Fostering Good Mental Health

Employers Move to Resolve a Growing Personnel Issue

Abstract: A growing number of employees are experiencing mental health issues that negatively affect workplace performance. Psychological stress can lead to job disengagement, increases in absenteeism, resignations, a greater number of disability claims and higher health insurance premiums. Employers can address the problem by creating supportive work environments.

Every employer wants a healthy and happy workforce. Robust levels of productivity, after all, contribute mightily to the bottom line. Recent times, however, have the seen the rise of a threat to efficient operations: a growing incidence of employee mental health issues. “Nearly one in five adults is battling a mental health condition today,” said Lynn Merritt, senior vice president for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (bcbs.com). “And only about half are receiving adequate treatment.”

The government is taking action. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a panel of medical experts appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently recommended that all adult patients under the age of 65 be screened for anxiety during their physical exams. Anxiety is described as excessive fear or worry that interferes with an individual’s normal daily activities. “The pandemic has taken a tremendous toll on the mental health of youth and adults,” said Lori Pbert, a task force member. “We know it has heightened the trend toward more anxiety and depressive disorder that we’ve been seeing over the past decade or so.”

The workplace is being hit especially hard. Some 76% of full-time employees reported experiencing at least one mental health symptom over a recent 12-month period, according to a survey from Mind Share Partners, a workplace wellness consulting firm (mindsharepartners.org). Moreover, more than half the Gen Zers who make up a growing percentage of the nation’s workforce reported symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Rising Costs

Unresolved mental health issues can lead to burnout, anxiety and depression—common causes of absenteeism and poor performance. Employers also incur direct costs in the form of spikes in disability claims and health insurance premiums. Finally, high stress levels can result in an increase in resignations at a time when employers can ill afford to lose personnel. “50% of survey respondents reported leaving their jobs due to mental health reasons,” said Michael Davis, principal of Mind Share Partners. Notably, the comparable figures were 68% for Millennials and 80% for Gen Zers.

The after-effects of COVID-19 are the most immediate cause of the public’s increasing stress levels. But while the pandemic has disrupted lives and created anxiety about the future, psychologists say other factors are also in play. “Shootings and other violence in the news, social justice issues, economic uncertainty, and a sense of political polarity have all made people keenly frightened,” said Bernie Dyme, President of Perspectives Ltd, a workplace wellness consulting firm (perspectivesltd.com). “They feel the world is not comfortable, safe and secure.”

Moreover, these societal pressures are hitting employees as they struggle to handle the growing workloads and longer hours resulting from the business world’s continuing drive for greater productivity. Such workplace-specific pressures are only made worse by the tight labor conditions that have been the legacy of the great resignation. When job positions go unfilled, already overworked personnel must handle additional responsibilities.

Getting Help

Businesses can take steps to enhance the mental health of their employees. The most important one is to create a healthy work environment. “To hold onto people, companies need to build good corporate cultures where people feel connected,” said Patrick J. Kennedy, co-founder and director of One Mind At Work, a global coalition of organizations committed to the development of a standard for workplace mental health (onemindatwork.org). That means creating cultures of psychological safety where people feel respected by company that cares about them.

Opening up about mental health issues is critical. Supervisors need to eliminate any of their own lingering resistance to discussing the topic, and workers need to feel free to communicate when something is amiss. “People have always been very reticent to say they have hidden disabilities because they are afraid of the reaction at work, of putting their job in jeopardy if they ask for accommodations,” said Maureen Hotchner, a workplace wellness consultant. “We need to erase the stigma of speaking about mental health and provide a way for people to get help.”

Related: Working with EAPs

This is one area where Gen Zers are leading the way: Psychologists say people in their twenties are more comfortable talking about mental health issues than their older colleagues. Of course, not everyone will speak up when something is wrong. That’s why employers must know how to spot employee behavior that might signify problems. Maybe Andrew has started to show up late for work or has been calling in sick more often. Or Lisa has been going through the motions of her assigned duties without any real engagement. Or Mark has become argumentative with co-workers.

