Is Your Workplace Mentally Healthy?

Businesses face challenges from numerous angles, and leaders are tasked with understanding and addressing them. Many resources and case studies have helped leaders learn how to deal with things like competitive analysis, gaining market share, employee engagement, cost reduction, and manufacturing efficiencies. But a hidden challenge has made itself more prominent in recent years, and much of it goes unacknowledged by management: the mental illness of employees.

Data continues to show that the mental health of an organization’s staff is critical in determining how well an organization functions. Weakened mental health is a silent enemy, and it takes a keen understanding of its nature, causes, and solutions to address it effectively. According to the Johns Hopkins Mental Health in the Workplace Summit, mental illness is the leading cause of disability for U.S adults under the age of 44.

Many leaders unknowingly run organizations hampered by employee disability due to mental illness. Some leaders don’t see it, others don’t want to. It is a very real issue that inhibits organizations, yet many in leadership fail to address it. But with the proper approach, leaders can effectively help their people recover and maintain their mental health.

The Cost of Mental Illness

Studies show that people are greatly affected by their work environment. Their experiences, pressures, and failures take a toll, often chipping away at their mental health. As technology accelerates the speed of commerce—and as a result, its demands and shortcomings—a greater percentage of the workforce is squeezed in the vice we call progress. It has become a chronic problem.

The World Health Organization posted in a recent publication that worker mental illness, in its various forms, costs the global economy over $1 trillion each year. Employee absenteeism is more heavily caused by mental illness than physical illness or injury according to the Mental Health in the Workplace summit. One in five adults in the U.S. experience a form of mental illness and less than half are getting treated. A survey of office employees conducted by workplace consultants Peldon Rose reveal that three out of four employees would like their employer to oversee mental health initiatives, with workable plans and treatment opportunities. Ninety-five percent claim that their work environment is an important factor in their state of wellbeing and mental health.

I encounter many leaders who have a bigger issue on their hands than they realize: their workplace can cause their people great distress in ways that don’t surface to the passing eye. This, in turn, causes diminished effectiveness and organizational output. Attitudes suffer, and the cycle perpetuates. Mental distress causes abnormal behavior and responses. Anger, impatience, apathy, silence, and disengagement are observed responses by those experiencing mental illness.

The mental illnesses of concern aren’t degenerative clinical disorders. The most common problems involve depression, anxiety, and fear. These are no longer dismissed as emotional phases or passing stages. Experts have come to regard extended seasons of these as ailments, due to their lasting impacts, debilitating effects, and the need for treatment.

With mental illness in the workforce, organizations experience abnormal turnover, communication breakdown, dissatisfied customers, and shrinking profits. It benefits every leader to understand this growing issue and learn how to meet the mental health needs of their people.

What do you think? Is your workplace healthy? Have you observed abnormal behavior in your workplace? How is it addressed?  Contact me here to discuss this topic in more detail.