When an employee is dealing with anxiety, depression, chronic stress, or another mental health concern, the working environment can make a significant difference to how they experience their day.
Managers cannot and should not attempt to treat an employee’s mental health condition. However, they can create a workplace that gives people opportunities to feel connected, capable, valued, and engaged.
The objective isn’t to keep employees so busy that they don’t have time to think about their mental health. Avoidance doesn’t resolve psychological difficulties. Instead, a supportive working environment can reduce unnecessary sources of stress while providing structure, social connection, accomplishment, and purpose.
Here are some practical changes managers can consider.
1.Give people opportunities to accomplish something
There is psychological value in completing something and being able to see the result.
Unfortunately, many jobs involve an endless stream of emails, meetings, messages, and ongoing projects. Employees can work hard all day without experiencing the satisfaction of actually finishing anything.
Managers can help by breaking larger projects into achievable milestones and making progress visible.
This can give employees opportunities to recognize, “I did that today.”
For someone whose mental health is making motivation difficult, manageable accomplishments can be particularly valuable.
2.Introduce optional social activities
Workplace relationships matter, but social connection doesn’t have to mean organized “fun” that everyone is expected to enjoy.
Consider creating low-pressure opportunities for employees to interact naturally. This might include a walking group at lunch, occasional team breakfasts, volunteering opportunities, book clubs, fitness activities or spaces where people can eat together.
The key word is optional.
Forcing an employee experiencing social anxiety to participate in a team-building activity, for example, could increase rather than reduce distress.
Provide opportunities for connection without making participation a measure of someone’s commitment to the organization.
3.Create reasons to move
Movement can provide a valuable psychological reset during the working day, particularly for employees who spend hours sitting at a desk.
Managers might introduce walking meetings, encourage people to take their full lunch breaks, provide standing workspaces, or normalize getting outside for ten minutes between demanding tasks.
Importantly, employees shouldn’t feel that leaving their desks will be interpreted as not working hard enough.
A culture where everyone eats lunch while answering emails may look productive, but constant work without adequate recovery can contribute to exhaustion and burnout.
4.Give employees some control over their day
A lack of control can be a significant source of workplace stress.
Where the job allows it, give employees reasonable autonomy over how they organize their work, when they complete particular tasks or where they work.
Even small choices can matter.
Managers sometimes believe that keeping employees engaged requires constantly checking what they’re doing. In reality, excessive monitoring can create anxiety and make people feel that they aren’t trusted.
Clear expectations combined with appropriate autonomy can be far more motivating.
5.Introduce opportunities to learn
Learning gives the mind somewhere productive to direct its attention.
Training doesn’t always have to relate directly to an employee’s current responsibilities. Organizations might offer workshops, mentoring, professional development, cross-department projects, or opportunities to learn skills employees are personally interested in developing.
This can be especially valuable for someone who feels stuck.
Having something in the future to work toward can provide a sense of momentum that routine work sometimes lacks.
6.Make recognition part of everyday management
Recognition doesn’t require an employee-of-the-month program and a manager simply noticing someone’s contribution can be powerful.
Be specific. Instead of saying, “Great job,” explain what the employee did well and why it mattered.
Recognition helps reinforce competence and belonging. However, it shouldn’t become forced positivity. Employees should still be able to discuss difficulties, workload problems, or mental health concerns without being encouraged to simply “focus on the positives.”
7.Protect periods of concentration
A surprisingly effective workplace wellbeing intervention may simply be giving people enough uninterrupted time to do their jobs.
Constant meetings, emails, notifications, and instant messages create cognitive overload.
Consider meeting-free periods, protected focus hours, fewer unnecessary meetings or clearer expectations around response times.
Being able to become absorbed in meaningful work can be satisfying. Constantly being pulled away from it is exhausting.
Activities aren’t a substitute for mental health treatment
There is an important line managers need to recognize.
A supportive workplace can help someone feel better during their working day, but activities, social events, exercise, recognition and interesting projects are not treatments for mental health disorders.
If an employee is struggling significantly, encouraging them to simply “keep busy” can inadvertently minimize what they’re experiencing.
This is where professional support may be appropriate.
How can a clinical psychologist help?
Therapy provides an employee with a confidential environment to explore what they’re experiencing rather than continually trying to push those feelings aside.
A clinical psychologist can help identify patterns behind anxiety, low mood, workplace stress, perfectionism, burnout, difficulties with confidence, relationship problems, or other concerns.
Treatment can help people develop healthier ways of responding to difficult thoughts and emotions, improve coping skills, establish boundaries, challenge unhelpful thinking patterns and better understand what triggers periods of distress.
Therapy can also help someone determine whether the workplace itself is contributing to their difficulties and what changes may be necessary.
The healthiest organizations don’t expect work to cure mental health problems.
Instead, they create environments where employees have opportunities to connect, accomplish, learn, move, concentrate, and feel valued, while making it acceptable to seek professional help when those things aren’t enough.
If you this is you or someone you know, get in touch:
*All conversations with our team are strictly confidential.
PVD Psychological Associates specialize in college mental health, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, trauma, LGBTQIA+ issues, and relationship difficulties.
We also see clients for a range of other issues.
If you would like to discuss your needs with a therapist, complete the enquiry form on our Contact page and we’ll call or email you for a confidential chat.
