11 practical ways managers can support employee mental health

Employers can be such a force for good in the lives of their employees. But with so many individuals to take care of and the responsibilities of legal compliance, this can weigh heavily on management’s shoulders.

This list of 11 practical things to support employees’ good mental health is a useful place to start to share some of that load.

Why mental health is so important for your company

Deloitte’s fourth report, ‘Mental health and employers: the case for investment’, contains some interesting findings that illustrate why employee mental health is important to employers.

The bad news first:

• Cost of poor mental health to UK employers is £51bn per year (Down from £55bn in 2021)
• Presenteeism is the biggest element of this statistic, costing employers £24bn
• Absence due to sickness cost £7bn
• Staff turnover costs £20bn
• Working parents' worry over their child/ren's mental health costs employers an additional £8bn, on top of the £51bn

The good news:

• 64% of 18-24 year olds say their overall mental health is good
• 58% of all respondents say their mental health is good or excellent
• Employers can get an average ROI of £4.70 for every £1 spent on employee mental health and wellbeing

Research author and Deloitte partner, Elizabeth Hampson concludes:
“Employers are increasingly putting mental health and wellbeing at the heart of their business and providing effective mental health support for their people. The benefits of providing targeted support for employees are clear and compelling.

“Employers need concrete evidence to make informed decisions about how to invest in workplace mental health programmes and maximise benefits, including financial returns. We hope to inspire employers to take stock of the importance of their people’s wellbeing and mental health and put in place effective interventions to support their people, including working parents.”

Managers should focus on creating a nurturing work environment where individuals can be honest and receive appropriate levels of support.

It’s clear that prioritising mental health support isn’t just crucial for individuals to thrive, but also for businesses to be as productive as possible.

11 practical things you can do to support employee mental health

If someone breaks a bone, there are standard treatments that work for everyone. This isn’t the same for mental health and work-related stress issues, which makes it a bit trickier to navigate.

Each employee is different, will react to the same situation in different ways, and will need the right kind of help for them. Your approach needs to be flexible to allow for the individual humans that are attached to the payroll numbers.

There are a range of different types of interventions and support that you can offer. No one’s expecting you to become an expert in mental health. Just curate a good range of support, so you can point people to their options and find the best thing for them.

You and your managers need to know your employers as people - at least, as much of themselves as they usually share at work. Then you’ll be in a better place to recognise any signs of mental ill-health and they know you’re someone who listens without judgement.

Here’s how to create a mental health safety net for as many of your employees as possible.

1. Regular check-ins with employees

Make talking about workplace challenges and overall well-being the norm in your organisation. Schedule regular meetings with your employees to discuss exactly these issues.

To encourage employees to trust you with their honesty, you need to put listening at the top of the agenda. It’s a risk for people to reveal negative emotions about their workplace, to their management. There’s a real fear of repercussions, or personal judgements, that impact their ability to make a living.

You need to be consistent in your approach and meet each individual where they are right now. Hearing their concerns and empathising with their feelings is one way you can get a truthful picture of your real workplace environment and how your people are actually doing, in themselves.

2. Promote a healthy work-life balance

There are all kinds of practical adjustments you can make for your employees to promote a healthy work-life balance for everyone. Of course, it depends on the type of work, but you can consider options like:

• Remote work – where everything can be done on screen
• Flexible hours – like variable start/finish times, rather than a rigid 9 to 5 workday
• Compressed workweeks – where all the work still gets done in, for example, 4 days instead of 5

It’s important to make sure that all managers and supervisors ensure that everyone gets their regular breaks at reasonable times. Also, monitor holiday usage to make sure all employees take their holidays within the agreed dates, so they have adequate time to recharge.

You should never contact employees outside their working hours unless there’s an emergency situation. Or, if you prefer to send emails at night, make it very clear that you don’t expect them to be read until employees are at work.

Lead by example

If it’s appropriate, be vulnerable and discuss your own need for work-life balance. Maybe even share that you learned this the hard way and don’t want to see anyone else stumble down the path to burnout.

What do you do to keep your work-life balance on an even keel? Talk about what you do in the evening, at the weekend, on holiday – really lead by example. Being real with your employees cultivates their trust and improves their connection to you at a human level.

3. Provide mental health resources and policies

Your mental health policy needs to be a living document that adapts to new research, laws, and changes in your organisation. Ideally, employees feel a sense of ownership over the mental health policy because they had some input in its creation.

Your policy will make it clear to everyone where they can get support, inside and outside your organisation. Include as wide a variety of resources as possible, so all individuals can find what best suits them.

Depending on your organisation, these may be internal resources that are delivered onsite, or external resources that are local or digital such as:

• Counselling services
• Mental health professionals
• Wellness days – that offer a range of wellbeing strategies
• Other support services - that advise on broader issues that affect mental health, like Citizens’ Advice
• Mental health hotlines – company-run ones specific to your industry or a particular issue (like addiction), generally available phone lines like The
• Samaritans
• Local workshops
• Wellness apps – like sleep meditations
• Online courses that offer support with wellness or mental ill health issues, like anxiety

4. Create a supportive work environment

Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? ‘Create a supportive work environment.’

Your organisation’s work environment is generated by the personalities and behaviours of each individual employee. And they might have different definitions of what ‘supportive’ actually means. That’s what makes it more complex.

Your role as a leader is absolutely crucial in defining what a ‘supportive environment’ means and how seriously you take it.

