As a leader, you will know better than anyone about the importance of work-life balance. You may have even built flexibility into the working day, like adjusted hours or encouraging people to take time off when they need it. Yet despite this, burnout is still rife, and engagement remains low. You can see your team members are still distracted and harder to reach, so what’s actually going on?
In this blog, we’ll explore how leaders can create a more mentally healthy culture in the workplace and the benefits of doing so. Rather than focusing on surface-level fixes, we’ll look at practical, sustainable ways to support well-being. Oh, and absolutely no “trust falls” required.
Why Work-Life Balance Isn’t Enough for Mental Health
If you were to look online for guidance on creating a mentally healthy workplace, you’ll find no shortage of work-life balance tips and environment-related checklists. While there’s nothing wrong with these resources, they often fail to focus on what actually happens to people and businesses when workplaces don’t prioritize mental health. When the consequences are made visible, the issue becomes real, rather than something that only surfaces in HR emails or news reports.
Absenteeism and mental health
Analysis has found that between 2019 and 2024, leaves of absence rose by 30%, with mental health-related leave specifically increasing by 300%.1 Some of this rise may reflect a better understanding of mental health in the workplace, which is a positive shift.
However, when this data is viewed alongside other findings, it suggests that absenteeism and mental health are strongly related.
A 2025 survey of U.S. employers found that 47% of extended mental health leave requests were linked to chronic work stress and burnout, alongside other mental health conditions.2 Understanding burnout vs stress at work is important here. While stress typically comes from specific pressures and eases when the pressure lifts, burnout is a deeper state of exhaustion that builds up over time and doesn’t resolve with a single day off.
Burnout, in particular, continues to stand out, with one recent poll reporting that 52% of employees felt burned out by their jobs in the past year. A further 33% said their productivity had suffered significantly due to workplace burnout causes.3
Employee retention and wellbeing
Surveys show that 58% of employees have considered leaving their jobs due to mental health challenges.4 When mental health support at work is limited, this becomes a serious and ongoing risk.
The effects of a poor mental health work culture are not limited to the personal lives of employees, either. Analysis has estimated that mental illness costs the U.S. economy about $282 billion per year, which is roughly a recession-sized hit.5
When you look at these figures side by side, it becomes clear that creating a mentally healthy workplace goes beyond work-life balance. Without a supportive culture in place, flexibility alone can’t meet the mental health needs of employees. This is why systemic approaches to workplace mental health are so important. Individual perks and policies aren’t enough when the underlying culture doesn’t support well-being.
Your Role in Creating a Mentally Healthy Workplace
Even with the best intentions in the world, it’s unrealistic for any leader to support an entire team’s mental health on an individual level. This is one of the core challenges when thinking about how leadership impacts mental health at work.
Mental health is deeply personal and shaped by factors that sit far beyond the workplace. Because of this, it can be difficult to know how, or even when, to step in. Move too close, and it may feel intrusive, as though you’re crossing boundaries or asking questions you’re not equipped to hold. Step back too far, though, and it can look like indifference, even when you genuinely care.
It’s important to remember that you are not your team’s therapist, and you’re not expected to be. This is where many conversations about mental health at work become blurred, especially when leaders feel pressure to “fix” individual well-being.
But that doesn’t mean mental health sits outside your responsibility altogether. While you can’t manage individual well-being, you can influence the environment people work in every day. Creating a culture built on trust and building psychological safety in the workplace can make a meaningful difference, especially in a place where many people spend a large part of their lives.
How to Create a Mentally Healthy Work Culture
This section explores ways that you can create a mentally healthy work culture without overstepping boundaries. These points range from behind-the-scenes work to small but impactful changes, all aimed at reducing employee disengagement and supporting mental health.
Utilize Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
EAPs are one of the most direct ways organizations try to support mental health at work, but surprisingly, utilization remains very low. It’s not that many companies don’t have access to EAP; they do, but studies show that only 2-8% of employees are actually using them.6
One survey explored the reasons behind this low utilization and found the following:7
- Access friction — This was a dominant theme in over half of the responses, and included unclear processes or limited time.
- Low awareness — Some stated they forget that their company even provides EAPs.
- Poor fit — Some respondents said that the counsellor couldn’t relate or had preconceptions that counselling wouldn’t help their situation.
- Confidentiality fears and stigma — Many worried that information shared with EAP representatives would then be passed to their bosses, resulting in penalties or job loss.
As we can see from these issues, a lot of the time, the support just needs to be a little more visible.
Mentioning the EAP in meetings, for example, reminds people that help is there if they need it, not only when things have already reached breaking point.
How people access that support matters too. If it’s buried in a handbook or is generally just too hard to find, most won’t go looking for it. Providing a discreet but easy way to check what is available could be all it takes. You could set up a private Slack channel where EAP representatives are available to employees at the click of a button. This could remove some of that hesitation and put people back in control of when they engage with support.
Small signals like this can go a long way in helping people feel comfortable using the support that’s already there.
