Mental health in the workplace: The role of the employee

• Every member of an organization plays a role in promoting and shaping a culture where mental health takes priority
• Recognizing mental health while addressing “well-being shaming” is essential for creating a healthy and positive workplace culture
• While every individual manages their mental health differently, it is important to maintain an open dialogue and address multi-generational experiences

Mental health at work has emerged as a critical topic of discussion over the years. It is gaining increasing recognition as a cornerstone of overall employee well-being and organizational success.

As workplaces evolve to prioritize overall well-being, we sit down with Melissa Doman, MA  – Organizational Psychologist, Former Clinical Mental Health Therapist, and Author, to continue our conversation around mental health in the workplace to better understand the role of the employee in fostering mental health awareness and self-management at work.

Join us as we delve into the multifaceted dynamics of mental health in the workplace, exploring the responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities faced by employees in nurturing and managing their own mental health and fostering a supportive work environment for themselves and their colleagues.

HT: People often look to management or HR to “solve” mental health in the workplace. But should it fall only to them? Are we not ALL responsible for improving mental health in the workplace in some way?

Melissa Doman: Absolutely, it’s about finding a middle ground. Every individual in a company holds responsibility for their own mental health. While organizations have a duty to cultivate a psychologically safe work environment and provide resources for employee well-being, it’s equally important for employees and leaders alike to prioritize using these resources to support and manage their mental health individually.

Without the collective effort of both the employer and employee, progress stagnates or worse, regress occurs. It’s common for junior staff or individual contributors, early on in their careers, to shirk this responsibility, but ultimately, everyone must contribute – regardless of tenure – because everyone is a chronologically aged adult.

Although, senior leaders do play a pivotal role in setting examples and fostering a healthy work culture. Toxic work environments, while they absolutely need to be addressed and do account for quite a large impact on the workforce, don’t excuse individuals from individually managing their mental health – as what impacts mental health is not just the workplace (i.e. family, home life, finances, physical health, relationships, social issues, etc.). However, if it’s clear that a toxic work environment has shown that it’s unwilling to change, the responsibility also falls on the individual to make the decision of whether or not they want to stay in the organization. However, that is not always an option as some individuals cannot leave their jobs given larger extenuating circumstances like personal finances, career path, etc.

Ultimately, improving mental health in the workplace is a shared responsibility that requires commitment from all levels of the organization.

HT: Would you say there is a role for employees to be more proactive when it comes to being involved in the decision-making process regarding the types of mental health policies they would like to see in the workplace?

Melissa Doman: There’s a role for employees to play in providing useful feedback to the organization to help shape mental health policies in the workplace, but it’s essential to recognize the limitations of this process. While organizations strive to accommodate diverse needs, they ultimately can’t cater to every individual’s preference due to the sheer complexity and variety of needs that make up a workforce.

The goal is to create a healthy environment and provide resources that will help as many people as possible, in the best way possible through:

Communication: Employees must constructively express their needs to management. This allows the organization to actively listen to what would help the workforce, not what the organization thinks will be helpful.

Participation in employee resource groups: There is a strong movement that has been occurring in the last few years around employee resource groups (ERG). There has been a growing movement encouraging the formation of ERGs in organizations, where employees can self-organize around shared interests or commonalities to provide a shared space to have conversations around those topics and/or raise awareness of them throughout the organization. The development of mental health and well-being ERGs has been growing rapidly across industries, showing demonstrable feedback from employees of the appreciation that they exist. From internal awareness campaigns to running support groups, to hosting internal speakers. Some ERGs are even given budgets from the organization to ensure that the group can run successfully and have the resources they need to do so.

However, companies can lean far too hard on their ERGs, where then the employees themselves become fully responsible for driving change without the company’s involvement.

When employees can drive change, organizations still need to support them. While these groups can become self-sustaining in some ways, they don’t absolve the company from implementing change that is in the best interest of all employees.

HT: Employers can give resources to employees for mental health and make sure the work environment is psychologically safe for workers to engage with those resources. When it comes to managing individual mental health, what’s the role of employees?

Melissa Doman: There is an individual responsibility for the employee to manage their mental health, but that doesn’t excuse the employer from the environment they may create. When the organization’s environment is toxic, for example, this could negatively impact the mental health of employees.

It is a multi-dimensional approach requiring a balancing act between the understanding that employees are adults who need to manage their mental health and that it is individual to them. Employees get to choose how to manage their own mental health. As long as you have the resources and can afford to use them, employees are responsible for owning their own mental health, and participating in and creating conversation to the extent they are comfortable with.

Having said that, it is hard for people to manage their mental health or heal themselves if the environment is making them feel sick.

HT: Employees often feel guilty for looking after their mental health during work hours (i.e. going for a walk, the gym, or taking a break when needed). How can we reduce this sense of guilt and establish these activities as the norm?

Melissa Doman:  This sense of guilt is often a result of the work environment and it often emerges within successful companies, evolving faster than individuals can manage. Leaders, preoccupied with financial success, may neglect workplace culture. Some may even actively foster toxicity to achieve desired outcomes, such as profit or control. Money and power can reinforce this dynamic, deterring change.

Toxic culture manifests in various forms, from constant connectivity expectations to guilt over work-life balance. Undoing its effects takes time due to its deep-rooted nature.

It can include aggressive communication, lack of feedback, and punishment for expressing feelings of stress. Shifting entrenched cultures requires concerted effort, acknowledging its existence, and committing to a slow, multi-step process of change, often with setbacks.

