The psychological well-being of workers as the foundation of a new industrial policy for the country. This is the belief of Pubblica, a non-profit association that in recent months brought to the Senate the popular initiative proposal “Right to Be Well,” signed by 70,000 signatures.
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The proposal, drafted by Paride Braibanti from the University of Bergamo and Michela di Trani, director of the health psychology specialization school at Sapienza University of Rome, aims to establish a national psychological network integrated into the NHS, thus universal and permanent, which also operates within workplaces.
Focus on voluntary resignations
Francesco Maesano, coordinator of the initiative, explains the possible positive impacts of the project: “The choice is between investing in workers’ success or paying for their failure. The psychological well-being of people, especially the workforce, should not be considered an expense item but the first chapter of industrial policy, understood as a tool to boost growth, especially considering the negative externalities that absences from work or resignations cause in terms of erosion of human capital.” The focus is on exiting the labor market. “The Censis Eudaimon report found that half of companies have seen an increase in voluntary resignations, Bva Doxa says that 49% of under-34s have resigned at least once to preserve psychological health, and for Unobravo, 80% of Italians have thought about leaving work due to stress,” explains Maesano.
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Indirect costs
There is also the chapter of indirect costs linked to the psychological distress of workers: “According to Istat, those suffering from anxiety and depression lose an average of 18 working days compared to the average of five.” This leads to a total calculation of productivity loss related to untreated psychological distress amounting to several billion euros. “The OECD – Maesano continues – estimates that for Italy this figure is 63 billion per year. And every euro not invested in psychological support turns into a public system expense four to five times higher.”
The bill establishes that companies and public administrations must ensure full cooperation with the service, offering spaces for group or individual interviews, ensuring complete confidentiality, providing individual and group psychological support, for example to prevent mobbing and burnout, or stress-related pathologies. In practice, concludes Maesano, “the public psychology service would intervene where resignation or absenteeism rates in a company exceed the average.”
