Fostering good mental health in the workplace

Given the human and business cost of workplace stress, it’s little wonder a growing number of businesses are reaching out for help. Consider the experience of the Center for Workplace Mental Health, a division of the American Psychiatric Association that maintains a website for employers seeking assistance.

“Over the last five years the volume of requests that we’ve received has grown fourfold,” says Darcy Gruttadaro, director at the center.

Insurance companies can also provide assistance, and more employers are helping workers get the services they need by ensuring the company insurance program covers the requisite care.

“Part of the challenge is that the health care system has never been equitable in terms of providing services for, or paying claims of, mental or behavioral health care,” Dyme says. “Certainly not in the same way as they have the physical or medical side of things.”

While signing up for an appropriate plan is important, the fact remains that ensuring adequate care can still be elusive.

“You may have robust mental health coverage, but if you don’t have enough therapists and psychiatrists in the health network it amounts to a plan without a promise of care,” Gruttadaro says. “Furthermore, many psychiatrists and therapists do not accept insurance because they have experienced administrative burdens and low reimbursement rates in health plan networks.”

Another problem is a lack of sufficient personnel.

“Even if patients are lucky enough to find a practitioner in their network who takes new patients, they often must wait three to six months for an appointment,” Gruttadaro says.

Blue Cross Blue Shield estimates that 77 percent of U.S. counties are underserved by therapists. Scarce resources are an especially common problem in rural communities.

The work-from-home trend sparked by the pandemic has opened the door to telemedicine, expanding the pool of potential medical personnel to include practitioners far from a patient’s place of residence.

“Being able to connect to a psychiatrist or therapist through a computer has been a real plus,” Gruttadaro says.

Taking action

Traditionally, businesses have put the burden on individual employees to deal with the burnout and stress that can lead to mental health issues.

“Employers have always expected people to show up at the workplace and leave their problems at the door,” Hotchner says. “Today we know a lot more about human behavior, and we know that’s often not possible. People will put on a social face and avoid asking for any accommodations that might jeopardize their jobs. But because they have a hidden disability they are not able to give 100 percent.”

Times are changing, and today’s workers expect their employers to join in the mental health effort by providing a supportive workplace. That means taking steps such as adjusting workloads, encouraging autonomy, ensuring fairness and enhancing self-worth through reward and recognition.

“We encourage organizations to look critically internally, and make the required changes to ensure that people are not getting burned out, because that’s the fastest move toward the exit when it comes to people’s work experiences,” Gruttadaro says. “It is really important that we build cultures in which people want to be part of the organization when they go to work in the morning, whether they’re walking through an office door or firing up their home computer.”

Phillip M. Perry is an award-winning journalist who is published widely in the fields of business management, workplace psychology and employment law.

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