Is mental health a workplace issue?

Welcome back to the Evolving Workplace Newsletter, where we will explore the changing nature of teams, collaboration, and the future of work. 

If this is your first step toward the future design of work, you can learn more about me and what I do here.

In the fall of 2019, my friend and collaborator, Connie Noonan Hadley, and I began research for our MIT Sloan Management Review article, Are Your Team Members Lonely? While the pandemic certainly impacted our research, loneliness at the workplace isn’t going anywhere, even with the return of face-to-face work.

So much of our research on teams has been rooted in finding the most effective structures and solutions for the workplace, but it’s led us to some much deeper findings about mental health and collaboration. As Connie and I say in our article, “While loneliness is often thought of as a personal issue, it is an organizational issue as well.” Which leads me to my next question, how much of our mental health is an organizational, workplace issue? 

We’ve seen article after article on burnout, the great resignation, and resilience. In an uncaring workplace, not only will your employees seek out a different employer that prioritizes the wellbeing of their employees, but also, the remaining employees will not perform at their best. With an impending recession and increasing layoffs, motivation is not at its highest. People are more tuned in to their mental health, and organizations should follow suit. 

Some of these solutions are objective oriented. In Daniel Stein, Nick Hobson, Jon M. Jachimowicz, and Ashley Whillans’s HBR article, How Companies Can Improve Employee Engagement Right Now, they offer three primary suggestions: “(a) help employees connect what they do to what they care about, (b) make the work itself less stressful and more enjoyable, and (c) reward employees with additional time off, in addition to financial incentives.” As we discussed in What if the Great Resignation is a good thing?, people are more connected with their priorities and values. We want fulfillment that aligns with our personal life, work, and play, which is most easily achieved through prioritizing and working toward goals and aspirations. Employees can define those values for themselves, and organizations can support them. 

Other solutions are more clearly rooted in how we typically think of self-care and mental health. In Ron Carucci’s HBR article, Keeping Your Team Motivated When the Company Is Struggling, he says, “First, understand that motivate isn’t a verb. It’s a choice. It’s not something you can do to or for others. What you can do is create the conditions in which those you lead choose to be as motivated as circumstances will allow.” He offers several great solutions, mostly rooted in mental health awareness and transparency, like “showing care and appreciation to struggling employees,” “foster community,” “model self-care,” and “demonstrate resilience.”

Ron Carucci also mentions a client venting to him, saying, “Am I supposed to be everyone’s therapist now?” The increased demands for compassion and mental health awareness in the workplace are launching leaders into an unfamiliar world: not only are they running companies through a difficult time, they are also expected to have a whole new area of expertise. In their HBR article, Erin L. Kelly, Lisa F. Berkman, Laura D. Kubzansky, and Meg Lovejoy provide 7 Strategies to Improve Your Employees’ Health and Well-Being. It may seem daunting, but “the good news for managers is that there are feasible ways to redesign work to support well-being and yield long-term benefits to the organization.” And remember, Leaders Don’t Have to Choose Between Compassion and Performance, as Heidi Gardner and I cover in our HBR article. It’s not easy, particularly at a time “when there’s no room for compromising on outcomes.” How do we deliver both compassion and performance in a sustainable way?

With a background in engineering, my impulse is to do the research and provide a solution, but there isn’t a one-size-fits all fix, especially when it comes to people. We’re all doing our best to function in an unstable world, reconnect with our values, and build lives that support our greatest aspirations. A little compassion goes a long way. The most important thing is that you continuously check in with yourself and your employees. Together, we can build more sustainable, mutually beneficial work environments.

The world is changing, and so is the workplace. Subscribe to The Evolving Workplace Newsletter to learn more about the changing nature of teams, collaboration, and the future of the workplace, or connect with me via email: mark.mortensen@insead.edu.