Try to Reduce Cognitive Overload
The cause of workplace burnout is not always driven by long hours, and in some cases, it builds through constant interruptions. Research shows that persistent changes in workflow can result in chronic work stress and mental health strain, both of which are associated with burnout.8
Some large organizations have tackled this head-on by changing how a normal workday is structured. Citigroup, for example, introduced “Zoom-Free Fridays,” removing video calls at the end of the week to reduce digital fatigue.9 Shopify went even further by banning midweek meetings and placing time restrictions on all meetings in an effort to reclaim focus on tasks.10
The value in these examples is not the scale of the intervention, but the idea behind it. Both companies recognized that ongoing disruptions were placing a significant cognitive load on employees. Identify where cognitive “leaks” are happening in your work environment and look for ways to reduce them.
Normalize Open Dialogue About Mental Health
One of the most helpful things leaders can do is make conversations about stress and mental health feel ordinary. That doesn’t mean turning meetings into therapy sessions, but something as simple as having a shared language for how people are doing can really help.
Some teams use easy metaphors, like a “battery meter” or a “stress thermometer”, to check in on energy levels.11 Asking “How’s your battery today?” can feel far less intimidating than a direct question about mental health, meaning it could open the door for honesty. Regular, informal check-ins like this could help remove some of the stigma around talking about stress.
When leaders are willing to acknowledge how the team really feels, it sends a clear signal that struggling isn’t a failure and that speaking up early is encouraged. This builds a healthy workplace mental health culture through everyday conversations.
Consider Training in Mental Health Awareness
One of the most important things you can do to create a psychologically healthy environment is bolster your own skills. Recognizing signs of burnout or distress and then understanding how to respond to them means you’re actively shaping the work environment for the better.
Research confirms that educating leaders and shaping their management style helps bridge the gap between employee needs and available support.6
You’re not training to provide therapy, but if you’re educated on how to listen to your team or spot signs of distress, you’re better equipped to seek the right kind of help for those who need it.
Mission Connection offers flexible outpatient care for adults needing more than weekly therapy. Our in-person and telehealth programs include individual, group, and experiential therapy, along with psychiatric care and medication management.
We treat anxiety, depression, trauma, and bipolar disorder using evidence-based approaches like CBT, DBT, mindfulness, and trauma-focused therapies. Designed to fit into daily life, our services provide consistent support without requiring residential care.
Mission Connection
Unfortunately, there are times when it isn’t the working environment itself that causes mental health to decline. Often, the pressure comes from far outside of work, which helps explain why work-life balance isn’t enough for mental health once those challenges begin to spill into daily functioning. If you’ve noticed changes in an employee’s mental health, or even in your own, it’s important to know that support is available.
Mission Connection provides expert care for a wide range of mental health challenges, including difficulties that have been worsened, or even triggered, by burnout and chronic overwork. Our focus is on understanding the full picture, not just what’s happening at work.
We offer both residential and outpatient treatment options, recognizing that the right setting matters when it comes to recovery. Whether someone needs intensive support or ongoing care alongside daily responsibilities, we can help identify the best path forward.
If you’re concerned about someone, whether they’re part of your workplace or not, reach out to us today. A member of our team will take the time to talk through your concerns and help plan a way forward, with care and compassion at the center of the conversation.
References
- ComPsych. (2025, September 11). ComPsych data uncovers a “new normal” in employee leaves since the COVID-19 pandemic. ComPsych. https://www.compsych.com/press-release/compsych-data-uncovers-a-new-normal-in-the-covid-19-pandemic/
- Brew, H., & Agovino, T. (2025, February 4). Employee leave requests jumped for the third year in a row with nearly half of workers citing mental health as the reason for a break. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2025/02/04/employee-leave-requests-jumped-for-third-year-in-a-row-mental-health/
- NAMI. (2024). The 2024 NAMI workplace mental health poll. NAMI. https://www.nami.org/research/publications-reports/survey-reports/the-2024-nami-workplace-mental-health-poll/
- BusinessWire. (2025, March 20). Headspace releases 2025 workforce state of mind report. HRTech Cube. https://hrtechcube.com/headspace-releases-2025-workforce-state-of-mind-report/
- Cummings, M. (2024, April 22). Novel study quantifies immense economic costs of mental illness in the U.S. YaleNews. https://news.yale.edu/2024/04/22/novel-study-quantifies-immense-economic-costs-mental-illness-us
- Wu, A., Roemer, E. C., Kent, K. B., Ballard, D. W., & Goetzel, R. Z. (2021). Organizational best practices supporting mental health in the workplace. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 63(12), 925–931. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000002407
- Moore, J. T., Wigington, C., Green, J., Horter, L., Kone, A., Lopes-Cardozo, B., Byrkit, R., & Rao, C. Y. (2023). Understanding low utilization of employee assistance programs and time off by US public health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Health Reports, 138(4), 003335492311652. https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549231165287
- Wei, Z., Abdul-Ghani, R., Mat, N., & Isa, R. M. (2025). Multitasking and workplace wellbeing: The roles of job stress and job autonomy. Frontiers in Psychology, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1611876
- Neate, R. (2021, March 23). Citigroup CEO ordains Zoom-free Fridays to ease “relentless” pandemic workday. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/23/citigroup-ceo-ordains-zoom-free-fridays-to-ease-relentless-pandemic-workday
- Demopoulos, A. (2023, January 6). The company purging meetings from calendars: “Uninterrupted time is precious.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/jan/06/work-meetings-shopify-isolation
- Lee-Baggley, D. (2024). How leaders can transform workplace mental health culture. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-of-weight-loss/202405/how-leaders-can-transform-workplace-mental-health-culture
