Employee mental health is getting worse. In fact, an alarming 44% of young adults say they’re struggling with their mental health, according to a recent survey of 17,000 adults in 16 countries. Forty-two percent of young adults have taken sick leave for mental health reasons.
On top of traditional sources of work-related stress and anxiety—heavy workloads, difficult deadlines, and wages, for example—additional concerns are intensifying. Adults are increasingly worried about financial instability and job insecurity (53%), the future in a rapidly changing world (53%), and constant exposure to negative news (45%).
A proactive mental health strategy is key
For the 24% of employees who need counseling and the 1% of those who need clinical intervention, an employee assistance program (EAP) may be the most appropriate solution. But an estimated 75% of employees don’t need counseling, psychotherapy, or clinical intervention. Instead, they need support for daily stress, anxiousness, sleep problems, and other mild conditions before they escalate into more serious health challenges.
In short, the workforce needs proactive support for their mental well-being on a daily basis. Fostering strong mental health literacy at all levels of the organization is a great place to start.
What is mental health literacy?
Mental health literacy is a shared understanding of what it means to feel and function well within the organization. Here are five core components of mental health literacy:
Understanding the importance of mental health
Why is mental health important to the organization? Is it to help employees avoid burnout? To help them have resilience in difficult times? To thrive and work together well? Or to reduce unwanted attrition and hold onto talent? Having a clear vision or understanding of workplace mental health can pave the way to supporting it as a top priority.
Recognizing early warning signs
Does the organization proactively identify negative mental health trends across their populations, such as employees not using their allotted personal time off or consistently using emergency care services when not clinically necessary?
Knowing how, when, and where to seek support
Are leaders throughout the organization communicating consistently about how and where employees can find and access mental health resources? Are these resources featured in onboarding materials and company-wide initiatives whenever possible?
Knowing how to support others who are facing challenges
Are managers equipped with a tip sheet on how to support team members who are experiencing challenges like burnout? They don’t need to try to be a therapist, but they do need to know how to direct their team to appropriate resources.
Assessing your organization’s mental health literacy
As a first step toward strengthening mental health literacy at your organization, find out where your organization stands. Using the assessment linked below, rate your organization in several areas on a scale of 1 to 5, determine your overall score, and refer to the results tab to find out if your organization has low, medium, or high mental health literacy. Here are examples of the areas you’ll assess:
- Our HR policies promote an environment of positive mental health
- We make decisions with employees’ mental health in mind
- Our organization creates opportunities to share mental health concerns freely and openly
- Our leaders understand early warning signs of mental health illnesses
Access the full assessment toolkit here.
5 tips to improve your organization’s mental health literacy level
The following list of tips is designed to help leaders and managers bolster workplace mental health literacy.
- Foster a psychologically safe workplace environment
A strong wellness culture starts with creating a safe space where everyone in the organization can talk openly about their mental health stories and needs. While self-reflection is important, speaking up and sharing stories can help normalize struggles with anxiety, depression, burnout, or other challenges. Leaders in influential positions are well positioned to initiate a ripple effect of positive changes in the workplace by sharing their stories and journeys through any channel that feels comfortable to them. - Practice thoughtfulness during mental health conversations
Leaders need to be thoughtful during mental health conversations with employees and practice active listening so they can recognize early warning signs that something is up. And, to foster an open, safe dialogue, they need to respect a person’s story, experiences, and thoughts without making assumptions. Employees will be more willing and able to share what they need from the organization to thrive in their day-to-day work life. - Help your managers know when to direct employees to appropriate resources
Most employees don’t disclose their mental health issues at work due to fear of stigma or discrimination. That’s why it’s crucial to recognize when employees are showing signs of distress and to share appropriate mental health resources, such as an EAP provider or mental well-being resources in platforms such as Calm Health. Your managers need to know what resources are readily available to support employees and not attempt to be the solution. - Create an organization-wide action plan for making employee well-being a priority
Senior leaders at organizations need to have a shared understanding of how they’re planning to make employee mental well-being a priority. Discuss the plan at an executive level and write it down so that every leader is aware of it and buys into the “why” behind it. Ask the hard questions. “What is the risk to our business/department if we don’t invest in employee well-being?” “What are some barriers to investing in employee well-being?” “Why wouldn’t we invest in employee well-being?”If you sense some leaders may not be supportive, talk to them to understand why there’s friction. And when it helps, bring in another senior leader who’s an advocate to share their rationale.
- Help develop a wellness culture no matter what level you are in the organization
Here at Calm, we lean on these change management steps to help us implement a wellness culture:
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- Create urgency by communicating the need or the why behind this initiative
- Establish a wellness committee and have senior leadership represented
- Develop vision and strategies by putting pen to paper and building a slide deck, memo, or intranet page to outline what you’re trying to achieve and how
- Communicate the change vision so people who want to get involved know where to access the information
- Remove obstacles by identifying blockers and strategizing how to address them
What’s next?
Change doesn’t happen overnight. But we all play a role in positively influencing the work environment for our peers and colleagues. We encourage leaders like you to connect with your why and openly talk about it with employees.
By creating a psychologically safe culture that comes from the top, you’ll be helping your workforce feel comfortable speaking up and seeking the help they need. And while you’re helping the wider organization, don’t forget to be kind to yourself and make time for self-care.
For more resources to help your employees manage their mental health at the workplace, ask us about our Work-Life collection in the Calm Health platform.
