A third of employees don’t even know if their employer offers mental health support. That gap is costing companies young talent.
Younger workers prioritize mental health resources the most, but are least likely to receive them
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When I was coming of age in the workforce, mental health wasn’t even a thing.
I don’t mean to say it didn’t exist. But it wasn’t part of our vernacular as Baby Boomers. Missing work for physical reasons was concrete enough, but we didn’t have the vocabulary to understand or support issues rooted in mental/emotional issues.
Our attempts to understand mental health challenges usually boiled down to a conversation about having better work/life balance. If we could just manage our personal and professional lives better, we thought, we wouldn’t have these mental and emotional upsets. (Oh, and do better self-care.)
Today’s younger generations understand and prioritize mental health much more than their older counterparts, with a recent report by Spring Health indicating that 83% of 18–34-year-olds say mental health benefits are very/extremely important to their job decisions.
But despite the youngest workers wanting mental health support the most, they’re the least likely to receive these benefits at work. The percentage of those prioritizing mental health benefits drops steadily with age to result ultimately in a 42-point generational cliff: 78% (ages 35–44), 62% (ages 45–54), 43% (ages 55–64) and 41% (ages 65+).
Let’s look at the data to understand why there’s such a massive generational mismatch in who wants the benefits and who’s actually receiving them.
New to all of this
Younger workers don’t know what they don’t know. While many are still figuring out how to adult, navigating the ins and outs of accessing mental health support can seem overwhelming. And let’s be honest, we don’t seek out those services until we’re in a place where we need them—at which point, even minor barriers can feel insurmountable.
That’s why leaders need to make mental health benefits a normal part of the conversation before there’s a crisis. People need to know there’s help at hand before they need it. It doesn’t cost anything to talk about these benefits, and the payoff is well worth it.
Ignorance isn’t bliss
Part of the problem with mental health support in the workplace is that many workers simply don’t know that they have access to it. According to Spring Health, as many as one-third (34%) of workers are unsure if their employer offers such benefits.
Additionally, two-thirds (66%) of employees say they’ve only occasionally, rarely or never used their employer’s mental health benefits. We can speculate as to why: maybe they’re part of the number that don’t know they have these benefits. Maybe the benefits don’t seem to align with what they feel they need. Or maybe there’s a perceived stigma around using such benefits.
Whatever the individual reason, these are communication and culture issues. While I don’t know the leadership of the workplaces of the surveyed employees, I’d be willing to bet many of the organizations where workers are most ignorant of their mental health benefits are led by older-gen CEOs who may not place a high value on such benefits and don’t realize the extent to which others do.
The manager effect
Finally, there’s the manager effect, which has an outsized impact on both awareness and utilization of mental health benefits offered at work. Spring Health found that 75% of managers say they’re offered mental health benefits, compared to 49% of non-managers. Eighty-seven percent of managers have used those benefits in the past year versus 41% of non-managers.
Although Gen Z is starting to enter the ranks of management, they’re far from a majority in those positions yet. Most still fall in the non-manager category, which gives older-gen workers an advantage in knowing about and using mental health benefits.
Another indicator that mental health support is disproportionately utilized across generations is found in a salary analysis. Fifty-nine percent of employees say financial stress has increased over the past five years. Cost is the top access barrier for employees earning under $50K, with 50% citing it. This percentage drops to 34% for those earning upwards of $150K.
Again, this burden hits younger workers hardest, as they’re usually on the lower end of salary at this stage of their careers.
Mental health: a liability or an advantage
Obviously there is tremendous benefit to an organization when its workforce is mentally healthy and emotionally resilient. Without rampant burnout (silent or otherwise), employees are free to be productive and perform at their highest level. Mental health struggles can range from distracting to outright debilitating, and there’s no reason to just suffer through it.
The data seems to indicate that the issue with mental health benefits is not that they’re inadequate in themselves, but rather that the communication around them is significantly lacking.
The massive generational disparity in who wants these benefits most should concern forward-thinking leaders. Gen Z may not be a prevalent demographic in management yet, but they’ll get there. This means employers are on the verge of handing leadership to a generation whose relationship with workplace mental health support is, in many cases, non-existent. This doesn’t bode well for the future workforce.
But the picture isn’t all bleak. If 83% of younger workers view mental health benefits as important in their choice of workplace, there’s a clear opportunity here for employers to both attract and retain young talent.
First, leaders must ensure that they actually offer meaningful mental health benefits. Then it becomes a matter of clear communication, both in recruiting new employees and retaining existing ones. Finally, the company culture must be supportive of those who utilize such benefits, with no trace of shame or stigma attached to such usage.
Organizations must see their workforce using mental health benefits as an advantage rather than a liability. Understanding that many younger-gen workers paradoxically want these mental health benefits but are unaware they already have them is a great opportunity to shore up the company narrative and make sure everyone feels supported, no matter what their struggles are.
