- Key insight: Discover how manager-led interventions curb chronic workplace mental strain.
- What's at stake: Productivity, decision quality and retention suffer without early intervention.
- Expert quote: "Check in proactively; point people to benefits," says Jenna Glover, Headspace.
Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review
More than 90% of employees report
Top drivers of stress at work include unclear priorities (47%), job security concerns (37%) pace of organizational change (29%) and
For employers, workers' lack of communication with managers represents a missed opportunity to get in front of these issues before they lead to long-term problems for the employees and the company, said Jenna Glover, Headspace's chief clinical officer.
"Chronic strain has a huge impact on workers' ability to be productive in a variety of different areas," she said. "In terms of the infrastructure, we have to train managers to check in on this on a consistent, proactive basis."
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Setting managers up for success
Glover emphasized the important role managers play in employees' mental health — as much as their spouse or partner and more so than their doctor or therapist, according to a study by UKG's Workforce Institute, a global think tank and research group. These three things are essential for managers to successfully support their team members, she said:
- Training on how to meet with employees one-on-one, ask good questions and actively listen;
- Training on company benefits so they can highlight them regularly and direct employees to them in times of need;
- Benefits must be easily accessible so employees are more likely to follow through with seeking care.
In her weekly one-on-ones with her team, Glover asks them to rank their workload on a scale of 1 to 10. If the number they give is on the higher end, there is a conversation about how to create a more sustainable balance. This allows her to get a pulse on people even when they don't actively say something is wrong, she explained. She also communicates about a specific benefit each month, and if she observes a specific need with an individual, she can send them a direct link, such as a QR code, to an offering that can be of use.
"Most EAPs wait until people are completely broken and in crisis. We are moving to a point where you need more preventative, everyday support for people that are built into their workflow," she said. "We know it takes people typically six to seven times of hearing something before they're able to absorb it, so managers are your primary opportunity to make sure that this message is getting out to as many employees as possible and catching them in the moments where they actually need it."
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Building benefits into manager's relationships with their teams is a straightforward way to increase awareness and usage, strengthen employees' mental wellness, and reduce the chance of burnout and turnover, Glover said. She points to the strong impact of wellness offerings that help with key areas such as sleep, nutrition and movement in addition to those labeled directly for mental health.
"If you're not being intentional about this, you're just going to churn and burn people at a higher level than we've seen before," she said. "Just giving managers a few tips, like, 'You don't have to be responsible for solving an employee's problem, but you can compassionately listen, have literacy of [our] benefits, and easily point people to them.'"
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Keeping managers healthy
For managers to be good at keeping tabs on their team, they need to be taken care of, too. This includes the right training to handle both operational expectations and their employees' needs, Glover said.
"They really are the gears that keep the whole organization running — especially your middle management — and they probably have the most stressful job of managing down and managing up," she said. "How are you ensuring their mental health? They are going to be the ones to cascade that down, so that point is really critical."
Headspace offers mental health coaching to anyone in the company, but the training program is particularly popular among leaders. Offering opportunities and time during work hours to build these types of skills helps managers show up better for those they direct, said Glover.
"Mental health is not the absence of mental illness, and it isn't something you fix, it's a habit that you practice every single day," she stressed. "If you want to support someone … you have to strengthen their ability to effectively recover and restore and regulate, so think about where there are gaps in your strategy in terms of employees practicing and learning those skills. I hear [people say] emotion regulation and stress modulation are soft skills. I say, no, those are essential skills for the workforce now."
