Why Mental Health Is A Workplace Issue

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It’s hard to believe, but Memorial Day—also known as the unofficial start of summer—is next week. That means it’s about time for vacation, even though a new study shows that many business owners aren’t so great at taking time off. A survey of 600 business owners by Clarify Capital found that nearly one in four business owners took no time off in the past year.

Business owners have a lot to juggle when working, so vacation isn’t always a top priority. The survey found 72% of those who skipped vacation said financial concerns prevented them from leaving. And more than six in 10 said that inflation was a factor in taking less time off. (However, the survey also found that when times are good and their business earns more revenue, 58% don’t change their time-off behaviors.)

Of those who took vacations, 81% still checked their emails while they were away, and just under half actually did business tasks while on vacation. More than half (52%) said they were unable to enjoy their time off because of business concerns. The end result: 27% said they still felt burnt out after taking time away.

Not taking time off impacted business owners in big ways. Business owners who skipped time off are 146% more likely to report poor mental health. More than half are more stressed, and several reported a work-life imbalance, physical health issues and waning passion for the business. It doesn’t take a lot of time away to turn these statistics around, though. The study found the happiest business owners take 10 days off a year—just two working weeks.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and it’s important for leaders to plan those summer vacations to set an example for their employees. But it’s also important for business leaders to be engaged in the mental health of their employees. Work—and the rest of life—can be stressful. GDIT, a business unit of aerospace firm General Dynamics, instituted a comprehensive mental wellness program in 2021, and has been awarded Mental Health America’s Platinum Bell Seal multiple times. I talked to GDIT President Amy Gilliland about why it’s important to bring mental health into the workplace. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Inflation is still simmering, but the markets aren’t hurting. Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit their highest points ever. On Thursday, the Dow surpassed 40,000, on Wednesday the S&P 500 reached 5,279.26, and last Tuesday the Nasdaq hit a record 16,511. Juxtapose that with April’s inflation figures, released last week by the Labor Department. Headline inflation came in last month at a rate of 3.4%, and while this is the lowest inflation has been since April 2021, it’s still well above the less-than-3% figures prevalent during the two decades prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. (And yes, also well above the Federal Reserve Board’s 2% target to decrease interest rates.)

So what gives? Forbes’ senior reporter Derek Saul writes investors are paying more to become part of the market action, even though ratios of share prices to earnings and sales are at their highest levels since the dot com boom. While that stock bubble largely came from excitement about unproven online companies going public, excitement about AI is what’s buoying today’s market. (Though many of the companies making the biggest gains today are, at the very least, established in markets other than AI.) Investors are also encouraged by indicators pointing to inflation decreasing and the economy in general getting weaker. This could make interest rate cuts come sooner, which would be a good move for business—though the economy as a whole seems to be taking its toll on consumers in the meantime. According to financial disclosures filed last week, even President Joe Biden took out a home-equity loan last year on vacation property he owns in Rehoboth, Delaware.

NOTABLE NEWS

Tesla shareholders are already voting on whether to restore Elon Musk’s gigantic pay package, worth about $50 billion, which was struck down by a judge earlier this year. And while votes will not be final until Tesla’s annual meeting next month, Forbes senior editor Alan Ohnsman writes its biggest retail shareholder, Singapore-based billionaire Leo Koguan, has voted against it. Koguan, who owns 27.7 million shares in the electric vehicle company, previously called himself “Elon’s fanboy.” Now, he told Forbes, he feels that Tesla “has one shareholder, a one-person (board of directors) and one tyrant CEO. …The priority is he should work and do his job as CEO of Tesla. He already received 13% of Tesla. More than enough. He’s funded all his ventures from the Tesla ATM machine.” Also up for vote: Reincorporating Tesla in Texas, where Musk’s huge compensation package would be legal. Koguan told Forbes he also voted against that issue.

According to a state filing last week, Tesla is laying off more than 600 additional employees in California, including senior-level positions at a manufacturing plant and the company’s engineering headquarters. In an internal memo last month, Musk said Tesla would cut more than 10% of its global workforce, impacting more than 10,000 employees. Tesla has one of the worst performing stocks of the year, with its share price down more than 28% so far in 2024.

HUMAN CAPITAL

Remote work has been a cherished privilege for many, but two new studies found that managers and more senior employees are the workers most likely to change jobs in response to return-to-office mandates. Forbes senior editor Jena McGregor writes about a Gartner study, which found 33% of executive-level employees with return-to-office requirements said they would leave their jobs for that reason. Just 19% of more rank-and-file employees felt the same. And an academic working paper published just days earlier from People Data Labs found return-to-office policies at Apple, Microsoft and SpaceX appeared to impact senior employee departures. The employees who left, the academic paper found, suffered no professional consequences—no evidence of role changes, demotions or unemployment. “That suggests these senior employees have plenty of outside options,” co-author David Van Dijcke told Forbes.

