The Stepped Care Approach to Mental Health: How to build digital tools to tackle workplace stigma

Each year, depression and anxiety cost an estimated $1 trillion in productivity losses.¹ For employers, these impacts are tangible: employees struggling with mental health have higher rates of absenteeism, presenteeism (the lost productivity when a worker can’t function at full capacity), and turnover. In other words, employees with major depressive disorder cost an average of 33.4% of their annual salary in lost productivity.²

Many employers have responded by expanding access to their mental health benefits. But access isn’t the only obstacle: many employees dealing with mental health concerns are unable to recognize the benefits of support. And some are simply unwilling to seek it.

In our current landscape, employers are challenged to seamlessly embed mental health support into their organizational culture. Digital mental health services could help.

Overcoming the barrier of mental health stigma 

To understand why many employees are hesitant to seek help, employers must understand how decisions about mental health are impaired by social stigma. 

Identifying oneself, or being identified by others, as ‘mentally-ill’ attaches a host of socially prescribed negative character assumptions that are often incorrect. As a result, many employees choose to not disclose mental health issues – 39% of employees in a 2016 study said they wouldn’t tell a manager if they were struggling.³

Self-stigmatization can prevent reaching out

Employees struggling with mental health are often unable to identify themselves as such due to the negative implications of stigma for their self-image. And if they do identify as mentally-ill, it is not only their decision-making that suffers but their performance as well. Self-stigmatization occurs when individuals internalize their negative beliefs about mental illness, resulting in self-limiting behaviors and attitudes that hamper productivity. 

How employers can tackle workplace stigma

• One solution is for employers to explicitly promote awareness and acceptance of mental health, as a way to signal that it’s okay to seek support.
• Another, more subtle, route is treating mental health as an organizational problem, not a personal one. This approach provides more extensive mental health support that is seamlessly integrated into the daily practices of an organization.