# Why organizations have a duty of care beyond the legal minimum

- **Episode:** [160](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/160.md) (2025-01-07)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** duty-of-care, legal-minimum, organizations
- **Time:** 9:36–12:53 (start 576s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/160?t=576](https://truthliesandwork.com/160?t=576)

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[9:36] Leanne Elliott: Well, number one, the organization has a legal, in almost all developed countries, certainly in the EU and beyond, they have a legal responsibility For the health and wellbeing of their employees. That's legal. Okay? So that's one thing. If one of the drivers for people getting ill is their financial circumstance, right? And the employer— many, there are employers, by the way, that hire in consulting firms that help their employees manage their financial circumstance, right? They do that. There's lots of organizations that actually provide this to organizations, just like they would if you had an EAP. You know, they would just come in and help people with their particular circumstance in a kind of counseling way, but it's financial counseling. So I think why they should be concerned about it is why are they concerned about people's mental health? Because it adversely affects their Productivity and performance. Also, they're off ill with it. If people are off ill with stress, it's something like 2 or 3 times longer than if you have cancer. If you have severe depression, severe anxiety, you're off a hell of a long time, much more than any other illness. So if people get very low and depressed by their financial circumstances, And by the way, financial circumstances is quite a broad construct. That is your own financial situation, but it could be your feeling of job insecurity. If you're in an organization where people have been made redundant and you're a survivor of that redundancy, that's a part of financial insecurity. I'm worried I'm going to lose my job. I have commitments, I have a mortgage, this, that, and the other. So why they should be interested and why they should be concerned about it is like they are about the mental health of people. If you want to be really crude about it, you know, if, if their, if their mindset is that we want this person performing, we don't want 'em off ill for a long period of time, therefore let's deal with their psychological state, their financial circumstance, any way we can help and support them. is part of our duty of care. So that's why they should be concerned about it. But to be honest with you, more and more organizations now are concerned about people's mental wellbeing and financial insecurity. Financial difficulties are a driver
[12:24] Al Elliott: You mentioned something before, which I thought Well, I'd written down a question around this because particularly in Britain or the UK, you've got this sort of— nobody really wants to talk about their personal finances to friends, family, whatever. So you said, oh yes, this is, this is a problem and a challenge for an organization. How do managers actually open up the lines of channels of communication? How do they actually do this? Is there any—
[12:53] Leanne Elliott: Okay
[12:53] Al Elliott: So if someone's listening, they want to do this, where would they start?