HBR: Navigating Mental Health in a Multigenerational Workplace
With five generations of workers coming together to collaborate in today’s workforce — all of whom were raised in different times and with different expectations — it’s no wonder that mental health is a sticky subject in the workplace.
But there’s no denying that the future of work is about mental health. Mental health challenges, such as stress, anxiety, and depression, are the number one reason why people miss work. And workplace culture is pivotal to employee mental health: 60% of employees say that their job is the most significant factor in their mental health. Employees also say that managers impact their mental health even more than their doctors or therapists (and on par with their spouses). Workers increasingly expect their employer to play a role in improving mental health.
The numbers also suggest generational discontent. Recent data from the American Psychological Association found that only 45% of Gen Zers reported that their mental health is very good or excellent, and a SHRM survey found that 27% of Generation Z reported feeling depressed by their job at least once per week in the last six months, compared to 18% of Millennials, 14% of Gen Xers and 7% of Baby Boomers and Traditionalists.
That said, are these statistics fully reflective of what’s actually happening with mental health in the workplace, given differing generational comfort levels surrounding the expression of feelings and needs? The stats probably don’t tell the full story.
Many older workers — including me, a GenX-er — were raised to suffer in silence at work. We often feel threatened when people with less seniority freely ask for what they want and share what they think. And as Gen Z enters the workforce, there can be confusion and resistance in older leadership on how to manage a generation that is more depressed and anxious, and also more comfortable talking about it.