5 Ways to Support Mental Health at Work Beyond Mental Health Awareness Month
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Every May, companies roll out Mental Health Awareness Month activities with good intentions. Employees wear green. Offices host well-being sessions, such as meditation or yoga. HR teams walk everyone through how to use the EAP. This awareness is helpful, but it’s just a start.
For companies to make a meaningful impact on mental health at work, it’s important to give employees and leaders sustainable practices and tools. How?
By helping leaders communicate with empathy and awareness, showing teams how to navigate stress, and re-evaluating well-being policies that prioritize mental health…all year long.
Workplace dynamics have a direct impact on mental health. Research from Mental Health America shows that 81% of employees reported that workplace stress affects their mental health, and that leadership behavior plays a major role in shaping their experience.
In other words, how work is structured and how people communicate with one another matter.
As organizations begin planning for May, the goal shouldn’t be a single month of events. Instead, use Mental Health Awareness Month as an opportunity to strengthen professional skills that support employees’ emotional, mental, and social well-being in the workplace.
Here are five ways to do exactly that.
1. Start With an Honest Audit of Your Current Workplace Mental Health Resources
Let’s acknowledge something upfront: I know that an audit might not sound like the most exciting Mental Health Awareness Month activity.
Maybe you were hoping for ideas like mindfulness sessions, meditation workshops, or creative team programming. Those can absolutely have value. But before committing to any initiative, organizations benefit from stepping back and asking a foundational question: what support do employees actually have right now, and is any of it working?
Scattered efforts or one-off programs won’t make an impact long term. And without intention or strategy, these employee programs feel performative or disingenuous.
An audit helps organizations focus their efforts and understand what employees really need.
Mental Health Awareness Month is an opportunity to gather insight. Review your employee resources, workplace conditions, and policies with a critical eye. Take time to:
Survey employees about stressors affecting their work experience
Assess managers’ confidence in navigating mental health conversations
Review utilization of mental health benefits and support programs
Identify communication gaps around available resources
Evaluate whether policies support (or unintentionally hinder) emotional health
It can be a difficult exercise, and your team might see some harsh truths in policy or company culture as a result. However, perfection isn’t the goal. It’s an opportunity to find what’s working and what’s not.
This check-in enables your organization to take accountability and make meaningful change.
2. Invest in Leadership Mental Health Skills
One of the biggest drivers of workplace mental health is leadership behavior.
Research shows that 69% of employees say their manager impacts their mental health as much as a spouse or partner.
That statistic reframes the conversation. Mental health at work isn’t only an HR initiative. It’s also a leadership capability.
For decades, workplaces promoted the idea that professionalism meant being stoic, unshakable, or emotionally neutral. Not surprisingly, this expectation left many managers feeling unsure how to respond. Many avoid mental health conversations entirely.
Managers don’t need to have all of the answers. They need better language and more confidence navigating potentially emotionally-charged conversations at work. Lyra Health research shows that nearly 90% of employees report experiencing at least one mental health challenge in a given year. Still, many managers say they lack the training to hold those conversations effectively. As a result, these challenges quietly grow and get worse.
Mental Health Awareness Month offers an opportunity to strengthen leadership communication skills:
Learning Mental Health at Work Conversational Literacy™ and how mental health at work impacts employee well-being and performance.
Skill-building around conversational roadblocks and how to address them.
Guidance on responding constructively when employees share their challenges.
Building these capabilities, rather than struggling in silence, empowers leaders to navigate periods of change, stress, or uncertainty with confidence.
Managers set the example with how they approach discussions surrounding mental health. Find practical advice on communicating about mental health in my book Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why and How to Do It really Well)
3. Go Beyond Well-Being Events
Many organizations focus Mental Health Awareness Month on activities like yoga classes, meditation, and wellness challenges.
These events can help employees pause and reset during the workday. But if these activities are your entire mental health strategy at work, their impact will be short-lived.
According to Calm’s Stress Report, 40% of employees said they struggled with at least one mental health challenge, and yet less than 20% said they used employer-sponsored resources like EAPs or counseling services. That 20% participation indicates that team members need frequent reminders, encouragement, or education about the available support systems.
Mental Health Awareness Month activities can create a memorable, teaching moment, reminding employees about available resources. Many people learn by doing, so using that workshop or wellness class immerses employees and strengthens their association with that EAP.
Here are a few ways to use your Mental Health Awareness Month programs to pair awareness with education:
Connect your wellbeing session to a long-term resource: Introduce employees to mindful practices and tools for managing anxiety and connect the session with a guided walkthrough of employer-provided telehealth therapy, counseling, or mental health benefits.
Host a sustainable stress management workshop: Give employees the tools to recognize stress signals in themselves and colleagues, and the accountability to use them. Afterwards, reinforce how policies like flexible scheduling, PTO, and mental health days can support those strategies.
When employees understand both how to navigate mental health at work and where to find support, they’re more likely to turn to these resources or ask where to find help.
4. Update Policies to Reflect the Culture You Say You Want
Employees do not experience culture through values statements alone. They experience it through policies, manager behavior, workload expectations, and what happens when they ask for support.
Policies determine what behaviors are supported, reinforced, or discouraged within an organization. For example:
A company says it values work-life balance, but employees feel discouraged from taking PTO.
Leaders encourage openness, yet employees worry about stigma if they discuss mental health challenges.
Psychological safety is a priority, but a lack of unconscious bias training or understanding of microaggressions adds stress to marginalized employee groups.
Employee well-being is described as a priority, but benefits don’t include resources for mental health support, such as teletherapy, EAPs, or relevant training and development.
When policies and messaging don’t align, trust can erode, and team members opt to suffer in silence.
Mental Health Awareness Month is the time to review whether your policies reflect the culture you want to create. Consider evaluating these areas in your plans:
PTO usage and mental health leave policies
Manager training requirements for navigating mental health conversations
Inclusive language, benefits, or resources
Workload management or flexible work arrangements
Policies are culture codified. They turn intentions into action and show your organization’s commitment to supporting employee well-being.
5. Use May as the Starting Point for Sustainable Mental Health Strategy
If mental health only gets airtime in May, employees notice.
When organizations don’t maintain their commitment to mental health support, managers don’t get enough repetition to build confidence in communicating with their teams, commitment to new policies fades, and employees don’t exercise those practical strategies to support their emotional needs.
Mental Health Awareness Month shouldn’t be the only time organizations talk about mental health. Commit to ongoing mental health discussions, training, and resources throughout the year.
Create a year-round strategy to keep your team’s communication skills and mental health strategies sharp. This can include:
Quarterly leadership workshops on mental health communication.
Monthly team check-ins focused on workload and stress management.
Learning and development sessions on emotional intelligence and collaboration.
These initiatives help normalize conversations about mental health as part of everyday professional development. Over time, that consistency strengthens trust, collaboration, and the business.
Awareness Is the Starting Line. Not the Finish Line.
Mental Health Awareness Month can be a powerful catalyst if it’s treated as part of a broader workplace mental health strategy.
That’s how organizations simultaneously strengthen emotional health, trust, and performance.
Creating a sustainable strategy can drive lasting change rather than temporary engagement. The most impactful initiatives:
Evaluate existing mental health practices and policies, and learn what employees really need.
Equip managers with Mental Health At Work Conversational Literacy™.
Pair awareness events with clear education about available support and resources.
Build year-round programming that reinforces mental health in your team dynamics.
Align policies and culture, so employees see consistent support in action.
If your organization is preparing for Mental Health Awareness Month, don’t stop at awareness. Use this moment to build stronger leadership communication, clearer support systems, and more actionable mental health practices at work.
