Employees want mental health support–but many managers don’t know how to give it. Experts explain how to implement a training program that will make an impact.
Managers play an essential role in employees’ mental health–but they may not be getting the guidance they need to provide effective support.
According to the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America Survey, more than 90 percent of U.S. workers want to work for an organization that values employee mental health and well-being. But just one-third (29 percent) of surveyed workers said that managers at their organization “encourage employees to take care of their mental health.”
Many managers may not know how to engage with employees on the topic of mental health, says Danielle Hayes, HR director at Bowie, Maryland-based professional services firm MILCORP.
“You find a lot of professionals in executive leadership roles that have had zero experience or training in leading others,” Hayes said at a recent National Press Foundation event in Washington, D.C. At MIL, she said, this becomes a question of “how do we instill in you what our culture is and what our expectations are as far as employee treatment, workplace environment, and, really, how do you dig into what’s going on with your team?”
In D.C., Hayes joined a series of other business leaders and experts to speak about the ongoing challenges related to mental health in the workplace, as well as the best practices for addressing those challenges. Several speakers pointed to manager mental health training as a key strategy for supporting employees’ mental health and, in so doing, increasing employee satisfaction and productivity.
Here are their top tips for implementing an effective manager mental health training program:
Find the right program for you
Manager mental health training can take various forms. Dennis Stolle, senior director of applied psychology at the American Psychological Association, advocated for training centered on developing psychological capital–a reserve of mental and emotional well-being that can be tapped during challenging times.
A leader’s “reserve” has a positive influence on the team, even within a geographically dispersed group, Stolle said, referring to a 2021 study. “As the team leader’s psychological capital goes up, the direct reports’ psychological capital goes up,” Stolle said.
Hayes and Betsy Schwartz, director of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation’s center for workplace mental health, recommended trainings that boost managers’ core observational and communication skills.
The APA has offered online NTA–Notice. Talk. Act.–workplace training since 2021; MIL follows an “ask, notice, listen” approach for its supervisor training. This includes training managers on how to ask team members about concerning behavior, how to observe key dynamics and behavioral shifts, and how to listen for employee concerns. “We engage them to really look at what’s going on–and you can find it in one of those ways, or all three of those ways,” Hayes said.
The right training program for your organization has to be one your managers are comfortable with–and one they can buy into, Stole said: “[Psychological capital training], it’s tasks that anybody is able to do. But it’s difficult in the sense that it takes time and you have to go into it with the mindset of, ‘OK, this isn’t just silliness. I’m really going to try.'”
Make mental health a regular commitment
Offering one-time mental health training is unlikely, by itself, to be sufficient to create a culture that supports employee mental health, the speakers noted.
Managers should regularly go through mental health trainings, Stolle said–ideally, every six months, “just like they go through anti-harassment training.”
But there also needs to be a consistent commitment from leadership. “If the CEO says, ‘This is what we’re about and this is how it’s going to be,’ and doesn’t say that once, but says that every quarterly meeting, says that over and over again and is living it and showing it by example, that makes a tremendous difference,” Stolle said.
At MIL, the HR team underscores the organization’s commitment by conducting stay interviews, convening focus groups, and holding six-month check-ins with new employees. “When the teams and the employees see that the organization is taking it very seriously, then they, in turn, take it seriously too,” Hayes said.