Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being

Overview

The first Essential of this Framework is Protection from Harm. Creating the conditions for physical and psychological safety is a critical foundation for ensuring workplace mental health and well-being. This Essential rests on two human needs: safety and security.

Human Needs

Safety is protecting all workers from physical and non-physical harm, including injury, illness, discrimination, bullying, and harassment.

Security is ensuring all workers feel secure financially and in their job future.

Key Components

Prioritize workplace physical and psychological safety

People cannot perform well at work if they feel physically or psychologically unsafe. Reducing harmful impacts of the work environment begins with a review of existing conditions to ensure compliance with occupational health and safety standards. Leaders at all levels can collaborate with workers to examine and eliminate physical and psychological hazards, then design, implement, and regularly evaluate programs workplace safety. It is also important to keep in mind that racial and ethnic minority workers are at higher risk for workplace injuries. This has led to an increased frequency and prevalence of work-related disabilities for non-Hispanic Black and foreign-born Hispanic workers.

Enable adequate rest

Insufficient rest, possibly from long work hours or working multiple jobs, can put the physical, emotional, and mental health of workers in danger. Workers who do not get adequate rest are more likely to have a workplace injury or make mistakes. Long work hours have also been shown to raise workers’ risk for exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. Additionally, fatigue diminishes productivity as the risk of burnout soars.

Normalize and support mental health

Organizations can further normalize and support mental health by modeling, communicating, and regularly promoting services. Employers should provide comprehensive health care coverage that includes access to mental health benefits. Organizations can make mental health care more easily accessible while also ensuring confidentiality. This includes supporting access to quality and affordable mental health care services—including telehealth, on-site, and off-site after-hours care—and encouraging time off for mental health care.

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Overview

The second Essential of the Framework is Connection and Community. Fostering positive social interactions and relationships in the workplace supports worker well-being. This Essential rests on two human needs: social support and belonging.

Human Needs

Social Support is having the networks and relationships that can offer physical and psychological help, and can mitigate feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Belonging is the feeling of being an accepted member of a group.

Key Components

Create cultures of inclusion and belonging

Organizations can begin to build social connections and community at work by encouraging what scientists call “prosocial” behavior. Prosocial behavior promotes positive social relationships through welcoming, helping, and reassuring others. Workplace cultures that promote belonging can also foster a powerful protective force against bias, discrimination, and exclusion in the workplace. Organizations can create environments where connection is encouraged, and workers of all backgrounds feel included.

Cultivate trusted relationships

Having supportive work relationships can improve performance and is associated with worker engagement and innovation. These relationships include those between leaders and workers, among workers collaborating on teams, and between workers and their consumers and customers. Having clear and consistent communication between workers and leaders is foundational in building trust. Promoting trust among leaders and workers begins with listening to worker concerns and explaining why key decisions are made within an organization. Leaders can build trust through small, everyday interactions, for example, by modeling and inviting others to share small moments of their life with them.

Foster collaboration and teamwork

The future of work includes both remote and hybrid work, in a variety of full‑time and part‑time arrangements. So, there is even more need to be intentional about how to build teams, communicate, and collaborate. Leaders in organizations can communicate the importance of teamwork, encourage frequent communication, model authenticity, provide teams with effective collaboration tools, and include time for non-work connection and possibly community service.

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Overview

The third Essential of this Framework is Work-Life Harmony. Professional and personal roles can together create work and non-work conflicts. The ability to integrate work and non-work demands, for all workers, rests on the human needs of autonomy and flexibility.

Human Needs

Autonomy is how much control a worker has over when, where, and how they do their work.

Flexibility is ability of workers to work when and where is best for them.

Key Components

Provide more autonomy over how work is done

Organizations that increase worker control over how, when, and where work is done can avoid work and life conflicts, build more trust in workplaces and co-workers, and improve health. Leaders can increase worker control over scope of work, process for accomplishing projects, and scheduling and location—including condensed hours or work weeks and remote or hybrid work arrangements. These measures can reduce turnover as workers report greater productivity and increased satisfaction with work.

Make schedules as flexible and predictable as possible

Unstable and unpredictable scheduling is linked to increased income volatility, an increased risk of economic hardship, which can degrade physical and mental health. Schedule irregularity among workers can also lead to work-life conflicts that negatively affect relationships both in and out of the workplace, including behavioral and mental health challenges in children of working parents. Workers with disabilities who need accommodations for transportation or personal care are further impacted by schedule instability. Employers can implement policies such as flexible start and end times to work days, and not penalizing workers with lost wages when personal, family needs, or emergencies arise.