This includes:

• Having clear definitions of bullying, harassment, and discrimination
• Acting immediately when any negative behaviours occur, making sure policy is practised
• Making people feel included by carefully taking different viewpoints into account when making decisions. For example, do social events always revolve around alcohol? Is that putting some people off attending?
• Regularly monitor and makes changes to alleviate identified areas of workplace stress
• Trust your staff to do the work you’ve hired them to do – don’t micromanage!
• Model healthy behaviours yourself, like asking for help, changing your mind when presented with new evidence, and taking lunch breaks.
• Listen carefully to what employees consider a ‘supportive environment’.

5. Provide training and education

Organisations often bring in experts in mental health training and education. This might be to support managers, specified mental health advocates, or all employees with their knowledge and understanding of mental ill health impacts at work.

When you’re deciding on the right type of training for your workforce, it’s wise to involve them in the decision-making. Well-intentioned, free-but-compulsory yoga sessions may be a great de-stressor for some staff, but actually cause others to feel more tense.

Start with an audit of what your staff needs – from your point of view as management and theirs as employees.

You may see that employees need space to explore how to discuss mental ill health and not be afraid of ‘saying the wrong thing.’ So you bring in a mental health expert to help define appropriate language and discuss how different mental illnesses present themselves.

Employees may individually identify time management as something they’d like to improve on, so it makes sense to organise training for time management skills.

If you invest a training budget into things that improve mental health, you’re showing your employees how much you value their well-being.

6. Set realistic goals and expectations

You need to reverse engineer your processes to make sure that goals are in alignment with what can realistically be achieved in the time constraints. Burnout results from too many goals that aren’t achievable within set deadlines.

• If employees are expected to deliver on a number of tasks, be clear about what should be done first.
• Always make sure your instructions are clear – to your employees – before any work begins.
• Applaud questions. Make sure employees know that questions are expected and should be asked immediately. This ensures individuals can check their understanding of what’s expected of them at all times.
• Clear feedback. If something’s not quite right, give specific feedback and an example of how it needs to be done in the future.

To really be certain that your systems and goals work together, do a task yourself with the same parameters you set for your employees. You’ll immediately see where bottlenecks and hurdles arise and can test if deadlines are genuinely realistic.

7. Encourage social interaction

Nobody wants to participate in ‘forced fun’ with their colleagues. So that’s a good ‘first rule of work socials’ – they’re optional and there are no repercussions for not attending.

It's great to help employees get to know each other as people, as well as colleagues, and there are so many great options outside of ‘Fridays at the pub after work’.

• Team challenges or problem-solving experiences on training days – yes, that would include escape rooms!
• Volunteering for a particular charity
• Random food-based informal events in the staffroom – like a doughnut delivery or chippy lunch order
• Entertainment venues in your local area: sports, theatre, comedy club, music
• Ask your staff, they’re bound to have loads of suggestions!

8. Recognise and appreciate employees

Simply acknowledging everyone’s part in the success of the company is a huge morale booster for your staff. Include all levels of employees in quarterly updates that show how everyone’s work contributes to wider business goals.

There’s plenty of scope to give specific positive feedback to individuals during private conversations, especially official reviews. But why not make their attributes, improvements and successes public?

Anything from a traditional ‘employee of the month’ scheme, to bigger reward programmes that celebrate outstanding employee performance.

Accentuating the positive is just as important as supporting in times of difficulty. It acknowledges the value of each person and increases the visibility of individuals. This strengthens the trust needed to ask for help with mental health, or any other, issues.

8. Be mindful of mental health indicators

There are lots of different signs that may indicate that someone is struggling to maintain good mental health. Things like changes in mood, withdrawal from usual levels of social interaction, decreased productivity, and increased absence can be caused by mental ill health.

It’s a good idea to combine your knowledge of your employees with training for mental health first aid. This will give you more information and confidence to intervene, have the necessary tricky conversations, and signpost the right support. Always have this type of conversation in private and keep its contents confidential.

10. Provide opportunities for growth

People can display signs of presenteeism and give reduced effort if they feel they’re stagnating in work. You can take a really holistic approach to your employees and build your company’s future with them – embedding a sense of purpose and growth.

What does this look like? Encourage staff to suggest conferences, courses and workshops that they want to go on as part of their CPD.

Actually talk about their career path and the opportunities they have in your organisation. Consider if you can offer cross-training or mentorship programmes from your in-house experts.

This positive, proactive attitude keeps people engaged with their job, encourages their talent, gives them a sense of ownership over their career and presents a hopeful view of their future in the workplace.

11. Offer trauma support for difficult situations

Some jobs, like those in construction and agriculture, come with the expectation of experiencing or witnessing trauma. Often this is around life-changing accidents or deaths in the work environment.

Trauma-informed workplace training is essential for any business in this position. It lays preventative groundwork that’s invaluable for your team, should they need to process trauma in the workplace.

But even in industries that aren’t used to more frequent traumatic events, TRiM training is a really important way to understand how to manage trauma in the workplace.

Traumatic events happen unexpectedly, to individuals and groups of people. By investing in this level of training, your employees are equipped to support each other and themselves should the worst happen.

Improve employee mental health with Resilient People training

Supporting good mental health is great for your employees and your bottom line. Some of these practical strategies will be quick and easy for you to implement – and you’ll probably have some of them in place already.

For those that are outside your areas of expertise – like Mental Health First Aid and TRiM training – we’re here. Contact us to talk about what’s best for your people.