Each year, 13 million work days are lost due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety, a sad statistic that is a recurring reality in the United Kingdom. The situation is so serious that the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that by 2020, depression will be the main cause of absenteeism in the workplace. In Western countries, the challenges of employee mental health are enormous.

Gaston Harnois, MD, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Douglas Institute, will be one of the keynote speakers at the 8th Annual Conference of the Employee Assistance European Forum. On the first day of the conference, which will be held this year in Lisbon from June 17 to 19, Guy Harnois will give a talk on “The Challenge of Mental Health and its Impact on the Employee and the Workplace: Reality and Perspectives for 2015.“

“Mental health issues are on the verge of becoming the most serious employee health problem, if they are not the most serious problem already. The impact on families is tremendous, as are the repercussions on companies and productivity,” stated Gaston Harnois, MD. Since taboos surrounding mental health in the workplace are still a major factor and practices take time to change, the World Health Organization created an action plan in 2005 to deal with this problem.

These are the issues that will be addressed by Gaston Harnois, who, along with ten other guest speakers, accepted the invitation of the Employee Assistance European Forum to discuss how to support employees in challenging times.