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Mental Health Leave Is on the Rise. What Employers Need to Know
As mental health conditions rise, employers are dealing with an associated challenge: a surge in mental health-related employee leave.
A recent study of more than 2,000 employers and employees by insurance company Guardian found that 81% of employers said mental health issues contributed to absences at their organization, and 50% saw an increase in mental health claims. Additionally, 30% said they saw an increase in postpartum depression claims.
As employees take more leave, many are also calling for a positive leave experience — one that includes care and support from their employer, said Jessica Vanscavish, head of disability, absence, life, and supplemental health product management at Guardian in Philadelphia. In fact, Guardian found employees who have a positive leave experience are 75% more likely to stay at their job for five or more years.
Those stats should be driving employers to reexamine their leave management practices in order to offer the best experience, she said.
“Employers really need to show care during the leave process and show employees that they’re safe,” she said.
SHRM recently spoke to Vanscavish about what’s driving an increase in mental health-related employee leaves and what employers can do to prepare.
What trends are you seeing in the mental health space that are driving increases in mental health claims and related absences?
Vanscavish: Societally, we have made great strides in awareness of mental health. We are feeling more comfortable talking about mental health than we were 10 years ago.
And now we have five generations in the workforce … they’re in different stages of life. Gen Z is more comfortable talking about mental health. Millennials and Gen X are doing more on the caregiving side, which has stress associated with it. Baby Boomers may have more physical conditions that turn into mental stress. When you’re under stress, you're going to have mental health situations.
And you have individuals having babies, and we’re seeing a big increase in postpartum leave due to postpartum depression.
We also see that the primary reason for the leave was not mental health related, but it's a secondary, comorbid situation … the stress and the strain that they're experiencing. That’s postpartum for instance. Or maybe someone had a car accident and has to go out on disability but now it’s manifested into financial stress, the stress of trying to manage their home, their family. Sometimes people didn’t have a pre-existing mental health issue, but it manifested because of the stress and strain they’re experiencing.
When the pandemic hit, many assumed mental health spikes would be temporary. But they kept rising. Why do you think that is?
Vanscavish: In the moment, most people probably thought it would settle back down. But what the pandemic did was bring to light for everyone involved — employers, employees alike — we all became more human to realize the strain and struggles that people go through. It got [some workers,] especially Gen Z workers entering the workforce, much more comfortable talking about their mental health, their anxiety, their depression, and so forth.
And we shouldn’t view mental health as a bad thing. Getting care or taking a leave to care for your mental health is no different than taking a leave to care for your child or for yourself because you had a baby or have a broken leg.
How is the approach to leave management changing?
Vanscavish: Historically, from the employer perspective, leaves have been more of a transaction. It was a sense of, ‘Let's get this transaction through as quickly as [possible].’ It's a complicated world to navigate — paid leave, paid family leaves, employer leaves, disability. So that focus was really about expediting the transaction.
But where I think things are starting to pivot is really trying to care for the person holistically. These events — whether it’s a caregiving leave, or cancer leave, or mental health leave — are a very stressful situation for the individual. [With mental health in particular], it’s about: How do I help you navigate getting mental health support? How can managers recognize when individuals are struggling mentally? How can we help get access to mental health support so you can eventually get back to work, get healthier, and just not struggle?
What about preemptively, before employees take a mental-health-related leave?
Vanscavish: Employers should make sure that individuals feel psychologically safe to take the leave. There’s often a fear over losing their job. So it’s important to have proactive communication about what an employee is entitled to — exactly what your policy is — but also about the ‘why.’ The why matters around the culture — why an employer is committed to mental health, to helping take care of employees’ total health, and why you’re supportive.
Are employers doing enough to create a positive employee experience during leave?
Vanscavish: I’ve been impressed with employers moving beyond the simply transactional process [that] I’ve mentioned. I do think that managers play a critical role in the overall experience, and I think this is an area of opportunity. They could have more training as to their role in the process. We know that employees say that if they have a positive leave experience, they are 75% more likely to stay with their company for five-plus years. Most of that experience comes from their own managers. It also has to do with helping them ease back into work [after the leave].
I am impressed that employers are changing in the way of recognizing that empathy matters and having a caring and supportive culture versus just treating leave like a transaction. But there is opportunity, too.
How can employers do a better job? What’s the most important thing HR leaders should keep in mind when managing mental health absences?
Vanscavis: Focus on creating a culture of care and empathy. If you don’t have that, it makes it very challenging to really support individuals through these types of leaves.
You run a risk that you have higher turnover because they don’t feel valued, they don’t feel supported. And acquiring new talent — that’s expensive.
This article is courtesy of Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
