By Curtis David Maughan · Published · Updated
Mental health in the workplace
Most of us spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else. How we're treated there shapes how we feel about ourselves, our relationships, and our sense of what's possible. Supporting mental health at work isn't a campaign or a perk — it's the quiet, ongoing work of building a place where people feel safe enough to be human.
Why this matters now
Roughly one in four adults will experience a mental health difficulty in any given year, and the WHO estimates depression and anxiety cost the global economy a trillion dollars a year in lost productivity. The case for supporting mental health at work is really just the case for taking people seriously: when someone is struggling and has nowhere safe to say so, the cost lands on them first, and on the team soon after.
What “mental health at work” actually means
It's a spectrum, not a category. People move along it over weeks and months.
- — Thriving: energy, focus, a sense of meaning.
- — Coping: managing, but stretched.
- — Struggling: stress is starting to bleed into sleep, mood, relationships.
- — Unwell: a diagnosable condition is affecting daily life and needs proper care.
Workplace support is mostly about the middle two — making sure people don't slide further before anyone notices.
What good support looks like day-to-day
- — Psychological safety. People can ask questions, admit mistakes, and say “I'm not okay today” without it being held against them.
- — A workload that's actually doable. No amount of yoga fixes a job that needs two people.
- — Real flexibility. Not just a policy on a wiki — managers who genuinely encourage people to leave on time, take their holidays, and switch off.
- — Skilled managers. The single biggest day-to-day influence on someone's wellbeing at work is their direct manager.
What managers can actually do
- — Listen more than you fix. Most people don't want advice; they want to feel heard.
- — Hold the 1:1. A regular, predictable space to talk matters more than the perfect question.
- — Normalise the language. “How are you, really?” lands differently than “everything good?”
- — Know where to signpost. EAP, GP, Samaritans, your internal support routes — keep the list to hand.
- — Model it. If you never take a sick day or a holiday, no one on your team will either.
What organisations should put in place
- — A written mental health policy that says what people can expect and what's confidential.
- — A clear clinical pathway (EAP, occupational health, or partner provider) so support is one step away, not five.
- — Generous, no-questions sick leave that covers mental health by name.
- — Manager training in spotting early signs and holding supportive conversations.
- — Quiet, anonymous ways to check in on how people are doing — without surveilling them. The point is to notice patterns, not to rank individuals.
What to avoid
- — Awareness weeks as the whole strategy. One pizza lunch in May doesn't carry the rest of the year.
- — Resilience training instead of fixing workload. Telling exhausted people to breathe better is asking them to absorb the cost.
- — Wellbeing apps as a substitute. Software is helpful as a quiet companion; it isn't a replacement for fair work or a kind manager.
- — Performative leadership. If the CEO posts about mental health on LinkedIn but their team is burning out, people notice.
Nobody should have to face it alone.
The best workplaces aren't the ones with the most perks — they're the ones where people feel like they belong. That's true at home too, and it's why we built stillwater.