It’s time to get real about mental health at the office

Our leaders aren’t robots and they need support to maintain mental health at work.

Lucy Brogden. Picture: Tim Hunter.

After two years of upheaval that has challenged everyone’s mental health, leaders are worn out, too. Talent acquisition and retention feels like a never-ending climb, we’re all zonked out by Zoom and tired of Teams, but also want to preserve our new WFH flexibility. It’s a juggle of struggles that no one has all the answers to, and there are sometimes unreasonable expectations that if you’re in the C-suite, you should.

It’s high time for a kinder, gentler approach to the way we work. That includes realising that leaders aren’t robots who can remain resilient whatever is thrown at them and developing a culture that looks after their mental health, too.

“We are biased to think of CEOs almost as heroes with superhuman powers,” says Frederik Anseel, professor of management and a senior deputy dean at UNSW Business School. “Stories about Steve Jobs and Elon Musk working 80-90 hours a week create a myth that CEOs have supernatural gifts and have the energy to just keep going.”

Holding unrealistic expectations of leaders is a hallmark of organisations that hero individuals when, Anseel argues, shifting focus to make the whole system more supportive of everybody is the path to resilience. Burnout from long hours is only a fraction of the problem. Psychological well-being is naturally nurtured in workplaces where there’s trust, appreciation, open communication, reasonable expectations and a lack of conflict across the board.

“I see most organisations struggling with this – they’re not willing to change anything in how work is organised and in the system – they just want to make individuals stronger,” he says.

“People are already exhausted, and then organisations put more mental-health training or meditation or yoga on top of an already very busy schedule. That won’t help – the tap is open and you are mopping the water away while it’s already flooding. You need to stop where the water is coming from.”

Lucy Brogden, chair and commissioner of the National Mental Health Commission, says collaborative organisational design is a good starting point to creating a healthy workplace. “Often organisations put a shiny veneer over things to keep a lid on it, or think they have to fix people they regard as broken – which is not their job at all,” says Brogden. “Either way you’ve missed the main point. Workplaces can be an important part of preventing people from developing mental illness, and they’re a really important part of supporting recovery, too. If companies think deeply about the environment they create for people to work in, there are great opportunities.”

A good hard look at the work design of the organisation is step one.

“It’s sitting down and looking at the way that teams are going to work, how people are going to interact with one another,” she says. “And rather than imposing a top-down, HR process, you ensure it’s a collaborative, co-designed effort.”

Colleagues will agree on arrangements that “collectively meet the obligations and the outcomes in an environment that works for everyone”, says Brogden. That could range from WFH provisions to changing the way feedback is delivered. The positive systemic changes to company culture that Anseel is talking about will flow from such proactive attention, which truly support personal needs, rather than well-intentioned but blunt-instrument initiatives such as free yoga classes at lunchtime. “There are so many important conversations that we don’t have about how we work individually, and how teams operate,” says Brogden. “Those conversations can be really powerful for reducing the stresses as they build up, being able to openly say when you find something uncomfortable.”

It seems obvious that organisations set up to actively understand individual personalities and working styles – from the CEO to the office junior – will have a healthier culture. But it must extend beyond discovery to action.

“When I worked in investment banking, there was a lot of psychometric testing done to hire people, looking for the best and brightest,” says Brogden. “Passing the test gets you in the door, but the reports also included information on how a person would best be managed. That’s the gold, because getting the best out of someone is understanding how to best support them, but I’m sure very few people ever looked at that report again.”

Brogden points to Indicators of a Thriving Workplace, a recent report from Superfriend, the mental-health initiative backed by industry super funds and life insurers.

During lockdowns, “organisations put a lot more effort to communicate and connect with their employees than perhaps they had in the past,” says Brogden. “Leaders and managers realised that the staff catch-ups that they sometimes found frustrating are really beneficial for the people reporting to them – we heard from managers saying they got to know their staff for the first time.”

Anseel says now leaders are grappling with nurturing mental health and psychological safety in a hybrid environment.

He also points to a recent Deloitte study, The C-suite’s role in well-being, which found that only 56 per cent of employees think their company’s executives care about their well-being, while 91 per cent of the C-suite think their employees believe they care. “It shows how different the perspectives are,” he says.

He’s encouraging leaders to experiment with different ways of doing things to help everyone thrive in the workplace, and to involve everyone.

“It’s a matter of saying, ‘We’re in a new world here, we need to reinvent the rules and routines for ourselves’. They can agree on a trial for a couple of months, see what works best in terms of productivity and well-being, and adjust as necessary. They need to be open and honest and stick to that commitment to review it. That creates comfort and reassurance, and rebuilds trust, which I think has been lost during Covid. A lot of companies say they’ve listened, but then they don’t do anything. You need to act.”