[JPC] Research & Reports: 2006

Survey Result of Activities in Mental-Health
"Mental Illness Increasing in 60% of Companies in the Past 3 Years: Increase Most Evident in Companies with Decreasing Communication and Mutual Help"
(July 28, 2006)

The Mental Health Research Institute of the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development (Mr. Tsuneaki Taniguchi, President) published the result of survey "Activities on Mental Health."

This survey was conducted in April 2006 to analyze and understand corporate activities to improve mental health by sending questionnaires to 2,150 listed companies in Japan. Recovery ratio was 10.1% with 218 valid responses. This survey is the third one that follows surveys conducted in 2002 and in 2004.

I.	Mental Illness Increasing in 60% of Companies in the Past 3 Years

1.	More than 60% (61.5%) of responding companies stated that they are observing increase of mental health problems in the past 3 years. This figure is in the upward trend as compared to past two surveys. The figure was 48.9% in 2002 survey and 58.2% in 2004. (See chart-1)

2.	By age bracket, mental illness appear to be high among those in their thirties. (See chart-2)

3.	There is employee(s) taking leave that is longer than one month in 74.8% of the companies. This figure is also in on steady increase. The figure was 58.5% in 2002 survey and 66.8% in 2004. (See chart-3)

4.	There is a sharp increase in companies that is emphasizing the measures to deal with mental health in the framework to improve employee health. The figure was 33.3% in 2002 survey, 46.3% in 2004 and 59.2% in 2006. (See chart-4)













II.	Change of Workplace in the Background: Close to 70% of Companies Say More People Working by Themselves

1.	Close to 70% (67.0%) of companies said that more employees are working by themselves. About 60% (60.1%) reported that opportunity of communication is decreasing and about 50% (49.0%) reported that mutual help is decreasing. (See Chart-5)

2.	Regarding the balance of responsibility and discretion, about 60% (60.1%) of companies said that the balance is adequate but remaining 40% stated otherwise. This means that the overall situation may not be that stable. (See Chart-5)

III.	Urgent Recovery of "Horizontal" Communication Critical

1.	The increase of mental illness is observed in 71.8% of the companies reporting decrease of workplace communication. The same figure of companies without communication problem is 46.0%, resulting in 25.8% difference. Similarly, the increase of mental illness is observed in 72.0% of the companies reporting decrease in mutual help, the figure that is 20.6% higher than companies without such change. The increase of mental illness is observed in 67.1% of the companies reporting increase of working alone, which is 17.8% higher than companies without such change. (See Chart-6)

2.	In order to control the increase of mental illness, recovering "horizontal communication" in the workplace, designing operation so that responsibility and discretion can be balanced and cultivation of energetic culture that values individual workers' desire to work are the urgent tasks.

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