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Destigmatizing Mental Health In The Workplace Starts At The Top

Santiago Villegas

01/06/2021

Mental health is a topic that is rarely discussed in the workplace despite the fact it impacts every employee. This culture of silence creates an environment in which being open about personal difficulties is often stigmatized, shamed and viewed as a weakness. While this has been the way many organizations have chosen to operate, it isn’t healthy or beneficial for a company or its employees. 

Often, those who express their struggles with mental health at work are perceived by their co-workers and superiors as being “weak.” Being perceived as weak in corporate America can definitely stall or even circumvent your growth. Many workplaces encourage toxic behavior and idolize an idea that the “successful worker” never tires, doesn’t need balance and is unfazed by outside influences. Employees who voice concerns or are open about struggles are often deemed weak, complainers or not as dedicated. Struggling in silence and stepping on colleagues in order to move up the corporate ladder have been staples of the American workplace, but they are destructive and toxic, and they exacerbate the problem.

It might be easy to treat mental health as a personal problem for employees to address on their own, but this would be a mistake at both a human and business level. When employees can't openly communicate their difficulties, they are more likely to struggle at work. Poor mental health and stress can affect an employee’s job performance, productivity and engagement. Research shows that over 200 million workdays are lost due to mental health conditions each year yet the topic remains taboo, with almost 60% of employees reporting that they have never spoken to anyone at work about their mental health status. One study recently found that only 38% of employees said leadership takes proactive steps to create a healthy workplace culture, and only 28% agreed that their leaders would be willing to have difficult conversations. The same report stated that nearly one in five American workers have left a job in the past five years due to bad company culture, which has cost an estimated $223 billion for companies over the same amount of time. Destigmatizing conversations around mental health and creating open lines of dialogue are critical. Any company seeking to create a nurturing and conducive work environment needs to take these issues seriously. 

Companies must create an environment that normalizes open conversations around mental health. It must start at the top, with leadership taking the first step in being transparent and honest about their own struggles. If leadership doesn’t model this behavior, employees will likely hide any issues of their own in an effort to mimic their superiors. Leading with empathy and listening when employees are hurting is essential to creating shifts within a company's culture. That change alone can make an impact on how mental health is seen and addressed in the workplace. According to one study by Teladoc Health, 45% of employees said they would be more likely to seek mental health support if there were more open conversations on the topic in their workplace. If they are comfortable, executives should lead and discuss their own struggles. Humanizing yourself shows employees they aren’t alone and that others have been through similar struggles. This goes a long way toward removing shame. Through transparent and honest communication, employees who feel uncomfortable with mental health can see themselves through others' experiences, which can be comforting and healing.

In my organization, we’ve had extremely productive team members who have shown signs of stress from trying to balance the challenge of working from home and child care during the pandemic. We could have watched them struggle, done nothing and waited for them to resign. Instead, we asked them directly, and they spoke candidly about the issues they were having. The culture of openness we cultivated helped us negotiate a new work schedule that allowed them to better manage work, home life and the stress created by the above. This only worked because talking about mental health is a regular practice from top to bottom in our organization. This valuable team member could have been a lost asset if we had ignored their issues or if we hadn’t made a safe space to come up with solutions together. 

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    Mental Health

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