With more employees returning to the office and physical workplaces as pandemic restrictions are eased and with an increasingly competitive labor market, it is especially important that employers be vigilant in responding to the mental health needs of their employees.
One in five U.S. adults aged 18 or older, or 52.9 million people, live with some form of mental illness, according to 2020 data from the National Institute of Mental Health. More than 14 million, or 5.6 percent of all U.S. adults, live with serious mental illness, according to the data. Less than half of adults with any mental illness actually sought treatment in 2020.
There is also a good deal of evidence that the last two years of isolation that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem. Many are anxious to return to the office or physical workplaces or be in social settings once again, while others are eager to be back around other people. Others carry anxiety over having to protect high-risk family members or over having to take care for someone with long-term complications from COVID-19.
This means monitoring workers’ mental health may be a major concern for employers moving forward as they try to optimize productivity and retain well-trained talent. Gone are the days of telling a worker to just “get over it” or “snap out of it and come back tomorrow ready to work” as was common among older generations.
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