Common challenges

Organisations that have been taking action to create a mentally healthy workplace already have lessons to share. Understanding and anticipating common barriers can help you plan your approach and maximise your chances of success in implementing a workplace mental health strategy or plan.

You don’t have to start from scratch. There are already many examples of organisations taking action to create mentally healthy workplaces. You can learn from the experiences of others. 

Challenges identified in research

Intervention evaluation research shows some of the most common barriers include:

• insufficient or inconsistent leadership support
• significant organisational change occurring at the same time
• limited expertise in interventions to create a mentally healthy workplace
• limited access to appropriate data (e.g. absenteeism, turnover, other human resources or work health and safety data).

Research trials of workplace mental health interventions also identify potential barriers, including:

• people are unsatisfied with interventions or activities because they are not feasible or acceptable for that workplace
• low uptake of interventions or activities mean only a few people benefit
• the initial activities or intervention are not maintained after an initial period
• management or team leaders’ attitudes or actions do not support change
• staff shortages or competing priorities get in the way
• stigma of mental ill-health and privacy concerns
• cynicism or lack of trust among workers about the organisation.

Challenges shared by experts

Subject matter experts have observed common mistakes that organisations can make, including:

• lack of early intervention, waiting until there is a crisis before acting on workplace mental health
• lack of consultation with stakeholders about their needs and experiences
• lack of co-design with staff living with mental ill-health in a supportive and safe way 
• lack of consideration for, or involvement of, staff who are carers of others with mental-ill health 
• lack of recognition of generational differences
• too much focus on individual mental health and wellbeing without equivalent focus on organisation-wide intervention (sometimes suggesting issues are up to individuals to solve rather than highlighting mentally healthy workplaces are a collaborative exercise where everyone has a role to play)
• managers and supervisors not engaging with programs or exhibiting contradictory behaviour to what is being communicated in workplace mental health training programs
• lack of shared understanding across the organisation about mental health and how work-related factors can influence mental health and wellbeing
• adopting one-off activities and awareness campaigns rather than taking a strategic and long-term approach to workplace mental health
• a lack of evidence-informed decision making when selecting workplace mental health activities, programs and services
• under-resourcing workplace mental health, including the expectation that staff undertake mental health and wellbeing roles in a voluntary or ‘off the side of the desk’ capacity
• not making workplace mental health part of core business
• fostering a culture of ‘toxic positivity’ where there is an expectation that employees must only, and always, express positive emotions, and invalidation of legitimate problems as complaints or negativity
• failing to evaluate the impact of interventions leading to lack of understanding of what is working, or how to improve
• an over-emphasis on individual-directed (e.g. resilience training) and illness-directed intervention (e.g. RUOK? Day) and an under-emphasis on work-directed intervention (e.g. workload management).

Factors that enable success

These challenges highlight some important lessons that can set up you up for success:

• Ensure interventions are appropriate, feasible, well-timed, evidence-based and co-designed whenever possible.
• Be proactive and act early.
• Engage management and as much of the workplace as possible to create shared understanding.
• Focus on organisational factors, with a long-term, strategic approach.
• Consider how you will monitor, evaluate and improve your approach over the long term.
• Ensure initiatives are well resourced.