The unspoken crisis in men’s mental health — and how employers can help

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In October, a mental health program shared alarming survey results: Nearly half of the respondents — all of whom were men aged 18 or older — scored above the threshold for probable major depression.

The study, conducted by HeadsUpGuys, a program from the University of British Columbia and Community Savings Credit Union, sought input from men living and working in Canada, but researchers have been following the trend elsewhere in the past decade.

Anne Case and Angus Deaton, economists at Princeton, published a paper in 2015 on a marked increase in the mortality rate of one group — middle-aged, non-Hispanic White men — largely due to “deaths of despair,” namely drug and alcohol overdoses, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis.  

How did the crisis get so bad?

“I think that we have been, for good reason, very focused on groups that have historically had less privilege than men,” Laura Putnam, CEO and founder of wellness consulting group Motion Infusion and author of “Workplace Wellness that Works,” told HR Dive. While the pivot to focus on historically underresourced individuals is laudable, men’s issues may be getting dismissed or swept under the rug in the process.

In addition, men are far less likely to seek help, largely due to traditional ideas of masculinity. So while men may often have the resources to access mental health support, cultural factors likely account for resistance to doing so. The phenomenon is well-known enough to have sparked a series of memes about what men will do rather than go to therapy. 

As employers have learned to embrace employees’ “whole selves” and have found ways to address mental health at work, they may need to take a different approach to reach men who are struggling, Putnam said. 

Go beyond the standard resources

Many times, Putnam pointed out, employers see their role as simply offering resources and communicating what those are: insurance-sponsored therapy, counseling through employee assistance programs and access to apps like Calm or Headspace among them. But often, especially for workers who feel a strong stigma about using such resources, this isn’t enough.

Putnam pointed to three separate suicides that occurred in under one week on a single naval ship in September 2019. “This came on the heels of the military, particularly the Navy, having invested heavily in mental health and suicide prevention,” Putnam said. But the investments were in “that old-school model” of identifying mental health as a personal issue and offering the resources workers might use to address it. Tragically, the U.S. Navy experienced a similar event this past April. 

“We need to be taking more of a look at the culture of the workplace itself,” Putnam said. While the military is certainly a unique type of workplace, Putnam has worked with several male-dominated industries, including oil and gas, in which she said the culture could be described as “macho.” 

Employees’ personal lives aren’t always responsible for their declining mental health; the workplace can lead to a serious deterioration in wellness. Putnam noted a Gallup study that attributed burnout to a number of workplace factors, including unfair treatment, unmanageable workloads, a lack of role clarity, lack of communication and support from managers and unreasonable time pressure. It’s not just about employees “not doing enough deep breathing or not practicing mindfulness,” Putnam said.

Putnam suggested employers do a cultural audit of sorts, asking the difficult questions and gathering feedback. The Gallup survey provides a good start, Putnam said: “Do we have issues like unfair treatment at work? Do we have unmanageable workloads? Is there a lack of role clarity? Is there a lack of communication and support from managers? Are there unreasonable time pressures here in our workplace?”

Top leaders need to be fully bought in on the project, as they’re the ones who can issue policies that can get at the root causes, Putnam said. For example, if pay gaps contribute to a sense of unfairness, leaders can do a pay equity audit and let employees know the issue is being addressed. 

Empower managers to prioritize employee well-being

Managers play a unique role in setting the tone for employees and either persuading them or dissuading them from caring for their mental health. “Managers need to first be awakened to the role that they play, and then [they need] to be given the resources through meaningful training,” Putnam said. The training can be largely social-emotional: How do managers start to engage in these conversations around well-being? 

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