Employers must stop guilting and shaming people for engaging in perfectly healthy life management tactics to take care of their emotional and physical health and not making work the end all, be all in their life. I’ve dubbed this process ‘well-being shaming’. So what does this sound like? I have heard countless stories from people, and I encountered this myself, where let’s say, for example:

• someone goes for a run at lunchtime, or
• someone goes to pick up their kids from school maybe two, three, or four days a week, or
• someone finishes their work when the workday is finished.

They would encounter passive-aggressive comments either from their colleagues or their boss that sound like:

• must be nice to not have to work late or,
• must be nice to be able to go for a run at lunchtime, or
• I wish I had your available time.

Where individuals are subtly criticized for prioritizing self-care, this behavior can stem from various motives, including conformity, insecurity, or jealousy. Despite evidence supporting the benefits of work-life balance initiatives, some organizations still condone shaming, demonstrating the need for continued awareness and vigilance.

It’s essential to recognize that human beings can be naturally resistant to differing opinions. While prioritizing mental and physical health shouldn’t excuse neglecting work responsibilities, it’s crucial to balance both aspects.

Rather than reacting defensively, take ownership of your actions and initiate a constructive dialogue with the individual expressing disapproval. This approach involves explaining the rationale behind self-care practices and inviting the other person to share their perspective without assuming their motives. However, it’s important to acknowledge that not all situations may permit such open communication, particularly in highly toxic environments that lack psychological safety.

In an effort to help individuals prioritize their well-being in a meaningful way, I created this concept called the ‘Mental Wellbeing Non-Negotiables™’. The whole point behind it is that people will go out of their way to prioritize other critical well-being activities, and I felt that managing mental health should be on that list. The Mental Wellbeing Non-Negotiables™ concept encourages the principle of individual accountability to tailor and personalize how we manage our mental health because no one else will do it for us – and definitely not the wellness industry. These non-negotiables should be tailored to individual preferences and pursued consistently, regardless of external pressures, with the exception of illness, injury, and emergent circumstances. Ultimately, prioritizing emotional self-care in a personally meaningful and sustainable way is key to navigating the challenges of a toxic culture, “well-being shaming”, and what life throws at us every day.

HT: How is the next generation of employees affecting how we address mental health in the workplace? What do intergenerational conversations look like about mental health at work these days?

Melissa Doman: I’m going to go back to that good old concept of separateness. In intergenerational conversations about mental health at work, there’s often a tendency for different generations to try to persuade each other of their viewpoints. Human beings don’t typically respond well to being pulled towards someone’s side. We inherently tend to resist.

Certain generations were born at a time when not only did these conversations not exist, but neither did the nomenclature around them.

Blaming them for this isn’t fair, as they couldn’t know what wasn’t known. On the other hand, newer generations may struggle with patience towards older generations’ slower acceptance of mental health dialogue. The newer generations were raised in a more mentally aware society where there was more social permission to talk about mental health. There was more encouragement to share with others.

Conversely, we also see the older generations sometimes criticizing the younger generations for wanting to discuss mental health in the workplace as a form of ‘cop-out’ for the general stress that work may bring, which also isn’t fair to place on the younger generations just because they’re advocating for their emotional well-being in a way that older generations weren’t given permission to.

Just because the information is available and just because the permission is here doesn’t mean that the people who never had it are able or willing to jump on that wagon. While the younger generations have done well to advocate for mental health, they need to recognize the learning curve older generations face. It’s crucial to find commonality across the generations around shared fears, struggles, and misunderstandings, and build bridges rather than finger-pointing or assuming generational differences. This approach fosters understanding and moves the conversation forward positively.

HT: With the increased awareness of mental health in the workplace, are some people abusing this progress? Or using it as an ‘excuse’ not to develop the everyday resilience that we all need to some degree?

Melissa Doman: Absolutely, yes. In the workplace, some individuals exploit the growing acceptance of discussing mental health struggles for personal gain. Some misuse mental health disclosures as excuses to avoid everyday stresses or responsibilities, knowing that such disclosures are protected information. Some people have taken it in such a direction that when they experience any discomfort, they will use it as a reason to blame the environment. But feeling some level of discomfort is just part of being alive and part of getting older and becoming an adult. This abuse undermines the genuine needs of those experiencing mental health challenges. It’s crucial to distinguish between legitimate breaks for mental health and using mental health as an excuse to shirk responsibilities.

Additionally, there’s a debate across generations about what resilience truly entails. While some older generations advocate for pushing through adversity no matter the cost to accomplish the goal, true resilience is your ability to bounce back healthily from adversity (not to your own detriment). Conversely, some younger individuals may prematurely withdraw from challenges, missing opportunities for growth. There’s a very fine line between going through stress and going through what that brings up and knowing what your limits are. It’s almost like the standard deviations of what someone can handle and then understanding their different grades and that you might be pushed one standard deviation, two, three, and what those look like.

Amidst these discussions, it’s important to recognize the global stressors impacting everyone and equip the workforce with the skills to navigate these challenges constructively. We will always encounter stress in some way, and it’s good to unplug from that sometimes. But if you do it so much, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to learn how to stay present in discomfort and deal with adversity and potential consequences.

The world is not getting any less stressful and we’re working more. On any given day, our nervous systems and our brains are exposed to so many different stressors and pieces of information that leave a residue that we may not be aware of until it’s too late.

Ultimately, fostering open conversations about mental health in the workplace is essential for supporting employees’ well-being.