Gofore, a Finnish IT services company, wants more open and concrete occupational mental health discourse. The company is taking action to address mental health challenges and raise awareness of what can be done better for mental well-being in the workplace. As the first act of openness, Gofore will start publishing information about the company’s mental health-related sickness absences in Finland in its investor communications. Roughly 6% of the company’s employees take sick leave for mental health reasons each year. The first statistics will be published in the interim report on 24 October.
Mental health-related sickness absences are on the rise in Finland (according to Kela, Ilmarinen and others). Mental health challenges are becoming a public health problem that is undermining our country’s competitiveness.
Sanna Hildén, Director of People Operations at Gofore, believes that the debate on mental health needs to be translated into concrete solutions and actions.
“There is still a stigma attached to sick leave due to mental health reasons. We want to stimulate debate on a complex and sensitive topic and learn more about how we can support the mental well-being of our work community. Our own statistics show that mental health challenges are also reflected in our company. Solutions must take into account what can be done better in the workplace, what society needs to do differently and what people themselves can do. Raising awareness is the first step. Therefore, we are going to start publishing information on our company’s mental health-related sickness absences in Finland in our investor communications.”
Roughly 6% of the company’s employees take sick leave for mental health reasons each year. In 2023, this meant 3,984 days of absence. This translates into a loss of the work input of approximately 17.5 people out of 1,242 Goforeans working in Finland. At Gofore, women are twice as likely as men to be absent for mental health reasons (2021–24).
Gofore will report mental health statistics for the first time in its interim report to be published on 24 October. According to Gofore, similar information is not yet published by other listed companies in Finland.
“We are a people-centric company and we do a lot to promote well-being at work. We want and can continue to improve by offering support to our people in different ways and with a low threshold. Instead of reducing absences, it is much more important to do research and try to learn new things about mental well-being, aspects that we do not yet understand. Things like how to promote a healthy and sustainable working life and how to facilitate converting words into deeds. It is important that we can continue to raise mental health challenges safely.”
Four actions to promote mental well-being in working life
1. Gofore will start publishing information on mental health-related sickness absences in its Finnish work community in its investor communications, starting from the interim report on 24 October 2024.
- Background: Gofore is a digital transformation specialist with more than 1,400 experts working on digital society services and intelligent industry solutions. The working life of the future is one of the company’s strategic focus areas, with mental well-being now a key priority. As a listed company, Gofore is committed to open and transparent investor communications. The publication of mental health statistics complements the practice of reporting revenue and key personnel-related indicators, among other things, on a monthly basis.
- Fact: According to 2023 statistics, the estimated number of working days lost in Finland due to prolonged periods of mental health-related absence was 5.8 million. In addition to human suffering, this cost at least a billion euros (Source: Kela’s Info Tray).
- Gofore’s data: Roughly 6% of Goforeans take sick leave for mental health reasons each year. In 2023, this meant 3,984 days of absence, or 17.5 working years, among the 1,242 Goforeans in Finland.
2. Discussions and meetings are organised for Gofore employees to explore the differences between women and men in how the mind copes and what we can learn from each other.
- Background: Gofore has reformed working life to make it more family-friendly, for example by extending fathers’ leave, offering paid parental leave and broadening the concept of close family. We were wondering whether women were left with some burdensome and as yet undefined responsibilities in the family and in society.
- Fact: The number of mental health-related sickness allowance days paid to young women in Finland has increased five-fold in recent years compared to 2005 (Source: Kela’s Info Tray).
- Gofore’s data: At Gofore, women are twice as likely as men to take sick leave for mental health reasons (2021–24).
3. The Gofore Impact Foundationis investigating opportunities to support a research project that combines mental health and digitalisation in an innovative way.
4. Gofore is working with its student network to explore young people’s concerns about coping in working life so that we can promote confidence in and progress towards a good working life.
Further information:
Sanna Hildén, Director of People Operations, Gofore Plc
tel. 040 728 3304, sanna.hilden@gofore.com