06 Apr 2015 Views on News
Germanwings Lesson: Organizations Must Pay More
Attention to Employee Mental Health
The Germanwings tragedy
catapulted the issues of mental
health and corporate risk and
responsibility into the world's
headlines. Professor John Quelch
argues it's time for companies to
make employee mental health
more than an afterthought.
by Michael Blanding
When news broke March 24 that a
young co-pilot for Lufthansa's low
cost-airline Germanwings had
intentionally crashed a passenger
jet into the French Alps, killing
himself and 149 others, people
struggled for answers. What would
make someone take his own life
along with those of so many
innocent people?
One possible answer came this past
week when the airline revealed that
the pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had
previously suffered from deep
depression. Debates began about
how Lubitz's mental health played
into the tragedy, what treatment he
might have received, and whether
Lufthansa should have let him fly
at all.
That discussion is a rare surfacing
of an issue too often ignored—the
problem of mental health in the
workplace.
"To date, companies have focused
on physical health much more than
they have on mental health," says
Professor John A. Quelch, Charles
Wilson Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard
Business School. In collaboration
with Carin-Isabel Knoop, executive
director of the HBS Case Research
& Writing Group, he recently
wrote the note, Mental Health and
the American Workplace,
exploring the extent of the
phenomenon, its cost to
organizations and employees, and
some managerial responses.
"If you look at the allocation of
resources in corporate wellness
programs, you will find it heavily
weighted towards physical health,"
says Quelch. Only rarely does a
tragedy, such as a suicide of a top
management executive or
workplace shooting by a
disgruntled current or former
employee, make the issue part of
global debate; the Germanwings
crash provides both an opportunity
and a warning on the issue.
In some ways, it makes sense that
mental health issues get buried.
"Most physical conditions are
visible, either to the naked eye or
on an X-ray," says Quelch, who
holds a joint appointment as
Professor in Health Policy and
Management at the Harvard T.H.
Chan School of Public Health.
"Mental health conditions aren't so
readily identifiable."
"A very interesting question to ask
is whether the German pilot
tragedy will be good or bad for
treatment and management of
mental health in the workplace,"
says Quelch. "On the one hand, it
focuses tremendous attention on
mental health in the workplace. "
But an overreaction to the issue
could result in costly ramp-ups of
mental health screening of
questionable effectiveness. Such
screenings may do more harm than
good by stigmatizing those who
legitimately suffer from mental
health issues that are entirely
manageable, and by making it
more costly for them to come
forward.
It's clear from Quelch and Knoop's
research that most companies treat
mental health as an afterthought.
"You can imagine a fallout from
this tragedy, subjecting everyone
from crane operators to Uber
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drivers to random mental health
checks," says Quelch. "You can
imagine a vicious cycle of
stigmatization and dysfunctional
finger-pointing being the result."
Stress or Mental Illness?
A culture of 3 a.m. emails and
competition in the conference
rooms can contribute to workplace
stress. A 2013 survey by the
American Psychiatric Association
found that one-third of working
Americans experienced chronic
work stress, while only 36 percent
reported their employers provided
adequate support to manage it.
According to the National Institute
of Mental Health, some 6.7 percent
of American adults experience
"major depressive disorder;
antidepressants are the most
prescribed class of drugs in the
United States.
That depression has taken its toll
on employers and even taxpayers.
Research by Harvard Business
School Assistant Professor Joel
Goh estimates that workplace
stress is responsible for up to 8
percent of national spending on
health care and contributes to
120,000 deaths a year. According
to the Gallup-Healthways
Well-Being Index, absenteeism
from workers diagnosed with
depression costs US workplaces an
estimated $23 billion annually in
lost productivity. That number,
however, only calculates losses
based on days employees miss, not
on the lowered productivity on
days they come in to work.
"When it comes to mental health,
the main issue for organizations is
'presenteeism' more than
absenteeism," says Quelch. And
that cost is borne not just by the
employee suffering from mental
illness. "If I am bringing a mental
health problem to the office, I am
probably going to impact the office
atmosphere and affect other
colleagues who will have to pick
up the slack."
Perhaps because of the social
effects of mental health problems,
workers are often reluctant to
admit they are suffering from
problems—sometimes even to
themselves. "There is a
pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps
philosophy that is still prevalent in
many companies," says Quelch.
"We develop other words to talk
about mental health—we call it
'stress' or call on people to be
'resilient.'"
But normalizing the issue in the
workplace can create even more
barriers for employees to speak up
and admit they have a problem, for
fear of being accused of not being
able to help themselves. "If
someone has diabetes and they
have to manage that chronic
condition, no one bats an eyelid,"
says Quelch. "But if I say I have to
manage a mental health problem,
co-workers and the human resource
department may start getting
nervous. It's presumed that mental
health issues are more under an
individual's control."
Changing Cultures
As Quelch and Knoop explore in
their note, some companies are
taking a different tack, being
proactive about integrating mental
health into their wellness programs
alongside physical health. One
approach is through Employee
Assistance Programs (EAPs), a
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resource that enables employees to
reach out confidentially for
assistance on any number of
issues—stress management,
finances, or life changes, alongside
more serious issues such as
depression or suicidal thoughts.
By integrating life management
programs with mental health,
companies can both address
stigmas and provide coping
strategies to address issues before
they become chronic problems.
Johnson & Johnson has created a
culture in which employees are
welcome to use the corporate gym
any time without penalty in order
to relieve stress. (The company's
approaches to wellness are
described in Johnson & Johnson:
The Promotion of Wellness.)
General Mills offers mindfulness
training with on-site meditation to
help employees focus as part of its
programs to promote mental and
physical wellness.
Of course, implementing such a
culture change starts at the top. "As
always, an expression of support
from leadership is very important,"
says Quelch. "Leaders can set good
examples by not sending emails at
3 a.m. or showing up in the office
on Saturday mornings, and by
implementing a good EAP and
encouraging employees and their
family members to use it."
To remove the stigma, employers
need to educate workers about
mental illness and distinguish it
from normal levels of stress. At the
same time, managers must learn
the legal restrictions about asking
about mental illness, and the rules
around the need for
accommodation. Often, this
requires formal training programs.
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"Companies hold numerous
meetings related to diversity
training to make the workplace
comfortable for people of different
races, genders, or sexual
orientations," says Quelch.
"Employees should be educated in
the same way about how to deal
with mental health issues."
warranted, says Quelch. In those
cases, employers should look into
finding the most effective ways of
diagnosing potential problems to
ensure that cases of mental illness
are caught early and-if they do not
respond to treatment-then
removing those employees who
could do others harm.
In some lines of work in which the
public is put at risk —such as air
travel or police service—regular
mental health testing may be
For the majority of employers,
however, an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure. Diagnosing
mental health issues early and
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creating a culture in which
employees feel supported and free
to seek help can help ensure a
healthy and productive workplace
across all industries.
About the author
Michael Blanding is a senior
writer for Harvard Business School
Working Knowledge
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