What do Leaders Need to Respond to the Mental Health Crises of the American Workforce?
The 2021 Mind the Workplace Report from Mental Health America surveyed over 5,000 employees in 17 industries. This is what they found:
“83 percent [of employees] felt emotionally drained from their work
59 percent [of employees] said that their supervisor does not provide enough support to help them manage their stress
Less than 5 percent [of employees] strongly agreed that their employer provides a safe environment for employees who live with mental illness”
Given these statistics, managers are front line workers in addressing the mental health crises of the American workforce.
Having a supportive manager is correlated with more happiness, less anxiety, and better mental health for the employee according to research from Mind’s Workplace Well-being Index 2018/19.
What do supportive managers do? According to Mind’s Workplace index, employees perceive managers as supportive when they:
Check in on the well-being of employees regularly
Express care and concern about what employees are feeling
Discuss workload distress and respond appropriately
Model well-being practices and openness about mental health
It should not be assumed that managers and leaders have the expertise to support the mental health and well-being of employees in this way, and an ineffective intervention has worse outcomes than no intervention at all.
This is not leaders’ fault. In this unique time of crises, organizations need to provide training and on-going support for managers, alongside an organization-wide focus on programs and structures that support mental health.
So where to start?
A great first step to meeting employee mental health needs it is to assess leaders’ comfort in talking about mental health and burnout at work, and their skills in implementing interventions to improve well-being.
I’ve provided a list of questions that can be used to conduct this assessment of needs. You can review these questions below in the text and download them as a handout at the end of this post.
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Are You a Leader Who Supports Mental Health?
Answer these self-assessment questions to find out.
Personal Experience with the Impact of Mental Health:
How have you or others you’ve cared about been affected by mental health and/or burnout?
How have you or others you’ve cared about sought help when mental health or burnout was at crises point?
Purpose of Questions: Finding a personal connection to the topic of mental health, creating common humanity with others who might be struggling right now, developing empathy, seeking moments of hope.
Modeling Self-Care and Well-Being Practices:
What practices do you use in caring for your own mental health and well-being?
When are your self-care tools effective for you? When are they less effective?
Purpose of Questions: Assessing leaders’ toolkits of well-being practices.
Comfort Discussing Mental Health with Others:
What fears do you have about discussing mental health with others at work—either your own mental health or the mental health of another employee?
What support do you need to feel more comfortable in these conversations?
Purpose of Questions: Uncovering pain points for leaders, determining where support is needed.
Providing Additional Support:
What resources does your organization provide to support the well-being and mental health of employees?
How do you build awareness of these resources on your team?
Purpose of Questions: Assessing awareness of resources and current level of advocacy.
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How to Use Assessment Results:
Use questions to guide a leadership team discussion and determine team-level interventions
Use questions (or selected questions) to create an anonymous, online survey for leaders and determine organization-level interventions
Complete the questions individually to determine personal interventions
As an example, if a leader realizes they have space for growth in the “Providing Additional Support” category, the intervention might be to reach out to an HR professional and ask for additional information about available mental health resources.
If a team uncovers a discomfort in crucial conversations around mental health, the intervention might be group coaching or training.
If you are planning to discuss these questions on teams, be aware that these can be personal and challenging conversations for some. Facilitators should consider establishing norms for the interaction. You can download a set I use frequently here.
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Downloadable Resources To Assess Mental Health Leadership Needs:
Interested in chatting about next steps to increase well-being and mental health in your organization? Reach out to me via the contact page and let’s chat. Here’s what other clients had to say about working with me!
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