TOMORROW’S TRENDS

Why Employee Mental Health Became A Priority At GDIT

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, but employee well being is a top priority every month at global tech company and defense contractor GDIT. The company has had a comprehensive program to focus on mental wellness since 2021, and has received praise from both employees and mental health organizations. I talked to GDIT President Amy Gilliland about the program, and why mental health is an important workplace issue.

This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity. A longer version is available here.

Note to readers: This interview mentions suicide and other reasons for mental distress.

Why did you start focusing on mental health at GDIT?

Gilliland: It was really experience. Being the president of a company that has 28,000 employees, it’s really just a sub-sector of the broader population. Our employees are all over the world. In the midst of Covid [pandemic shutdowns], this was August 2021, I became very aware, from conversations and interactions both in my personal life and at work, that mental health issues were more prevalent than I had remembered them in this position. I was at a local lake for a long weekend, and one of my reports called me to say that somebody that was quite prevalent at GDIT had committed suicide. In that moment, I decided that GDIT needed to play a role in this, and that we would make a commitment to taking on this subject and trying to help employees and their families.

I think we all know how stressed everybody was at that moment. Our kids were learning from home, or were recovering from learning from home. People had lost people in their lives. Support networks had failed. And the economy: inflation was rising. And we had the George Floyd incident. There was a lot of disruption and turmoil, and it was all coming together at a time also when people did not have access to the resources, or there weren’t enough resources to tackle that. I just was committed to doing something.

I came back and talked to my brilliant team here, and put together this campaign, which we termed “How Are You, Really?” Oftentimes in the office, at the watercooler, you ask somebody, “How are you?” and then I just keep walking down the hall, saying, “Oh, I’m living the dream,” roll your eyes, right? But this is encouraging employees to ask—and to really care about what the response is.

I started this job in September of 2017. [There is] not anything that I’ve done in my job that I have seen more well and widely received than the “How Are You, Really?” campaign. Everywhere I go, somebody talks about it.

What would you say to a business executive who says mental health is important, but it’s a personal issue that doesn’t belong in the workplace?

I think that that era is bygone. It is proven that when employees can bring their whole selves to work and they feel supported by their employer, they perform well and the business performs well. And the inverse is true. I’m not saying that we have to solve mental health problems here. But going back to what I was highlighting before, this is a whole of society problem. I think businesses need to make a decision that they can be part of addressing that problem. We can’t ignore it, because employees spend eight, 10, 12 hours a day at work. Work can be perceived as a place that adds anxiety, difficulty, nervousness. That it could exacerbate one of these problems. We’re trying to create a place where yes, we expect and hold people accountable for performance. But the thing is, when they feel like their leaders care about them, they’re even more committed, and they come to work healthy—mentally and in their body as well.

What advice would you give to an executive who is interested in starting a similar program at their workplace?

They can call us. We’d be happy to share our resources. We have an external website that talks about resources that are out there. There’s plenty of organizations that support this also. The [National Alliance on Mental Illness] has resources. We built this organically, so we worked our way through it.

I think an important thing to do is to listen to employees, because employees really helped us build a meaningful program here.

I would also tell them that this does not have to cost a lot of money. We’ve introduced flexibility in places where we can be flexible, and that helps employees. If we have somebody that needs to take a step away, we’ve come up with ways to allow them to step away and they don’t have to quit.

The other advice that I would give is that leaders have to own this, too. Your leaders have to go along this journey because they will be critical to demonstrating the kinds of behaviors that need to be pushed down through the organization, for employees to feel like this is more than just another initiative that goes out there.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An online chat is also available.

FACTS + COMMENTS

An announcement from a liquidation firm last week revealed the unexpected closure of several locations of seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster. The chain is rumored to be considering filing for bankruptcy.

More than 50: Locations that were immediately closed last week. The chain has more than 600 locations

$11 million: The restaurant’s operating loss in the third quarter of 2023. The popularity of its $20 Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal was considered a key factor

‘Red Lobster’s ongoing financial requirements no longer align with our capital allocation priorities’: January statement from minority investor Thai Union CEO Thiraphong Chansiri, which is pursuing an exit from the chain

STRATEGIES + ADVICE

While most CEOs have been working their way up to the position for years, people in the position tend to find many things they did not expect to come with the corner-office suite. Here are five things that every (new or experienced) CEO needs to know.

If the last few years have been any indication, the only thing that businesses can expect is the unexpected. While you might be ready, your board of directors might not be. Here’s how to brief them on what’s going on, and how to jointly get ready for whatever may come.

VIDEO

Suneera Madhani On Why Representation In Business Matters

QUIZ

Boeing could face criminal charges of conspiracy to defraud the government, several outlets reported last week. Why?

A. The airplane manufacturer falsified financial information to evade taxes.

B. Officials lied to federal inspectors about safety inspections of its planes.

C. The company did not live up to a settlement agreement it made following two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

D. The manufacturer stage-managed visits from federal inspectors, controlling all aspects to paint a false picture of the working conditions and safety features.

See if you got the answer right here.