A shift in the way we think about mental health in the workplace and employee wellbeing is long overdue. Our beliefs, behaviours and attitudes towards mental health have meant that for too long organisations have mistakenly attempted to choose between performance and wellbeing.
Many leaders still have the mindset that emotions are inappropriate for the workplace and must be compartmentalised from employees’ professional lives. But high levels of stress, anxiety and exhaustion ultimately affect individuals’ ability to perform in the workplace.
Mental health is a key driver of overall wellbeing, affecting all aspects of life. Anxieties or worries about work, personal relationships or finances tend to have a knock-on effect on other domains of life, meaning mental health is critical to overall health.
Employees want a healthy, sustainable culture and leadership that prioritises wellbeing. Instead of wellness programmes, employees prefer culture-led wellbeing, including norms that allow breaks, respect time off and offer flexible hours and self-care leave.
Any organisational wellbeing programme must look after all dimensions of the individual – mental, physical, financial, social, emotional, work and spiritual health – and offer holistic solutions.
The Workplace Wellbeing Index, a joint research publication between GIBS and October Health, focuses its lens on working South Africans, tracking their overall wellbeing over time. Now in its third year, the index measures respondents’ perceptions of their mental, physical, social, emotional and work wellbeing.
The report also measures the availability of wellbeing resources in the workplace and the evolving role of leadership in overall wellbeing.
Early data from this year’s report indicates the enduring importance of spirituality for South Africans — in a complex and uncertain world, many individuals are increasingly reliant on their spiritual beliefs to provide a support system and help make sense of the world.
Concerns about financial wellbeing have emerged as a top stressor, as both financial wellness and emotional wellbeing have shown a general decline.
Why mental health matters
Despite the progress made, there continues to be a misunderstanding of the terms mental health and mental illness, especially among organisational leaders. A lack of understanding about the terminology has resulted in a reluctance to talk about mental health in the workplace, allowing the stigma to perpetuate.
Worry, anxiety and repetitive negative thoughts and emotions are not a clinical diagnosis. Yet these remain stigmatised despite being markedly different from clinically diagnosed pathologies such as generalised anxiety disorder or depression.
Everyone with a brain has mental health, which exists on a continuum from low to high. Extreme levels of stress or anxiety may require intervention or treatment.
Often, people simply don’t have the language to express their feelings and getting to the root cause of their stressors requires vulnerability. Individuals are responsible for understanding their own mental states and must take action to improve or maintain their state of mind.
Awareness is crucial — measuring your own emotional wellbeing is part of developing the ability to manage emotions constructively. Potential stressors can be dealt with by adopting healthy coping mechanisms such as exercise, time out in nature, meditation or talking to a friend.
Leadership and wellbeing
Many forward-thinking organisational leaders acknowledge that wellbeing matters and strive to provide a safe place where employees can raise issues without fear of reprisal.
The Workplace Wellbeing Index found that people are primarily looking for leaders who make them believe that wellbeing is important. Leaders who are receptive to feedback and are willing to listen without judging make a significant difference in employee mental health.
Employees want recognition that they are complete human beings. As a result, they often value receptive leadership over self-care resources such as gym memberships and wellness programmes.
It is not about the environment, but rather about how an employee’s immediate manager interacts with them daily that determines whether an environment is conducive to good mental health.
As a leader, don’t ask your employees to leave their private lives at the door. Appreciate human complexities and manage in such a way that allows employees and colleagues to express themselves without judgment.
People are looking for leadership they can trust, and employees connect better with relatable leaders who are prepared to be vulnerable and approachable. Vulnerability requires leaders to be authentic and show they are human instead of attempting to appear invincible. However, many leaders can be reluctant to discuss their concerns or show their personal struggles, fearing such honesty could be used against them.
Performance culture
Despite significant progress and increased awareness of the importance of mental wellbeing in the workplace, many organisations remain high-pressure environments where profit and performance are primary concerns.
Some leaders continue to believe that a focus on mental health signals a low-performance culture. When things get tough, the first thing to be abandoned is wellbeing.
While it is important for organisations to drive profit, this must be balanced. Performance and wellbeing cannot be separated, and leaders must look at the human being on a holistic level. Early intervention in employees’ mental health often results in better performance and delivery at work.
It is possible to have a culture open to mental health that values the wellbeing of employees, acknowledging their many complex dimensions, while still pushing for performance. Finding the balance between mental health and performance is the ultimate goal.
Dr Frank Magwegwe is principal researcher on the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) October Health Workplace Wellbeing Index. As GIBS faculty, he has 25 years of cumulative experience in multiple areas in the financial services industry and teaches across various academic courses at GIBS, including corporate finance, financial and management accounting and research and statistics.
About the Workplace Wellbeing Index
In our sample of 503 respondents, age, personal income, gender and population group were all quota-controlled, and the data were reweighted according to the income and demographic profiles of working South Africans using the Marketing All Products Survey as a benchmark.
The Workplace Wellbeing Index (2026) will be released in November.
