What Your Company Can Do About It

Some have accused President Biden’s proposed infrastructure package of being a liberal wish list—full of funding for things like childcare and paid family leave that have nothing to do with infrastructure. In truth, the President’s proposals are just the latest step in a changing conversation about the role well-being plays in economic growth. Just as our economy cannot function properly without a healthy power grid, bridges, and roads, we cannot hope to get the best out of our employees without programs and policies that holistically support their well-being.

Even as political leaders debate the terms of a national infrastructure bill, business leaders should be having that same conversation at the company level. They need to put their own care infrastructure in place: all the things (including a wellness program but much more) that allow people to thrive and excel. 

Mental health must figure prominently in any new vision of workplace well-being. Experts agree that, long after the virus itself is under control, the mental health repercussions of the pandemic will linger for some time. National Mental Health Awareness Month is a perfect time to advance such a conversation. More than any time in recent history, we are acutely aware of how mental health and overall well-being affect performance and prosperity.

An idea years in the making

Although the term care infrastructure has only recently become part of the national conversation, the idea has been a work-in-progress for decades. Not surprisingly, given how care issues affect their ability to succeed professionally, women have been at the forefront of this thinking. Nancy Folbre has been writing about the care economy since the 1990s, and in 1998 was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant for her work on the subject. Ai-jen Poo won the same grant in 2014 for her research and advocacy around intergenerational care. Her book The Age of Dignity was likely the first book to use the term “infrastructure” to refer to care-related work.

Anne-Marie Slaughter built on the work of both women in her book Unfinished Business. She wrote about how inflexible work arrangements, “the lack of a public infrastructure of care,” and the cultural attitudes that “devalue” women the minute they step away from the workforce are all connected—and conspire to make women make impossible either/or choices between work and the rest of their lives. Women have to struggle “to combine competition and care in a system that rewards one and penalizes the other.”

The pandemic has shined a bright light on the cost of not attending to mental health and well-being. The State of Mental Health in America, released earlier this year, points out there was a significant uptick in mental illness even before Covid. Since the virus hit, anxiety and depression have “skyrocketed,” especially among young people. 

How to create a care infrastructure in your workplace

While a true care infrastructure requires unified political action at the national level, there is much that business leaders can do on their own. Work-related stress exacerbates and amplifies underlying mental health issues, including those associated with the pandemic. “Chronic stress was rampant even before the pandemic,” writes the Harvard Business Review. “Leaders can’t ignore it anymore.”

Here is a partial list of steps leaders can take now, drawn from my own experience working with executives on individual and organizational well-being and supported by research published in Harvard Business Review and elsewhere.

• Be vulnerable. We cannot eliminate the stigma around talking about mental health in the workplace unless leaders do their part to normalize such conversations. Opening up about any struggles you are having permits others to do so.
• Model healthy behavior. Your employees will not feel comfortable prioritizing self-care and setting boundaries unless you exhibit that same behavior yourself. 
• Build a culture of connection. One silver lining of the pandemic is that we have become better at regularly checking in with colleagues and employees to see how they are doing. That practice must continue and deepen. Many will say they are doing fine at work even when they are not. Leaders should proactively offer to help and should encourage peer-to-peer outreach as well.
• Create meaningful flexibility. One reason burnout increased during the pandemic, researchers find, is that although we are talking more about creating manageable workloads and giving employees flexibility, we are not backing up that talk with sufficient action. This is why regular check-ins are critical: arrangements must be tailored to individual needs.
• Over-communicate. Communicate more than you think you need to. Employees who do not feel their managers are good at communicating have been 23% more likely to experience mental health declines during the past year. And 46% of employees surveyed do not feel their employers were sufficiently proactive in communicating about mental health.
• Invest in training. All of your leaders and managers should be well-versed in addressing mental health issues and how to build positive mental health and resilience. The ability to have productive conversations in the workplace around mental health and well-being is a skill that needs to be developed over time. 
• Modify policies and practices. People will not feel empowered to prioritize their self-care and mental health and to set appropriate limits if clear policies are not in place. Moreover, leaders should underscore how such policies are intended to support employees’ mental health and well-being.

Gen Z and mental health

Creating a caring organizational culture is going to be especially critical in attracting and retaining young talent. Yes, young people have reported higher rates of anxiety and depression than others. But they are also more comfortable talking about mental health than previous generations. And, according to a recent survey, Gen Z’ers value employers that prioritize employee mental health. 

For Generation Z, a commitment to mental health is closely related to other values: including the freedom to be one’s authentic self at work and a genuinely diverse and inclusive workplace. As I see, again and again, paying attention to mental health and well-being leads to larger ripple effects that improve overall organizational culture.

Women, work, and well-being

Women will not be able to fully thrive professionally without a robust underlying care infrastructure. Even more urgently, women stand to lose years of hard-won progress in the workplace unless business leaders and political leaders address pressing questions like childcare, parental leave, and greater work flexibility.

One reason last month’s jobs report was disappointing is that all of the job gains in April went to men. The number of women employed or looking for work fell by 64,000. Women in the U.S. lost five million jobs over the past year, and women’s participation in the workforce is at its lowest rate since 1988. “If employers don’t act now, don’t think about flexible workplace policies, don’t check in with the current women that they have in their workforce,” says Caroline Fairchild of LinkedIn News, “decades of progress” for women could be lost.

Thankfully, there are signs that a true paradigm shift is taking place—a change not just in policy but in mindset. This year, a coalition of top business leaders launched a WHO-backed initiative called the Global Business Collaboration for Better Workplace Mental Health. They have declared that to “prioritize and invest in the mental health of all employees” is a business necessity and a social imperative. They encourage other leaders to join a “desperately needed conversation around creating an open, welcoming, and supportive workplace environment for all.”

Going forward, I hope a majority of business leaders will embrace a vision in which well-being—which includes mental health and a range of other policies that allow employees to flourish and thrive—is at the center of their business strategy.