The ability to spot signs of trouble pre-supposes a knowledge of the employee, and here is where supervisors and managers can be proactive. “One of the things that employers can do is build relationships with their people,” said Davis. “It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone about their behavior when you haven’t checked in with them on a regular basis.”

Spotting changes in employee behavior is one thing. Responding appropriately is another. Rather than mentioning stress or mental health when approaching the individual, psychologists advise supervisors to only discuss observed behaviors. “Erratic or different behavior might be related to a mental health issue, or it might not,” said Davis. “Maybe the person has just not been getting enough sleep because a family member is sick, or they were up late playing video games or watching TV.” Help the employee open up by asking what can be done to provide the resources required to improve performance. Would some adaptations help the person be at their best?

Providing resources

Given the human and business cost of workplace stress, it’s little wonder a growing number of businesses are reaching out for help. Consider the experience of the Center for Workplace Mental Health, a division of the American Psychiatric Association that maintains a website for employers seeking assistance (workplacementalhealth.org). “Over the last five years the volume of requests that we’ve received has grown fourfold,” said Director Darcy Gruttadaro.

Insurance companies can also provide assistance, and more employers are helping workers get the services they need by ensuring the company insurance program covers the requisite care. “Part of the challenge is that the healthcare system has never been equitable in terms of providing services for, or paying claims of, mental or behavioral healthcare,” said Dyme. “Certainly not in the same way as they have the physical or medical side of things.”

While signing up for an appropriate plan is important, the fact remains that ensuring adequate care can still be elusive. “You may have robust mental health coverage, but if you don’t have enough therapists and psychiatrists in the health network it amounts to a plan without a promise of care,” said Gruttadaro. “Furthermore, many psychiatrists and therapists do not accept insurance because they have experienced administrative burdens and low reimbursement rates in health plan networks.”

Another problem is a lack of sufficient personnel. “Even if patients are lucky enough to find a practitioner in their network who takes new patients, they often must wait three to six months for an appointment,” said Gruttadaro. Blue Cross Blue Shield has estimated that 77% of U.S. counties are underserved by therapists. Scarce resources are an especially common problem in rural communities.

Here’s where technology has come to the rescue, at least to some extent. The recent work-from-home trend sparked by the pandemic has opened the door to telemedicine, expanding the pool of potential medical personnel to include practitioners far from a patient’s place of residence. “Being able to connect to a psychiatrist or therapist through a computer has been a real plus,” said Gruttadaro.

There is evidence that isolation from colleagues can lead to mental health issues. “We typically get in the 16,000 range in terms of requests for our employer guides,” said Gruttadaro of the Center for Workplace Mental Health. “But our title about working remotely on mental health has received more than 300,000.”

Taking action

Traditionally, businesses have put the burden on individual employees to deal with the burnout and stress that can lead to mental health issues. “Employers have always expected people to show up at the workplace and leave their problems at the door,” said Hotchner. “Today we know a lot more about human behavior, and we know that’s often not possible. People will put on a social face and avoid asking for any accommodations that might jeopardize their jobs. But because they have a hidden disability, they are not able to give 100%.”

Times are changing, and today’s workers expect their employers to join in the mental health effort by providing a supportive workplace. That means taking steps such as adjusting workloads, encouraging autonomy, ensuring fairness, and enhancing self-worth through reward and recognition.

Related: How Well Do You Address Mental Health Issues?

“We encourage organizations to look critically internally and make the required changes to ensure that people are not getting burned out, because that’s the fastest move toward the exit when it comes to people’s work experiences,” said Gruttadaro. “It is really important that we build cultures in which people want to be part of the organization when they go to work in the morning, whether they’re walking through an office door or firing up their home computer.”

Phillip M. Perry is an award-winning business journalist based in New York City. He covers management, employment law, finance and marketing for scores of business magazines.