The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) conducted a survey of over 2000 adults working at companies with over 100 employees. This survey, collected in January of 2024, explored the state of employee’s mental health at work and found a hopeful but pressing image of mental health in America’s workforce. With mental health at a decline across America, studies like these shine an important light onto action steps we can take to improve employee mental health.
This article dives into their findings and what it means for employers and employees in today’s workforce.
How open are companies to discussing mental health at work?
Overall, NAMI found positive results from this question. 74% of employees say it is appropriate to discuss mental health concerns at work, and 77% say they would feel comfortable if their coworkers talked to them about their mental health at work.
However, there were marked disparities between what employees believed about their workplace and how they behaved—Only 58% say they would feel comfortable sharing about their own mental health at work.
⅓ say their mental health has suffered this year because of work, and 27% considered quitting in the last year because of how their job affected their mental health. Only 5% carried through and quit their job.
NAMI says “This gap between perceived appropriateness of discussing mental health and personal comfortability sharing about it at work suggests a key disconnect between perceived openness around mental health in the workplace and an individual willingness to discuss one’s own mental health.”
In order to increase mental health awareness and comfortability in the workplace, employers must find what is causing this gap between perceived openness and individual willingness.
The reporters found three key areas why employees are uncomfortable with sharing their mental health struggles in the workplace:
- Stigma
- Lack of communication
- Fear of retaliation
As we’ll discuss below, the NAMI researchers found applicable solutions to these three barriers.
What are work environments doing right and wrong?
Once again, NAMI found conflicting results. Although the majority (86%) of employees were satisfied with their ability to be themselves, 1 in 4 say they are not satisfied with their workplace culture.
And, although 4 in 5 are satisfied with the emotional support they receive from coworkers and supervisors, 52% have experienced burnout in their job in the past year. This number is higher in females, employees under 50, and mid-level employees (compared to entry-level employees).
Also, higher-ranking employees, CEOs, and managers were less likely to report burnout and dissatisfaction in the workplace, suggesting that there is a communication gap between higher and lower-ranking employees.
Overall, NAMI found a strong inverse correlation between comfortability talking about mental health and burnout. In other words, the more open the workplace culture was ti talking about mental health, the less likely employees were to report burnout.
What can employers do?
As far as action steps, NAMI was confident in their findings: more mental health training and more mental health care coverage.
92% say employer-sponsored mental healthcare coverage is important for creating a positive workplace culture. This majority sentiment is held regardless of gender, age, stage in career, or managerial status.
83% of employees think mental health and well-being training is or would be important in creating a positive workplace culture. This training should come from the top down, the study found: More than three-quarters of employees believe supervisors, HR, and senior leadership should be responsible for helping employees feel comfortable discussing mental health at work.
However, 7 in 10 executive and manager/director level employees report no mental health training.
The solution, then, is to provide more mental health training for higher-ups on mental health awareness and communication, with the end goal of creating a work environment that is open to talking about mental health and meeting mental health needs.
Employees also requested greater clarity in the mental health coverage their employers offer. 26% say they don’t even know if their company offers mental health care coverage, and many say it is confusing trying to sign up for or use their mental health coverage benefits.
All in all, employers can help cultivate a healthy workplace by providing better training to higher-up employees and greater clarity on mental health coverage.
Why does employee mental health matter? Happy employees are productive employees
Is the work to create a healthier and happier workspace worth it?
The science is sound: yes.
Not only does creating a mentally healthy workforce increase the longevity of employees and decrease turnover rates (saving employers on the cost of hiring and training), but happy employees are also more productive—around 13% more.
The case studies prove this too. For example, within mental health companies, the ones that prioritize therapist mental health in addition to client mental health frequently outperform, such as with Grow Therapy and Lifebulb.
As Daniel Belcher, CEO of Lifebulb puts it, “Our therapists are the heart and soul of our organization. We are deeply committed to creating an environment where they can thrive, grow, and provide the highest quality care to our clients. We believe that by investing in our therapists, we are investing in the well-being and happiness of those we serve.”
The research shows that investing in your employee’s mental health is well worth the expense. To do so, consider mental health training that teaches employees how to talk about their mental health, encourage good mental health practices like using all of their PTO and taking adequate lunch breaks, and be transparent about the mental health coverage you offer.
