A wellness app is not a mental health strategy

When was the last time one of your employees took time off from work by calling in “sad”?

While it’s common for people not to work when they have a cold, break a bone or suffer from any number of physical ailments, the same is not true when it comes to mental health. In many workplaces, discussing mental wellness is taboo — despite research that shows that 1 in 5 people experience mental illness. Plus, there’s my own unofficial research showing that 5 in 5 people experience broader emotional challenges at times that can hinder work.

Often, a company’s strategy to address mental health consists of directing people to a wellness app and an employee assistance program (EAP) hotline, maybe a meditation class during lunch. It’s rarely something openly discussed.

Related: Let’s get real about mental health in the workplace

But mental-on-mobile health, an 800 number, and downward facing dog may not be an effective strategy. While they can certainly be useful tools as part of larger efforts to tackle mental health, they typically fail to make meaningful impact over the long haul.

Of course, no one will publicly state that mental well-being isn’t important, or even less important than its physical counterpart. That’s because deep down, none of us has to be a psychologist to recognize that mental well-being matters. In other words, it’s not that organizations don’t value the mental health of their people. They just don’t know how to influence it.

So, the stigma persists. An employee who openly talks about one’s emotional challenges — particularly an illness — risks being viewed as that employee. You know, the troubled one. The weird one. The unreliable one. The crazy one.

But you know what’s really crazy? Acting as if mental health doesn’t impact employee engagement, productivity, turnover and other variables every bit as much as physical well-being. Indeed, the CDC estimates that depression alone leads to over 200 million lost workdays a year.

Except, few people are actually calling in “sad.” They make up excuses. They lie about what is really going on with them. As a result, mental issues become inherently less visible than their physical counterparts, which means addressing them becomes that much harder.

And that much more important. To truly tackle the mental well-being of your people, it’s important to stop outsourcing responsibility to technology and hotlines and start acknowledging that this is predominantly a culture issue.

What can leaders do?

Leaders who have faced or are experiencing their own mental struggles should consider candidly discussing them with their employees. Obviously, a lot depends on individual comfort level, but executives who open up about their personal lives show vulnerability and build empathy in ways that can destigmatize mental health issues.

For example, after the death of her husband, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg went through a time of intense grief and depression. By eventually speaking and writing about it, she showed that — surprise! — she’s human just like you and me. Equally importantly, she helped elevate discussion around grief to help generate a more humane bereavement policy at Facebook.

Leaders who serve as such role models can also bring to life corporate values that were otherwise merely words written in an employee handbook tucked away in a remote corner of your intranet. For example, a top leader revealing personal mental challenges demonstrates values built around trust and caring.

What can managers do?

Senior leaders may set the tone at the top, but it’s up to managers to operationalize it by making their direct reports feel comfortable discussing mental health. Here, again, it’s not that managers don’t care about their people (well, some probably don’t). It’s that discussing something outside of Excel sheets and the weather discomforts managers. Or, they worry, it discomforts their employees. Or they just don’t want to pry. Or they fear potential legal repercussions should an employee later claim unfair treatment because they divulged personal-health details.

However, a manager’s central responsibility is to support direct reports. You can’t do that effectively if you don’t invest in developing relationships built around more than just work projects and due dates. Managers should establish connections built on mutual trust by appreciating that every individual is not just a worker but a person.

In addition to managers talking more candidly about their own personal struggles, they should look for indicators that might show an employee is suffering on the inside. Such signs include:

• Changes in behavior, like becoming more aggressive or withdrawn
• Increasing use of sick days and absences
• Fatigue and exhaustion
• Decreased confidence
• Disinterest in work

The more that managers pay attention to what might be cries for help, the better they’ll be able to address them with nonjudgmental, caring, and empathetic conversations.

What can all of us do?

When a coworker seems “off,” it’s OK to ask how that person is doing. Except, not with the standard flippant, “Hi, how are you?” We all know that’s not a question so much as a greeting with an expected answer, “Good, how about you?”

“Good.”

But are we good? The next time someone asks you how you’re feeling, surprise the other person with the truth if you’re not feeling well. Give your coworkers the opportunity to help you. (Of course, respect boundaries if someone is uncomfortable discussing personal details.)

Ultimately, it’s on all of us to make mental health a more comfortable subject to discuss. As writer and speaker Abby Mosconi suggests in her DisruptHR presentation, “Talk about going to therapy with the same casualness you would talk about going to the gym. Oh Cheryl, I would love to go to lunch with you, but I can’t. I have a date with my therapist.”

Having such candid conversations might feel awkward at first — but such discomfort is often an inherent part of cultural change. Eventually, though, being open to talking about mental health will strengthen the relationships we have with our colleagues. Put otherwise, addressing mental health is not just a challenge — it’s an opportunity to enable people to relate to and understand each other in ways that will create a better workplace. And healthier people deliver healthier results.

Read more: 

• Mental health is a product of total health
• 4 ways to foster employees’ mental health in the workplace
• Coming soon: Onsite behavioral health clinics

Dan Neuburger is the Chief Executive Officer at Viventium, a purely cloud-based Payroll and HR (HCM) software company that provides a user experience and design anyone can use with ease, unbeatable analytics, and insight into your business.