6 tips for managing mental health compliance requirements in the workplace

Global regulations requiring companies to support employee mental health are on the rise across many jurisdictions. In response, companies are adopting policies like internal support systems, leadership training, and cultural change programs to build a safe and healthy work environment, where employees feel their mental health is prioritized.  

Our EHS experts have summarized this important topic — including emerging trends, business risks, global regulations, and tips to manage mental health compliance in the workplace — here, in our new eBook: Mental health in the workplace: A guide for EHS managers.  

Check out this excerpt, offering their top six tips to meet compliance requirements in support of employee mental health:  

#1 – Gather information and insights

One thing is clear: companies must keep employees safe, and mental health is considered part of a healthy workplace. Worker mental health isn’t necessarily new, but it’s a major global trend that’s gained more traction and become more complex during and since 2020. Some companies are becoming subject to regulations around mental health for the first time, while others already have existing policies in place.  

No matter where your company is on the spectrum, internal policies and training to support your employees is crucial to developing a safety-focused corporate culture and safe work environment when it comes to mental health.  

 Senior management support will be crucial. If this isn’t guaranteed, it may be sensible to delay the program because a failed implementation will make future cultural change even harder  

Before you start creating policies and plans, it’s important to know you’re factoring in mental health in all the right ways. A comprehensive data-gathering exercise will give you all the insights you need before you start shaping policies or procedures.

Understand your legal requirements

Depending on where you operate, your company’s regulatory obligations can vary. For example, you may be required to consider employee mental health impacts in occupational risk assessments, develop a formal policy around an employee’s right to disconnect, reduce and eliminate workplace stress where possible, or take “all necessary measures” to ensure your employee’s mental health is preserved.  

Understanding where you are subject to regulations and what those requirements are is the first step to developing an effective program to support employee mental health in the workplace. 

Keep track of mandatory regulations as they develop with a tool like Compliance Intelligence, allowing businesses to monitor and report global requirements — and avoid costly violations for non-compliance.

Follow non-mandatory guidance

Some governmental agencies have included mental health in a company’s general duty to provide a safe workplace and provided companies with guidance on how to manage worker mental health. So, even if there is no specific requirement calling out mental health as a risk to workers, companies should still track and follow the trends in the more general public.

Go beyond the bare minimum

Ideally, companies will not only comply with legal obligations but also consider the following:  

• Adhering to additional non-mandatory guidance from other recognized organizations, like the WHO 
• Listening to the requests and needs of workers 
• Paying attention to more general trends in society and among the public 

Typically, as trends develop in society, health and safety regulations eventually follow. Engaging in the conversation now means you’ll be ready for the changes before they occur. 

#2 – Perform internal mental health risk assessments

All of these factors can create challenges for companies. One way to start is by assessing your company’s operations and identifying where risks occur or could occur in the future. Adding an internal requirement to assess mental health risks into the well-known practice of conducting occupational risk assessments is a realistic way to implement new requirements into existing EHS systems. This method helps EHS professionals and companies use current frameworks to assess, manage, and mitigate new risk factors — making compliance more easily achievable.

#3 – Set corporate standards

To tackle differing global requirements and expectations from (current or future) employees, clients, and the public, set corporate standards around mental health in the workplace. These can be based on the most stringent jurisdiction that you operate in or take a more centralized approach and allow those stricter jurisdictions to go beyond what corporate requires. Usually, companies will develop requirements that strike a balance of employee protection and financial feasibility. This determination will inform the internal requirements a company develops.

#4 – Build a corporate culture

Having a comprehensive plan is a great place to work from, but even if your company isn’t there yet, the most important thing about developing corporate policies is implementation and training. The most comprehensive policy does no good if it lives on a shelf and no one knows about it or engages with it. Without a strong corporate culture that supports health and safety, including mental health, the best corporate standards and policies will go to waste.  

These approaches can encompass:  

• Training: Which can include conversations that normalize the topic of mental health, and explore what support exists within the organization. Such opportunities can include inviting an external mental health professional to speak and share best practices. Depending on your current corporate culture, employees may feel more comfortable talking to an external person or they may be ready to use internal resources for help.

• Leadership: Any initiative that you implement should be in tandem with strong leadership support that reinforces the importance of mental wellbeing. When employees actually see leaders participating in conversations about mental health and prioritizing it in their daily work, they begin to feel safe to do the same. This means companies may need to offer professional development opportunities (and incentives) for managers and leadership. (Direct managers are often the first to recognize when an employee is struggling.) 

• Resources: Employee assistance programs (EAPs) are sometimes useful to support employees; however, you usually have to have a well-developed culture that is mental-health-friendly for the average worker to feel comfortable requesting one. Examples include: professional onsite support and virtual sessions; ongoing engagement sessions by an external mental health professional; access to mental health apps or onsite wellness spaces. The key is to ensure that these resources are easily accessible and widely known about. Managers should actively use them or, at least, encourage their workers to use them.

#5 – Customize the approach to your people

There are so many factors to consider when addressing mental health in the workplace that can have major implications on incorporating mental health into the culture. 

Some workplace factors to consider include: 

• Cultural differences 

• Societal stigmas 

• Age 

• Gender 

• Personality types 

• Commonality of the presence of external stressors among the team, such as children, elderly parents, ill family members 

• The industry the business operates in 

• Type of workers, such as in-person, remote, or hybrid 

• The existing culture of safety, or lack thereof 

The secret to an effective mental health policy and creating a culture where mental health and wellbeing is promoted is open communication, ongoing training, and easy access to real resources and solutions for employees. Every workplace is different, so there’s no “one size fits all” approach, but there are common trends that companies can look to and build on to mitigate occupational risks around mental health and wellbeing.

#6 – Futureproof your business

Staying on top of the changing regulatory landscape is crucial to business success and mitigating the risk of non-compliance, which can impact employees and the business.

Companies need to watch local, state or provincial, and federal regulations that require various plans and programs, as well as stay up to date on the latest recommended programs that are happening both locally and across the globe — especially for international corporations. Internal policy consistency across different global sites is vital. What can be viewed as preferential treatment from office to office can lead to more employee disengagement — which we’ve seen has major implications.  

It’s also good practice to keep an eye on what other major companies are doing. Some companies tend to set trends for dealing with mental wellness in the workplace. Study those policies that are publicly available and alter them to fit into your workplace to allow maximum employee wellness.

How Enhesa can help businesses meet compliance requirements

Enhesa experts gather, analyze, and interpret regulations in over 400 jurisdictions around the world, providing global businesses with proactive and centralized insights into current and upcoming compliance requirements.  

Explore our EHS Intelligence solutions for today – and tomorrow: 

• Compliance Intelligence — view requirements and track compliance status globally  

• Regulatory Forecaster — anticipate new regulations proactively adapt