During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was working as director of learning and development (L&D) at an architecture firm. The design field inherently includes factors that can challenge the mental health of the professionals in it — high client expectations, billable hours, inflexible deadlines and high-pressure outcomes where mistakes are costly. So when layoffs at my firm began, and stress and anxiety were at a peak, I knew we needed to address our team’s mental health.

But with budgets tightening, our leadership team encouraged me to address this in-house by working with our employee assistance program’s (EAP’s) health coach to design training. We shared ways to self-cope, empathize, build resilience and utilize organizational resources. But ultimately, we only tackled part of the problem.

Ultimately, while we addressed the stigma and educated people about resources, we weren’t giving people the skills needed to shift the work culture toward a more sustainable, mentally healthy work environment. This is the trap a lot of L&D leaders face. They are swayed to over-index on self-care, apps and EAPs without strategically addressing the culture of work itself.

True culture change efforts require more consistency and focus than offering a meditation app, but the return on investment (ROI) is greater in the long run. According to Mind Share Partners’ 2023 Mental Health at Work report, workers find healthy and sustainable work cultures and a safe and supportive culture for mental health more helpful than therapy and self-care resources.

L&D professionals need to expand learning outcomes to include actions that create lasting culture change. Here are three ways to do that.

1. Help managers build compassionate conversation skills.

Workers’ awareness and perceptions about mental health continue to improve. However, according to the report, only 44% of workers see their manager as equipped to support their mental health. But this can change with proper training. A study found that mental health workshops significantly improve managers’ knowledge, non-stigmatizing attitudes and actual behavior, supporting employees who experience mental health conditions. This includes training managers in ways to engage in these conversations compassionately while minimizing risks.

Designing highly engaging, experiential training is key to increasing the confidence and capabilities of teams. Training attendees should walk away with the ability to engage in active listening, express curiosity without pressuring anyone to disclose anything outside of their comfort and empower the other party to seek out resources and further support.

Consider this case study:

At Houzz, a home remodeling and design platform, Mind Share Partners paired on-demand training that covered the foundations with live training focused on scenarios based on feedback from managers. The personal stories the organization infused in the training session made the training more engaging and spoke to the organization’s commitment to it.

To take this a step further, incorporate these skills into manager performance expectations and qualifications in manager hiring and promotion.

2. Help teams create mentally healthy working norms.

Compared to previous years, the report also found that the negative impact of the workplace on workers’ mental health declined — employer investments in work are paying off. In fact, according to the report, 78% of workers rated a healthy and sustainable culture of work as “moderately,” “very” or “extremely” helpful to their mental health — higher than 60% of workers for self-care resources. To cultivate that healthy and sustainable culture, L&D professionals should work with teams to create opportunities for autonomy and influence in decision-making, order of tasks and deadlines, for example. This has been associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety. Equip teams to reimagine those working norms and the pace of communication to solve employee burnout.

There can sometimes be a false idea that high performance can only be achieved at the cost of a mentally healthy culture. However burned-out employees cannot perform at their best. Explicitly naming boundaries and holding everyone accountable for their performance can work toward fostering a healthier balance, rather than continuing at the accelerated pace that many of us took on during the pandemic.

For example, on-demand courses with fillable worksheets can assist with these conversations and empower teams to set these expectations in a balanced way. Throughout the employee lifecycle, these conversations should be revisited to account for changes in an individual’s and team’s needs.

3. Cultivate safety and support around mental health.

During the pandemic, employees felt that organizations and leaders were supportive of mental health thanks to greater investments, but this year, it has shifted backwards. Workers are less comfortable talking about mental health and are less likely to view their organization or leaders as supporting mental health overall.

Part of this trend is due to massive layoffs and forced returns to office. Psychological safety can’t be maintained if work culture and the business isn’t centered on core human needs like safety and stability.

That said, L&D leaders can still continue to advocate for mental health through proactive allyship. Begin to name mental health directly as a priority and connect learning outcomes to these efforts. Emotionally intelligent leadership, effective collaboration and communication and time management are all skills that contribute to mentally healthy practices. Embed mental health practices into your organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and wear intersectional lens when facilitating these offerings. Encourage leaders to help normalize mental health by sharing their own experiences. Leadership vulnerability can make it easier for employees to share and explore resources and support.

For instance, The Mind Share Partners “Leaders Go First” campaign provides a playbook with tips for leaders to inspire openness, authenticity and true culture change. In regard to the campaign, U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, shares that “when workplaces…[and] leaders step up to share their personal mental health stories, it inspires openness and shifts the culture to one where we don’t feel ashamed to seek help.”

Looking Ahead

Most importantly, push to think broader and more strategically than I did years ago. Building awareness about the resources available is just one piece of the much larger approach to ensure both employees and workplaces can thrive. A mentally healthy future of work is possible. And equipping the agents of change — your people — is one crucial step along the way.