Increase access to paid leave

Organizations should increase access to paid leave—sick leave, paid family and medical leave (including paid parental leave), and paid time off for vacation. The U.S. remains the only advanced economy in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) that does not guarantee paid medical and family leave to its workforce. While paid sick leave is available to 79% of U.S. civilian workers, this percentage varies significantly among wage categories. For those whose average hourly wage is in the lower 10% of workers, only 35% have access to paid sick leave. Black and Hispanic workers are disproportionally affected. Paid family leave access is the least common, available to only 23% of civilian workers overall. Unequal and limited access to paid leave, particularly sick and medical leave, can contribute to the spread of infection at work, decreased productivity, workplace burnout, and labor shortages. Increasing access to paid leave can reduce the likelihood of lost wages by 30%, positively affect the physical and mental health of workers and their children, and improve retention.

Respect boundaries between work and non-work time

When workplace leaders set, respect, and model clear boundaries between time on and off the job, workers report a greater sense of well-being. By not penalizing workers for this flexibility needed, leaders can alleviate anxiety or fears of missing work demands. This helps workers have the time needed for rest to optimize their health, productivity, and creativity. Organizations can also establish policies to limit digital communication outside of work hours.

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Overview

The fourth Essential of the Framework is Mattering at Work. People want to know that they matter to those around them and that their work matters. Knowing you matter has been shown to lower stress, while feeling like you do not can raise the risk for depression. This Essential rests on the human needs of dignity and meaning.

Human Needs

Dignity is the sense of being respected and valued.

Meaning in the workplace can refer to the sense of broader purpose and significance of one’s work.

Key Components

Provide a living wage

Work and income are critical social determinants of health and well-being. Financial stress and money worries have a severe impact on mental health. Increases in the minimum wage have been shown to improve parent-reported health among young children and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in income. Organizations must ensure that all workers are paid an equitable, stable, and predictable living wage before overtime, tips and commission, and that these wages increase as worker skills increase. When possible, workers should also have access to benefits to protect their health, such as mental health supports, retirement plans, workers’ compensation, financial and legal services, and caregiving supports (like childcare).

Engage workers in workplace decisions

Employers must ensure that they equitably incorporate opportunities for engaging and empowering all workers to improve workplaces. Employee engagement is the extent to which employers involve workers in organizational goals and objectives, as well as the level of commitment and enthusiasm that workers have in their work and workplace. Leaders can use surveys and other validated tools to measure well-being.

Build a culture of gratitude and recognition

Workplace leaders can build a culture where workers feel seen, respected, needed, and valued. Regardless of their position, when people feel appreciated, recognized, and engaged by their supervisors and co-workers, their sense of value and meaning increases, as well as their ability to manage stress. Staff who receive frequent appreciation at work from coworkers and supervisors are also more likely to recognize and appreciate others.

Connect individual work with organizational mission

Shared purpose is a collective sense of working toward a common goal. This assigns further meaning to work, generates pride, and fuels motivation all while reducing stress. Organizations can help workers see the connection between their day-to-day work and the organizational purpose and mission. Leaders can also reinforce these connections by acknowledging the different roles of individuals, teams, and departments in achieving organizational goals.

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Overview

The final Essential of this Framework is Opportunity for Growth. When organizations create more opportunities for workers to accomplish goals based on their skills and growth, workers become more optimistic about their abilities and more enthusiastic about contributing to the organization. This Essential rests on the human needs of learning and a sense of accomplishment.

Human Needs

Learning is the process of acquiring new skills and knowledge in the workplace.

Accomplishment is the outcome of meeting goals and having an impact.

Key Components

Offer quality training, education and mentoring

Workplace leaders can provide workers training to increase skills as well as opportunities for education to build knowledge in their work or in other areas of interest. Employers can promote growth opportunities by showing genuine interest in workers through personal encouragement, professional coaching, and mentorship.

Foster clear, equitable pathways for career advancement

Organizations that provide transparent career pathways and advancement opportunities for all workers help foster inclusion and diversity in the workplace. This should include resources and tools that can better support workers over time and address systematic barriers in the workplace. Opportunities might include: accessible professional training programs, career navigation support, tuition reimbursement for classes offered outside of the workplace, English language courses, and promotion opportunities. This may also look like offering new types of responsibilities or assignments to workers that give them an opportunity to stretch their skills or learn new ones.

Ensure relevant, reciprocal feedback

Leaders and managers can provide guidance by considering workers’ strengths and growth opportunities. Organizations can create more opportunities for genuinely engaging with their workers, especially in positive, collaborative, and outcome-oriented ways. This should include equipping leaders at all levels with the training, tools, and resources they need to engage and lead others.

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