How do you talk about mental health at work?

Employee Mental Health: The Key to Organizational Success

The mental health of employees plays a critical role in the success of any organization, especially in difficult times. Burnout, depression and other mental health crises are becoming more common, both among employees and their managers. How do you recognize early signs of problems and effectively support your employees while maintaining your own boundaries? In conversation with Wojciech Wychowańec, founder The Pressure Project, Paweł Dudek, an expert in change management and business development, shares practical tips and proven strategies. This information helps create a healthy, empathetic work environment where everyone feels safe and has a chance to pursue their career goals.

“Conscious waste leads to pathetic lack”

The saying “Willful waste makes woeful want” was often repeated by John D. Rockefeller's mother. The meaning of this phrase is: “Conscious waste leads to pitiful poverty” or in a more positive version “The good use of all available resources and avoiding waste, brings prosperity to every man.” It is possible that inspired by this maxim, Rockefeller later remarked: “Finding and retaining the best employees is the most valuable skill. I would give everything I have, all my money, just to own it.” One hundred years later, many of us repeat these words, grappling with many challenges. From the pandemic to the war on the eastern borders, unpredictable global crises have shaken our fragile sense of security. What's more, mental health issues are becoming more prominent and openly discussed in families, groups of friends, and organizations.

Wojciech Wychowaniec, founder The Pressure Project, with whom I recently had a conversation, noted that the prevalence of these challenges, combined with personal experiences, encouraged a willingness to talk. “We are increasingly inclined to help, coupled with the awareness that we don't know how, which speeds up our search for answers,” he wrote. I asked Wojciech, who helps companies implement mental health solutions, how and whether to talk at work about depression and burnout at all.

The Role of Managers in Mental Health Conversations

Wojciech wrote: “First, it is important to remember in what roles such conversations should take place. From a manager's perspective, if you are talking to an employee about their depression, you need to remember that their mental health is not your responsibility. Your role is to ensure that the employee fulfills the established obligations. To make this possible, he may need something specific at the moment — such as a vacation, sick leave or a temporary change of working conditions. However, it is not the manager's role to ensure that the employee undergoes treatment. It is his responsibility.”

To answer the question “how to talk?” , Wojciech proposed two rules for conducting a conversation:

1. “Would you like to talk about it?”
2. “What do you need in this situation?”
   “These two questions help determine the comfort of the employee and leave responsibility on their side, while gathering information about what the organization can do.”

Support for managers

When asked how employers can support managers, Wojciech stressed the importance of protecting them from taking on excessive responsibility for the team's mental health. “At the end of last year, within The Pressure Project, we conducted focus studies with HR employees, and the results were shocking. HR Business Partners often take on the roles of diagnosticians, therapists or psychologists because they see it as part of their role in the organization.”

Employers can help by creating safety procedures for mental health reports. Wojciech recommended to reflect on the following questions:

• What is the role of HR and what is the role of managers?
• What is the company responsible for and what is not anymore?
• How do employee benefit programs support people with a diagnosis and where are they inadequate?

Recognizing the Early Signs of a Crisis

In response to a question about how to respond to the first signs of mental health problems, Wojciech stressed: “Starting with acceptance and understanding makes it difficult to make things worse.” The risk lies in evaluating, belittling the problem or attacking it. A helpful answer might be, “I understand that you've been going through something difficult lately.”

Wojciech advises to use dynamic language, which presents depression as a transient condition rather than a permanent feature. For example:

• “I understand that you feel this way right now” instead of “I understand that you are always like this.”

To start a conversation, it can be effective to share your own impressions:

• “I feel helpless/worried when I see/how you attend meetings. You seem to have become more withdrawn, as if something has changed. Can we talk about it?”

Thanks to the expression of personal observations, the employee will not have to feel defensive.

Understanding Burnout

Wojciech described professional burnout, which can manifest itself in:

• Isolation, reluctance to appear at work and difficulties in completing tasks.
• Thoughts about changing jobs as an automatic response to the situation.

Burnout is due not only to working conditions, but also to personal approaches to work:

• Excessive demands on oneself, interpreting feedback as criticism and equating professional failures with personal inadequacy.

Job changes may be part of the solution, but therapy helps you regain your sense of agency, allowing you to make decisions and take responsibility for your professional life.

Peer support

Wojciech noted that peer support is different from managerial support. “Supporting a manager involves a diagonal relationship, where the employee can (unconsciously) assume a dependent position and the manager (also unconsciously) assume a parental role. This can weaken the agency of the employee and involve the manager too much.”

For peer support among employees, it is beneficial to form empathetic, open teams. Wojciech suggests relying on human sensitivity, intuition and kindness, adding: “There is no procedure here — only the heart.”

Self-care

Finally, Wojciech stressed the importance of taking care of yourself:

• Therapy or supervision: A useful tool to help reduce tension and achieve change without having to experience specific disorders.
• Physical activity: Helps release tension and stimulates natural antidepressant mechanisms.
• Healthy diet: Supports the nervous system.
• Secure relationships: Investing in family and friends helps create a sense of security and belonging.

Wojciech summed it up with a universal advice: “Take care of your needs. In therapy, the processes often end with conclusions like, 'I want to be gentler, more accepting, and more understanding of myself. I want to listen to my body and emotions. This will allow me to take care of my needs. I am not perfect, but I am sufficient. I'm glad to be here. '”

As Sony co-founder Akio Morita said, “Your business and its future depend on the people you hire.” Let's take care of ourselves and others.

Paweł Dudek
Expert in change management and business development, consultant Silfra Consulting and Gekko Advisory. Since 2020, he has been an Organizational Change Manager (OCM) in international corporations in industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, energy, robotics and automation. Previously, he held the position of CEO at WARS S.A. and cooperated with companies such as Bird & Bird, Medicover and Norwich Union. He is also an active MBA lecturer at the Kozminski University and the University of Warsaw.

Wojciech Wychowaniec
Founder The Pressure Project, an expert in organizational health and management psychology. He graduated in Psychology in Management from the Jagiellonian University and currently holds a doctorate on well-being in organizations at the Jan Kochanowski University.

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