It’s Not Personal, it’s Business: Workplace Mental Health Support
The Revolution on Stigma is Here.
Stigma has met its match with Gen Z. The generation that was born with a platform knows how to use its voice and knows when to lean in.
To be clear - stigma has never added value, but for generations, it was just an accepted part of life. Gen Z isn’t afraid to call out that which has always been accepted may actually be unacceptable.
Nowhere is this more apparent than Gen Z’s impact on destigmatizing and prioritizing mental health and wellness in the workplace. They are fundamentally changing the way we work and in a way that will benefit us all.
USE YOUR WORDS: Has not talking about something significantly impacting you ever made a situation better?
We all know the answer to this and yet, how interesting is it that so many of us have been taught not to talk about things? That asking for help is somehow a bad thing, a weak thing, a shameful thing?
As it relates to work, if something is significantly impacting you - do you feel like you’re in the most creative, innovative, motivated place to solve a business problem, hit a key milestone, or engage with your teammates?
We all know the answer to this one too. Which means that mental health isn’t just a personal issue - it’s a business issue too.
STRESS ISN’T A GENERATIONAL PROBLEM: it is impacting us all.
While it’s true, Gen Z is documented as having the poorest mental health of any generation, it’s also true they are the most open about it. However, stress-related mental health concerns are not unique to Gen Z:
They are about parents: Parental stress is so debilitating, the surgeon general has declared it a public health issue.
They are about your employees’ kids: In North Carolina, new data shows the most frequent users of the 988 Suicide and Crisis lifeline number are 13-17 year olds.
They are about 40-50 somethings: 49% of Gen Xers in a 2023 Natixis survey said they worry that retirement may not be an option — up significantly from 42% in 2021.
There is a statistic for all of us. We are all simply more stressed than ever before. And that means we need to do something about it.
SO WHAT’S AN EMPLOYER TO DO? Listen and then act.
While Gen Z is on the front lines of the war on stigma, it’s up to businesses to create and normalize a culture around wellness.
The first step is asking your employees - your stakeholders - what types of benefits they want (spoiler: according to this study, 63% said mental health care is the number-one workplace benefit they want after 401(k)).
The second step is talking about it and equipping people managers with the information and the tools they need to support their teams. No, no, no – this isn’t about making people managers into therapists. This is about empowering people managers to know how to provide and be voices for the support resources your company is offering.
Last year, missing work due to poor mental health cost the US economy $47B in lost workplace productivity. Mental health is impacting businesses’ bottom line. Full stop.
So while it’s often easier to make a cheeky comment about Gen Z “demanding” these benefits, the reality is that we all need them. Gen Z is just the one unafraid to vocalize it. As businesses, let’s tackle the mental health crisis the way Gen Z has attacked stigma. Your recruiting efforts and your bottom line will thank you for it.
