Why ‘Mental Health in the Workplace’ Needs a Rethink

If I was a union leader – which I’m not, despite a short-lived role as an unofficial Shop’s Steward during my time at TechUK – my big hairy goal would be a workplace mental health revolution. 

Mental health at work should be this generation’s battle – like physical health and safety was for generations before. Those battles were won, and industrial workplaces are physically much safer than 30-40 years ago. Now, the battleground is mental health. 

Hang on, I hear you say. Workplace mental health has come a long way! There are programmes for wellbeing! Wellness Days! Mental Health First Aiders! How is this the battle we should have? 

I’ll tell you. 

The Limits of Individual Responsibility in Workplace Mental Health

For all these programmes and interventions, the framing always misses any organisational responsibility and accountability. How you can prevent burnout. How you can strive for work-life balance. How you can meditate and eat healthy to manage workplace stress. The onus is on the individual. 

To see whether this is sufficient you only need to look at the existential workforce issues the Labour Government are dealing with. A lot more people are off work with mental health conditions than they ever used to be (that’s what happens when awareness and acceptance of conditions grow – prevalence grows too). Workplace prevalence of mental health conditions has exploded far beyond the control of wellbeing programmes – and indeed the government’s ability to provide support, it seems. 

For a comparison, imagine being a miner, down the pit. Working all day long exposed to coal dust. At the end of the day instead of PPE your employer gives a seminar: how you can manage your coal dust exposure. 

Not quite right, is it. So why do we accept that for mental health? 

Addressing Role-Specific Mental Health Risks

The truth is that certain industries and certain roles have different risk factors for mental and physical mental conditions. In Sales? Keep an eye on your heart and blood pressure. Coder? Watch out for diabetes and depression. Healthcare professional? Best of luck to you! 

Given that, shouldn’t workplace mental health programmes be targeting the common risk factors of a role or job type? The ones that lead to the most common mental health issues? I would argue that structural interventions to reduce risk are more necessary than individuals being given tools to manage the issues those risks lead to. 

It was this line of argument (brought to me by the brilliant Emma-Louise Fusari) that lead to us at Purple Transform partnering with In-House Health on how to address the structural risk factors of roles. Factors like isolation and lack of movement for coders. Or pressure in a sales role.  

Initially focusing on reintegration of those that had time off for mental health conditions, the pitch was this: can we monitor the structural risks that may be triggers for anxiety and relapse for the individual? Could we do more than just hope the individual has the tools to cope, but actually ensure their reintegration experience supported their recovery? 

Mitigating Structural Risks

We proposed monitoring working hours, office behaviour, colleague interactions – all in the context of the triggers that contributed to the mental health deterioration initially. Anything that happened outside of a given set of parameters would require review and action by a supervisor. 

If successful, this could then be expanded to more behaviours indicative of structural risk factors, for all staff – not just those that are reintegrating. This would not only help individuals, but also employers to know where they could make changes to improve the workplace experience for their employees. Eventually we hope that these risk factors can be designed out altogether. 

This is a small step, but the battle is worth it.