March 11–12, 2025 | Wellesley, MA
From Stigma & Silence to Solutions:
Addressing Workforce Mental Health
through Systemic Change
Deaths of despair now permeate too many segments of our society. What role might employers play in confronting the inequities, stressors and mental health concerns that lead to such desperation?
It’s been said that we can’t “Yoga our way out” of a toxic work environment or culture. Companies are bringing more intentionality to mental health at work with solutions such as stigma reduction campaigns, resilience training, and mental health days. All of these strategies play a supporting role in promoting and protecting mental health, but they are not the main players in an upstream, preventive approach.
Healthy work cultures, environments and working conditions that address psychosocial job stressors and toxic practices not only enhance an employee’s mental and physical health,2,3 they also improve productivity, reduce turnover and minimize conflict between colleagues.3,4 On the other hand, the absence of systemic approaches can inadvertently contribute to and exacerbate an employee’s anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and, in extreme cases, death by suicide.2-8 Some examples of psychosocial job stressors and toxic practices include meaningless work, under-use of skills, work overload, inflexible work schedules, poor relationships with superiors, interpersonal conflict, harmful work behaviors, lack of social support, bullying, harassment and microaggressions.6,7,8
In 2022, the US Surgeon General released a Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being,2 and the World Health Organization published Guidelines on Mental Health at Work.3 These were designed to support organizations in rethinking their responsibility to employees, specifically how to protect them from harm, foster a sense of connection, show them that they matter, make space for their lives outside work, and support their growth. Still, employees with fair or poor mental health report 12 days/year unplanned absences, compared to 2.5 days/year for all other workers. This translates to an estimated $47.6 billion annually in lost productivity, signaling an opportunity to focus on the work environment.1
This HERO Forum will feature organization leaders with success stories and lessons learned from the workplace policies, environmental supports, culture, and climate initiatives that have been shown to improve the mental health of employees.
References
- Witters D, Agrawal S. The economic cost of poor employee mental health. Gallup Workplace. November 3, 2022. Updated December 13, 2022. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/404174/economic-cost-poor-employee-mental-health.aspx Accessed November 21, 2024
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Call to Action to Implement the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Available at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sprc-call-to-action.pdf. Accessed November 4, 2024.
- World Health Organization. Mental Health at Work: Policy Brief. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2022. Available at: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/363177/9789240053052-eng.pdf?sequence=1. Accessed November 4, 2022.
- Aquino PG Jr., Jalagat RC Jr., Ahmed KA, Zakai SN. Employees’ mental health and productivity and its impact on contextual and task performance in organizations. J Adv Res Dyn Control Syst. 2020;12(08-Special Issue):708. doi:10.5373/JARDCS/V12SP8/20202573.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, There were 267 workplace suicides in 2022 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/there-were-267-workplace-fatalities-by-suicide-in-2022.htm, accessed November 4, 2024.
- Rugulies R, Aust B, Greiner BA, et al. Work-related causes of mental health conditions and interventions for their improvement in workplaces. Lancet. 2023;402(10410):1368-1381. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00869-3
- Peek-Asa C, Zhang L, Hamann C, Davis J, Schwab-Reese L. Characteristics and Circumstances Associated with Work-Related Suicides from the National Violent Death Reporting System, 2013-2017. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(18):9538. doi:10.3390/ijerph18189538
- Howard MC, Follmer KB, Smith MB, Tucker RP, Van Zandt EC. Work and suicide: an interdisciplinary systematic literature review. J Organ Behav. 2021; 43(2): 260-285. doi:10.1002/job.2519
- Milner A, Witt K, LaMontagne AD, Niedhammer I. Psychosocial job stressors and suicidality: a meta-analysis and systematic review. Occup Environ Med. 2018;75(4):245-253. doi:10.1136/oemed-2017-104531
