influences firm-level productivity. The 2020 Australian Productivity Commission report on mental health concluded, for example, that 'there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions ... there has been difficulty in establishing the effectiveness of different programs and initiatives' (Productivity Commission, 2020, p. 342).

Our aim in this project was to address this gap in our understanding and to establish the causal mechanisms through which firms' adoption of mental health and well-being (MH&W) practices can benefit productivity and productivity improvement. Which MH&W practices have the greatest benefit for employee mental health? Which have the greatest benefit for employee well-being? And, how do these effects impact firm-level productivity? Understanding these linkages is critical to building higher and sustainable productivity in future years.
Central to this project has been a large-scale survey of businesses across the East and West Midlands of England, examining workplace wellbeing, wellbeing practices, and productivity. Four waves of this survey were funded through the ESRC grant (2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025). Additionally, companion surveys were conducted in Ireland (2023) and Sweden (2024). The deposited data relates to all six of these surveys. Survey data is accompanied by copies of the annual survey reports, reports on the Irish and Swedish surveys, as well as the project’s final report. Related documents can be found via the Enterprise Research Centre website: https://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/themes/mental-health/.