Leading by example to support employee mental health in the workplace

• Stigma around mental health challenges in the workplace has reduced in recent years
• Leaders have a key role to play in fostering mentally healthy workplaces
• Supporting mental wellness has long-term benefits for organizations

Research has found that over half of the employed population globally have experienced, or are experiencing mental health challenges, with 12 billion working days lost every year to depression and anxiety.^1,2 Given that the average person spends 35 hours per week at work, it is important to understand how workplaces can protect and promote employee mental health.^2,3

Healthcare Transformers spoke to Sheryl Ziegler, Therapist, Author, TEDx speaker, and Podcast Host, about how attitudes to employee mental health at work are changing, and how she believes leaders can support wellness in the workplace.

HT: How have you seen employee mental health awareness evolve in the workplace over the last decade?

Sheryl Ziegler: From 2014 to 2020 it was a slow evolution in terms of recognizing things like the impact of stress and burnout, but as a result of the pandemic we’ve seen an exponential change. 

Reduced stigma is probably the most dramatic change that I’ve seen, including normalizing conversations around depression or anxiety, or challenges that people are going through. That’s something that wasn’t happening prior to 2020. 

There are now employee resource groups (ERGs) that are around either just mental health, or ‘mental wellness’. I see it a lot where an ERG might make a fun challenge, like: “We’re going to meditate every day” or “We’re going to road bike during lunch”! Whatever it might be, what’s interesting is, even if they say this is our ‘wellness group’ or our ‘health and fitness group’, they seem to be able to acknowledge employee mental health needs, and what else happens when you get out and move or meditate. So that’s been really exciting, the integration of mental health into an overall healthcare model or approach. 

HT: What are some of the most common workplace behaviors or policies that contribute to employee burnout and stress?

Sheryl Ziegler: On a continuum of stress, we have stress which is a normal, everyday part of our lives. Then you have chronic stress where the body is trying to adjust to higher levels of stress for longer periods of time. Eventually, the system shuts down and you get exhausted, and exhaustion is pretty synonymous with  burnout. At that burnout level employees can become critical and cynical about the workplace culture, team, or job.

Some of the common workplace behaviors that can contribute to burnout are: 

• Excessive workloads: In many industries there will be periods of time where we all know that the workload goes up and people can anticipate it. We know that it’s for a limited amount of time, and then things may return back to a more manageable baseline. When we look at employees who report burnout, they report that the workload is excessive and stays at a high level. 
• Lack of clarity in the role: Not only might you have a high workload, but you may also have a lack of clarity around expectations from your boss or other management personnel. This can also lead to high levels of stress. 
• Being micromanaged: People don’t like being micromanaged. They like being given authority and autonomy. Having somebody whose management style is to be very involved in the details of what’s going on, or even shifting expectations from what was expected at the outset, will often lead to high levels of resentment and cynicism. 
• Lack of boundaries: Someone may set a strong boundary like, “Next week I am going on vacation. I will not be reachable at that time,” but then their boss calls during the vacation and they don’t know what to do. Maintaining the boundary becomes a huge challenge, and if somebody has to do that repeatedly it can cause a lot of stress. 
• Lack of organization-based self-esteem: People who lack organization-based self-esteem tend to burn out quicker. What that means is that your job title isn’t just ‘Engineer’ or ‘Head of Marketing’. You have the title, but you also have what we call organization-based self-esteem around that title, or around your position in the organization that says, ‘I know what I uniquely bring to this space and I get reinforced for that’. This doesn’t have to be something intellectual, it could be, ‘People think I am the most creative solution finder in the room’, or, ‘I remember birthdays, I bring in donuts on Friday mornings’. Whatever it might be, every employee should know what they uniquely bring to the table, how they are acknowledged for it, and it should be something that makes them feel good. If they don’t have that, it tends to lead to higher levels of stress.
• Poor compensation: This is the last one and generally does tend to lead to people feeling like they are not valued. It can lead to poor motivation and less engagement within their job or role on a team. Along these lines, a lack of support, and a lack of growth opportunities can also lead people to chronic stress.

HT: How do you suggest leaders in high-pressure industries, like healthcare, balance productivity demands with fostering a mentally healthy workplace?

Sheryl Ziegler: This is really quite a challenging task because you want mentally healthy employees, and companies of course want high quality productivity. I would say that right now we are at an intersection of trying to figure it out. Stage one in my mind is for companies to recognize that mental health issues have a significant impact on our workforce, on our productivity, and that there’s a very strong economic impact.

The next stage is supporting employees while running efficient companies.  What I see is that it starts at the top. 

