10/23/2019

What Leaders Can do to Support Employees' Mental Health

Many employees don’t feel comfortable seeking help at work

Of all the things that workers want from their employers—good pay, attractive benefits, opportunities for career growth—one item is rising higher on the priority list: greater attention to mental health in the workplace, particularly by organizational leaders.

Although work-related stress, anxiety, and burnout are common, recent research says that the continued stigma around mental health problems means that many employees don’t feel comfortable seeking help at work. In a recent study by Mind Share Partners, SAP and Qualtrics summarized in Harvard Business Review, almost 60 percent of respondents said they had experienced symptoms of a mental health condition in the past year, and 60 percent of those had never spoken about it at work.

But “when conversations about mental health did occur, less than half were described as positive,” the researchers wrote. “In fact, respondents were the least comfortable talking with their company’s HR and senior leaders, although senior leaders, including CEOs, were just as likely to struggle with mental health symptoms as individual contributors.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.