In a commentary published in BenefitsPRO, Traci Marciniak and Rick Gertsema discuss the “perfect storm” that employers are facing in addressing mental health challenges in the workplace. They highlight how PM+ training can help organizational and HR leaders equip their own employees with the essential skills needed to manage difficulties and stress in the workplace, using a proven, evidence-based approach. Read the commentary here.
Plugging a leaky workforce pipeline requires a new approach to mental health
When it comes to addressing today’s mental health challenges and the workplace disruption that can result, employers and HR leaders are facing a perfect storm of factors that make it more difficult than ever before. Worsening mental health across the U.S., growing workplace burnout, and increasing barriers to mental health care are straining the workplace and can lead to “leaks” in the pipeline of recruitment, training, and retention.
The convergence of these factors can be overwhelming and even paralyzing. But employers can’t afford the cost of poor mental health and workplace burnout. We’re beginning to see organization leaders face this growing set of challenges with new thinking and new approaches to activate an untapped resource.
The problem, in numbers
Data from the CDC show that the rates of stress, anxiety, and depression in the U.S. have increased significantly since 2019. That’s not news to anyone who has managed employees through the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although that calamity may sit in the rearview mirror, growing economic uncertainty ahead continues to exacerbate personal and workplace stress.
Burnout can be distinct from mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and stress, but they also can contribute to one another. Employee survey data suggest that two in three employees are struggling with burnout – and the costs are staggering. One recent study estimated that burnout and disengagement could cost a 1,000-person company $5 million annually. On an individual basis, the study found that burnout could cost companies almost three times what they spend on an employee's health benefits and up to 17 times what they spend on training an employee.
The challenge is obvious, but solutions have been elusive. Support is too often out of reach for employees as the shortage of licensed mental health professionals grows more acute. HRSA data show that one-third of Americans live in a “Mental Health Professional Shortage Area” — a number projected to grow over the next decade.
These gaps in access to care will become more urgent in the near term. With looming budget cuts to Medicaid, the larger infrastructure of mental health services in communities will be further strained. Medicaid is the country’s largest payer for behavioral health services. Experts predict that cuts to these providers – many already stretched thin and under financial stress – will prompt closures of health care facilities or reduce services and compromise employees’ access to mental health care, even for those covered under employee-sponsored commercial health plans. Efforts to fill workforce gaps with artificial intelligence and mental health chatbots are generating unintended consequences.
Employee assistance programs that help support mental health are an important part of building resilience against workplace burnout. But study after study shows that the outcomes associated with EAP programs miss the mark, with success stymied by underuse.
The untapped resource
The good news is that there is a proven resource that is largely untapped here in the U.S. and can help compensate for these gaps: an organization’s own employees.
Let us explain.
Any job environment can be stressful and, for many, a rough day at work can make comparisons between the workplace and “a disaster zone” more apt than anyone would like to admit. But the analogy also can point employers in the right direction.
The World Health Organization has taken learnings from supporting people impacted by disasters and other adversity, and distilled it into a tested, proven model for meeting mental health needs when resources are scarce. Known as Problem Management Plus (PM+), this model has demonstrated that lay people – appropriately trained – can serve as vital bridges to information, learning, and resources that can help people cope with even the most challenging circumstances.
My colleagues and I have adapted the PM+ model to deliver measurable, positive impacts in the workplace. We’ve trained and deployed cohorts in community organizations, non-profit groups, religious organizations and university settings. The training program creates skilled team members inside organizations who share coping tools with colleagues that can address issues before they spiral into bigger problems. When warranted, these skilled team members connect colleagues with additional resources and services.
Here’s what we’re learning along the way.
- Employees are eager to step up – HR leaders may be wary of asking their workforce to become a peer helper. But what we’re hearing from the peer helpers we’ve trained is that stress management with their colleagues is already part of their day-to-day reality. These trusted peers are often the first to sign up for PM+ training, and when you equip them with concrete skills – such as empathic listening and risk detection – they can more confidently help their colleagues navigate feelings of stress, anxiety, and burnout.
- Ongoing support creates durability – For durable results, training peer helpers to bring stress management and coping skills to their colleagues is just the beginning. Ongoing supervision and support for trained helpers ensures they feel backstopped by their HR and company leaders and can seek advice from trained clinicians if needed.
- Measurement matters – Improvement among employees using the PM+ model is measurable. But we’re seeing that our measurement of outcomes for end-users is too narrow. Anecdotally, we’re hearing that the positive effects of training and empowering peer helpers has its own significant impact, so we are working to expand how we measure the well-being of the peer helpers themselves.
A new path to a resilient workforce
With growing rates of mental health distress, the shortage of mental health professionals, and hard data that show the enormous resulting cost to employers, it’s clear business leaders must find new, sustainable approaches to support their employees. A company’s most important resource is its workforce, and the most painful cost can be losing good employees due to unchecked stress, anxiety, and burnout.
By taking an evidence-based, practical approach, employers can equip motivated employees to learn and share coping and stress-management skills with colleagues to address mental health challenges before they become more serious.
