Tackling Mental Health in the Workplace
Workplace mental health discussions are happening more than ever, but why does it seem they aren’t making a real impact? A recent article in the Financial Times (and a WHO estimated $1 trillion global cost) underscores the urgency of doing more. The article highlights some troubling data in the UK and I'm pretty sure we're seeing the same thing in the US. You can read the article here:
https://www.ft.com/content/81eedab5-3dd0-41cb-802b-2390f9aa6f4e
A few interesting tidbits:
Mental health challenges are costing companies and the economy a lot of money (WHO says its $1TN)
An Oxford study showed that wellbeing and is associated with firm profitability and firm value, yet numbers seem to have not recovered to pre-Covid levels.
There seems to be some signs of reversing progress on mental health discussion which could reinforce negative stigmas against mental health.
There seems to be a bit of a dichotomy at play here. A lot of increasingly compelling data and yet little clear action and movement. Companies are struggling to figure out how to reconcile this new challenging reality with the corporate system that has long relegated these issues as “personal” and “unprofessional” to broach in the work place. This causes them to take somewhat superficial actions - yes they could be considered well-meaning, but they don’t seem to be helping and may even be eliciting some negative reaction.
The big question is “why?” are companies still falling short in adequately addressing these challenges, despite mounting evidence of its importance. These issues are incredibly complex and have several reasons that may not be fully considered in efforts to tackle this problem :
Mental health is about connecting head AND heart. “Heart” is all to often ignored in business being considered too soft. But someone’s mental health requires going a bit deeper than surface level conversation and well-meaning but often inauthentic expressions from leadership. If you want to affect mental health at work, you must touch on the emotions - person by person.
We don’t have language for positive mental health - literally (what do you call the positive side of mental health?). Without the proper language we don’t have the paradigm to address mental issues. We have to develop the proper paradigms to address it.
Cultural and generational viewpoints vary dramatically from older to younger generations. If you have a leader with staunchly traditional views on mental health (ie dismissive), they will be less likely to approve expenditures or efforts aimed at helping this issue. Furthermore, they will be less likely to engage in authentic conversation about the topic. Gen Z & Alpha value authenticity and have a keen ability to detect insincerity, they see right through inauthentic corporate speak in this realm. I’m sure this is not only impacting mental health at work, but is also contributing to retention challenges with the younger workforce.
Traditional resources seem to not be fixing the problem. Leadership training? Emotional Intelligence training? The ones I’ve experienced, while excellent content, tend to be a bit like trying to teach someone to ride a bike by reading a manual. With all of that training, are the numbers getting better? More effective skill development approaches need to be employed.
Our society (and companies) tend to take for granted that employees and leaders have emotional and psychological skills. This is a gross miscalculation - these skills are not universally taught nor acquired. We tend to rely on on-the-job training to pick those skills up. Apparently that skill development is not happening
Resources that may cut across the grain of conventionality are often overlooked. One leader quoted in the article provides life coaching to his employees! Bravo! There is a community of active mental health professionals that would be more than happy to have healthy conversations across the whole company but are not readily considered as they are outside the convention.
While many companies are making investments in training and employee assistance programs, they may be overlooking more novel and systemic approaches that address emotional well-being at its core. Consider the following:
Hire a therapist to sit with the executive team. Make it mandatory. Unorthodox? Maybe, but it is a novel approach to helping stem the tide of mental health challenges. Want to demonstrate a commitment to your employee’s mental health - start at the top!
Most execs have an annual physical. All physicals include a depression panel, that’s great but is kind of weird coming from a doc that isn’t trained as a mental health professional. Instead mandate conversations with mental health professionals and include screenings for trauma which may be latent and impacting performance.
Start investing in the positive side of the mental health spectrum. This could look like a lot of things but doubling down on transformational programs (more than a few weeks) that focus on building emotional skills and mental fitness will yield tremendous results. Don’t just hire coaches - they’re good but many are not trained nor equipped to tackle mental health issues. Bring in mental health professionals to help you with the heavy lifting of helping your employees develop the resilience and mental fitness required in the workforce. Note: you may need to look around a bit to find those who will fit into and understand the business context.
Start employee resource groups facilitated by mental health professionals that can have safe, meaningful, and powerful conversations. Knowing you’re not alone in a struggle can be huge for helping people get the strength to make changes, or simply work through a tough situation.
Have emotional resilience and mental fitness as part of an extended onboarding process for ALL employees (especially younger ones). Not a 2 hours training class, but a real, live, workshop with mental health professionals where employees are equipped with actionable techniques for mental fitness that can be applied in the workplace.
An underlying factor in all of these recommendations is that if anyone wants to significantly change the mental health outlook in their company, they have to challenges the norms and standards that exist today and seek transformational change. This takes time, practice, and work, but it can have a tremendous impact not only on a company and its results, but on individuals’ lives as well.
What strategies are working in your organization? What challenges are you facing trying to foster a mentally healthy workplace? I’d love to hear you ideas and thoughts, leave a note in the comments.