Tackling men’s mental health issues at work
The pandemic, burnout and talk around work life balance have forced employers to pay more attention to the mental health of their workforce. But men still face stigma in this area.
June is Men’s mental health month, meant for recognizing and acknowledging the unique struggles men face when it comes to tackling and expressing their own mental health challenges. Men are often hesitant to seek help due to perceived gender roles and ideals around masculinity, experts say, and their employers play a key role in erasing stigmas and shifting narratives allowing them to get the support they need. And very few are doing enough.
“I think with regards to the men, it’s definitely under the radar, and there needs to be more communication around it,” said Rob Jarvis, associate director of health, equity and wellbeing at WTW, an insurance company. “We’re kind of in the early process of this, but I’m very hopeful that this will be kind of more of the norm down the road to help this group of individuals out.”
Men often experience mental health conditions differently from women, and tend to externalize with self-destructive behavior that may be apparent in the workplace. That includes overworking, but also engaging in overindulgent activities outside work that can harm their work performance and ability to meet responsibilities.
They also may exhibit poor impulse control, withdraw from social events and activities in the workplace, and take excessive sick days, Jarvis said. Accordingly, employer programs need to address their unique needs specifically. And ensuring male staff can access the treatment and resources they need will ultimately help the bottom line by boosting productivity and morale.
The first step organizations should take is to better train managers to spot signs of an issue with male staff and better engage in conversations about their well-being, said Joel Axler, psychiatrist and national behavioral health leader at Brown & Brown, an insurance brokerage.
“Depression and anxiety, it’s silent. You don’t know, aside from these emotional outbursts, that someone’s struggling inside,” Axler said. Alxer has coached leaders through a mental health first aid program he likens to CPR training. “We’re not training these leaders or managers to become clinicians. We’re training them to have a better understanding that their employees may be suffering,” he said.
“Just helping leaders and managers be aware of all these subtleties, then leads to making sure we have psychological safety, and that safe space for us to discuss our emotions,” Axler said.
The language around mental health and well-being used with male staff also matters. Inclusive communications for men might look like softened language around burnout recovery rather than depression or sadness. And organization-wide messaging and awareness campaigns have been more helpful when they use some humor when targeting men, Jarvis said.
Providing programming to help men navigate the healthcare system when seeking help, like resources to find therapists and professional care, are also important. “The stereotype of the male is that we’re not ones that are going to ask for directions. We’ll just get lost until we find it,” Axler said. And employers should also confirm that their medical vendors or network have an adequate number of mental health or substance use disorder providers to get men help in a timely fashion.
Other effective tools to promote awareness include spotlights from male leadership who’ve dealt with their own mental health challenges. “They can use their own stories to trickle that down, to reduce the stigma of other men who may be dealing with mental health issues, and shift the cultural dynamics,” Axler said.
Ultimately though, certain aspects of a company’s culture meant to inclusively benefit all staff can also help address men’s unique needs — like more flexibility in the workplace.
“I think that with a hybrid that we’re living in right now, offering flexible hours, men being able to work from home so that they can take off in an afternoon and go to their son’s soccer game now, which they’ve never, probably done in the past, or to maybe do car pickup, from school,” Axler said. Levers to help promote work-life balance and a culture that widely acknowledges employee’s lives outside of work can help alleviate much of the stress they do bring to the job, he said.