It starts with us: Building mentally healthy workplaces.

For Mental Health Awareness Week 2025, let’s turn awareness into action.

Each year, Mental Health Awareness Week allows us to reflect, share, and take steps toward a healthier, more compassionate world. And in 2025, the message is loud and clear: it starts with us.

While it’s tempting to think of mental health as a personal issue, the reality is very different, especially when we spend 8+ hours a day at work. From daily interactions to team culture and leadership styles, the workplace has a huge influence on how people feel. It can be a place of connection, stability, and purpose – or a source of overwhelming pressure, isolation, and burnout.

So, what does it mean to build a mentally healthy workplace?

Mental Health at work: More than a buzzword

Workplace wellbeing has moved far beyond fruit bowls and mental health posters. Employees are looking for real support, not performative check-ins or annual well-being surveys that lead nowhere.

A mentally healthy workplace isn’t defined by one initiative. It’s shaped by culture:

• The way we talk about stress
• How we respond to vulnerability
• Whether people feel they can take a break without guilt
• How leaders handle pressure – and pass it down

It’s the micro-moments that matter. Do people feel like they have to “power through” exhaustion? Or do they feel supported enough to say, “I need to slow down”?

What a mentally healthy workplace looks like

There’s no single formula, but you’ll often find these ingredients in supportive work environments:

• Open conversations: Employees are encouraged to speak up without fear of judgment or career damage.
• Empathetic leadership: Managers lead with compassion, not control.
• Psychological Safety: People feel safe to ask questions, make mistakes, and say they’re struggling.
• Proactive support: Mental health isn’t addressed reactively after burnout – it’s prioritised daily.
• Boundaries respected: Breaks are protected. Overtime isn’t glorified. Rest is seen as productive.

Everyone has a role to play.

Mental health support isn’t just the responsibility of HR. It’s everyone’s responsibility.

• Colleagues can check in with each other without waiting for signs of struggle.
• Managers can create space in 1-to-1s to ask, “How are you?”
• Leadership can model balance by setting healthy boundaries themselves.

Even small shifts in language or behaviour can make a difference. “Let’s talk about how we can adjust things together” lands differently than “That’s just how it is.”

Let’s stop normalising burnout.

There’s a lingering workplace myth that resilience means pushing through, no matter what. But constantly being “on” isn’t resilience — it’s survival mode. And it comes at a cost.

When people are afraid to speak up or slow down, they don’t just suffer quietly — the entire organisation suffers. Productivity drops. Engagement fades. Retention issues rise.Burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s a signal that something in the system needs to change.

5 ways to build a mentally healthy work culture

1. Make space for honest conversations — even if they feel uncomfortable.
2. Train managers in mental health awareness so they’re not afraid to engage.
3. Create flexibility where possible — one-size-fits-all rarely works.
4. Set the tone from the top — leaders need to walk the talk.
5. Ask your people what they need- and act on what they tell you.

It starts with us

Creating mentally healthy work environments isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about consistent, human-centred action. Whether you’re a CEO or a new starter, you can influence culture.

Ask. Listen. Support. Repeat.

Because workplaces don’t just run on deadlines and deliverables – they run on people.And mentally healthy people build stronger, safer, more successful businesses.This Mental Health Awareness Week, let’s move beyond awareness. Let’s create real change.

It starts with us.

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