Linked: Making Work Safe for Mental Illness

This simply isn’t good enough:

“In a Mental Health America survey of 5,000 employees across 17 industries, the majority — 56 percent — disagreed when asked if they thought their employers provided a safe and welcoming environment for employees who live with mental illnesses.

This finding comes as the nation recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a profound negative impact on the mental health of many Americans. The CDC found the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety disorder was three times what it was in 2019 and the prevalence of depressive disorder was approximately four times what it was in 2019.”

We’ve been talking about making the workplace “safe” for a number of years now. First, there were the obvious, physical safety issues, and then the focus on sexual harassment, then on to bullying, and diversity. It’s important. You simply don’t get the best results from employees who don’t feel safe.

And yet, in a time when there is an increasing number of employees dealing with mental health issues, we also need to consider what we do to make sure they feel safe as well, for the same reasons. People who don’t feel safe, will not speak up, will not bring their best work to the table, and might just be looking for a safer work environment.

Is that what you want?

Employees Say Work is Not a Safe Environment for Mental Illness

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