Counting On U: Supporting SME Advisors and Owners Towards Better Mental Health

The widespread lockdown of broader society experienced around the world due to the COVID-190 pandemic is unprecedented. Businesses in a variety of sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and hospitality were closed due to lockdown rules, a decrease in demand, health concerns or other factors. Many of the closures are permanent because of the inability of business owners to pay ongoing expenses and market uncertainty.

Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) account for 99% of all businesses in Australia and at least 95% of enterprises in all OECD countries. SMEs provide an important contribution to Australia's growth in employment, with small businesses (including micro businesses) employing approximately 4.72 million people and accounting for 41 per cent of total employment. To help citizens survive the pandemic, the Australian government provided financial support to employees via Job Keeper and cash flow boosts to eligible businesses. Nevertheless, some SME owners reported losing up to 90% of their income and continue to face ongoing challenges, including market uncertainty, loss of international skilled workers, lending restrictions, extensive legislative reform. At the same time that they're dealing with an increasingly difficult external environment, SME owners also have to content with running a business including monitoring cash flow, managing staff, and ensuring the smooth administration of the business.

Of the challenges faced by SME owners, financial pressure represents a major source of psychological distress and is likely to explain why SME owners generally experience higher levels of stress and mental health disorders compared with the broader population. In Australia, 1 in 3 SMEs rated their mental health as poor to fair during the pandemic. Identifying the symptoms of depression early and encouraging help seeking are therefore critical and cost-effective methods for protecting and promoting wellbeing.

Mental health literacy programs have emerged as a key strategy for the early identification of diagnosable mental health problems. The strategy has proved to be popular in the frontline human service sectors (e.g., health care, social work) where MHFA can be used to help colleagues and members of the public who may be experiencing the signs of depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions (MHC's). However, little is known about the effectiveness of mental health literacy programs where SME owners are concerned. Reaching vast numbers of owner-managers in a systematic way is thought to be particularly difficult, partly because of the absence of viable intermediaries that have ongoing contact with this group, but also because of the typical characteristics of the SME owner's role (e.g., long working hours, burden of responsibility, isolation, obligation to work when sick), coupled with their lack of financial resources.

One sector that has the potential to act as an intermediary between small business and mental health services are business advisors, who include accountants, financial planners and financial counsellors. Business advisors are an important source of support for SME owners as their expertise is sought on a regular basis and clients can develop trusting, long-term relationships with their accountant. Previous work in this sector by Bond and colleagues has shown that MHFA training is an effective way of improving financial counsellors' ability to recognise mental health problems among clients and to provide appropriate support for help-seeking.