• Role modeling:  Incorporating mental health practices into a company is not something that you can just talk about. We have research to say that leaders need to model it. Leaders might tell their team to take vacation days, or not to answer emails or phone calls past a certain time. But, what we know is that if employees do not see that the leaders are actually doing it, they are way less likely to maintain those boundaries themselves. They may feel that in order to get promoted or move forward in the company, or even just keep their job, they must also work outside of designated times or hours. 
• Embracing data: By and large, the data says that people are more productive when they take breaks. For some people, they can power nap. For some people, they might take both lunch and a 20- or 30-minute walk, and actually people are more creative and productive. However, without making people aware of this data, management may become scared or nervous about letting employees work one hour less.
• Empowering employees: Particularly at a workplace, autonomy or decision-making are attributes that people really connect to their mental health. Their locus of control, their sense of being able to have their own schedule with flexibility, and decision-making power is usually correlated with their sense of being able to manage stress, being able to handle anxiety, and the demands of a high-pressure job.

HT: How important is leadership in creating a workplace culture that supports employee mental health, and what specific actions can leaders take to set the tone?

Sheryl Ziegler: It’s inherent in the name of it, that one of the things that leadership can do is to lead the way. It might not be company wide, maybe the company is just too big, or maybe it’s a start-up and they haven’t really yet established the full culture, but as a leader who’s got mental health and stress management top of mind, you say, “We’re going to try something new and I’m going to try to be really good about it myself.” 

You can create mini cultures within a larger culture in which number one is psychological safety. It is safe to disagree with each other respectfully. It is safe to bring forth new ideas. It is safe to bring forth your perspective without being cut off, we are mindful of microaggressions. If you’ve got a leader who can do that, even within their own team, this is how you create psychological safety. 

You also want to collect data and you want to readjust as needed. Don’t wait until the end of the year to say, “Oh yeah, that one initiative we did, we worked on it, but it really wasn’t successful”. If you’re checking in frequently you can say, “Hey, you know, we talked about flexible Fridays, but actually it seems like maybe it’s Monday mornings that seem to be more where you guys are leaning that you want to have some flexibility?”.

So that’s the kind of agility and the kind of reciprocity in communication that I think really sets a leader up to lead the way through their actions and their behaviors and creates the safety that people need.

HT: What role does clear communication and transparency play in mitigating employee mental health challenges during organizational transitions?

Sheryl Ziegler: Change causes great anxiety for employees. Human beings are creatures of habit, and we find safety in routine and consistency. Transformation is probably a more positive way of trying to communicate that.

However, a lot of times it feels like the information around transformation or change is in a vault. Leadership teams at very high levels are working really hard at figuring out how the deal’s going to work, how the merger or acquisition is going to work, and throughout that process, while those leaders are really working very, very hard to figure out the transformation, everyone around them is in the dark.

That dynamic is pretty common, and so one of the things that I would suggest is, as a leader, consider what amount of information or what bits of information you can  share. Create a very cognizant sense that on a regular basis, leaders are trying to calm people’s fears, shift people’s anxieties, and be reassuring in a way that’s realistic.

HT: What are the long-term benefits for companies that invest in their employees’ mental health?

Sheryl Ziegler: We’re really starting to get some information around this, which is exciting.

Number one is increased productivity and performance, and it sometimes feels counterintuitive. How does less time working increase productivity, creativity, and performance? Very simply put, when you can manage stress you are more focused. Stress causes us to have cognitive decline, meaning that you do not think as clearly, you forget things, your memory goes. You have more irritability, and those kinds of factors contribute to your ability to be creative and productive. You’re more likely to be thinking about the stress that’s on your mind, or maybe looking things up online, or be more fatigued. If a majority of employees at lunchtime are actually eating a healthy meal and then they are outside in nature, they are exercising, they are walking, they are having social connection, then stress is reduced and they’re able to focus more.

Another one is we see reduced absenteeism, and we see less turnover. People have greater satisfaction when they work somewhere where they feel the company is supporting mental wellness. Some companies have expanded benefits in which their family members also have the ability to tap into some of these resources, or they have employee assistance programs in which people can get all sorts of help or aid or free psychotherapy sessions. Due to these expansive benefits, employees are less likely to be looking around for a job, and if they do, if the benefits don’t compare, they don’t want to go. So, there’s a really positive impact that we know has a very clear economic impact as well.

You also get more improved commitment, and the more committed somebody is, the more likely they are to handle stress well. Basically, we are creating a positive culture. It attracts higher quality employees, lowers healthcare costs, and lowers disability loss, so there are some really sizable positive impacts from companies investing in their employees’ mental wellness that leads to the kind of dedication and long-term employment that many companies really desire.