On the second Thursday of September each year, Australians observe what’s known as R U OK? Day across the continent; an annual campaign led by R U OK?, a suicide prevention and public health promotion charity, dedicated to starting a national conversation about mental health, and encouraging people to become informed bystanders ready to intervene at the first sign of distress in their friends, family, peers, or fellow community members.
In recent years, thanks to conversations started by R U OK? and similar groups, the topic of mental health and mental illness has fortunately been largely destigmatised: Aussies are no longer afraid to come out and say that they have a problem, and that they need help. Unfortunately, it’s what comes next—and the alarming rates at which people are now seeking help—that continue to be a major roadblock to improving the population’s mental health.
Hospitals and psychiatric services are overwhelmed; they simply cannot keep up with the demand. Many are getting turned away as a result—surprisingly, and especially, the people who may need help the most, like those suffering from personality disorders, PTSD and trauma, or suicidality, as already stretched-thin professionals who do not specialise in their conditions fear taking them on and incidentally causing further harm.
The end result: millions of Australians experiencing psychological distress are now left without a clear support to turn to. The conversation surrounding mental illness might have improved, but the national situation certainly has not.
Whilst such an imbalance between supply and demand can in and of itself cause mental health rates to soar, this does not even begin to account for why rates are as high as they are—and getting higher. For that answer, we can instead look to the “perfect storm” of factors currently disrupting life as we know it, and that many experts credit for creating a hostile environment in which Australians—particularly younger generations—can never quite relax. This includes—among a list of stressors too numerous to enumerate—isolation and other lingering effects of the pandemic; social media; economic, climate, and political instability; war; the rising cost of living; and overall uncertainty about the future.
Whilst life has always been flagged for its unpredictability, its bent toward change and the stress that can generate for people at any moment, what we’re seeing today in terms of marked stressors is ‘something new,’ experts caution. A new study released by researchers at the University of Sydney has, in fact, found that people born in the 1990s and onward suffer from poor mental health at greater rates than previous generations—and across all age groups. What makes this finding so significant is that, whilst in the past many researchers used age to explain the variance in stress levels and mental health outcomes across the different age groups, this suggests that what generation or birth cohort one belongs to is the stronger predictor.
For no matter what challenges older generations may have experienced at different times in their past, none can really hold a candle to what younger generations face today. Young adults are now working more to earn less; and can afford less than their predecessors—struggling to afford even the most basic expenses such as groceries, medical bills, saving for retirement, and homeownership, the latter a now distant dream for most Gen Zers and Millennials after being priced out of the housing market. They face greater job insecurity than previous generations, what with the rapidly evolving world of work and the uncertain future that awaits them. No longer just a premonition, younger generations are also experiencing the adverse effects of climate change in real time. And to top it all off, whatever stressors aren’t present in their personal lives can now be experienced vicariously thanks to constant online media exposure.
With all this in mind, it’s no wonder then, why rates of mental illness among young people have soared by nearly 50 percent in just 15 years, with two in five young adults aged 16-24 claiming to have experienced a mental health disorder in just the past year. Australians, like the rest of the world, are burnt out. They’re tired of the unknown, and the unfamiliar. They’re tired of having to pretend that everything is ‘business as usual’. They’re tired of older generations insisting that the answers to mental health woes of the past still apply to those of today. And they’re tired of having to fight for just the tiniest bit of care, of sympathy, and support from people with the power to make a difference—people like their employers.
So, what, then, can employers do to make a positive difference in their employees’ lives? And to reverse these alarming mental health trends?
Simply put, the answer ultimately comes down to providing holistic support to address employees’ diverse and intersecting needs—starting, of course, with providing access to convenient, in-the-moment counselling support to redress current backlogs and wait times that persist across national mental health services.
By offering employees quick and easy, one-touch, -click, or -call access to trained professionals who can help to swiftly address any sudden concerns that they might be faced with, employers can ensure that acute stress remains exactly that—‘acute’—and prevent it from snowballing into chronic or severe conditions like burnout, depression, anxiety, or even suicidality. When employees are made aware of both the internal and external tools at their disposal to help ward off stress, and are coached on how to implement them, they can inevitably cultivate resilience needed to navigate future stressors down the road.
And it’s exactly those future stressors—financial insecurity, family stress, political/environmental uncertainty, health concerns—that employers can help to further mitigate by pairing counselling support with complementary services like legal and financial assistance, work-life and caregiving support, mindfulness programmes, and wellness coaching. As Workplace Options champions through its holistic approach to care, health doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Instead, what’s impacting someone physically, financially, socially, emotionally, is going to impact them in all those other ways, as well.
Thus, by strengthening these various assets of employees’ health, employers can aspire to reduce their vulnerability to distress by remediating any gaps or deficiencies found in their overall wellbeing. For example, by connecting employees to financial experts who can offer tips on how to better manage their finances; how to create and stick to a reasonable budget; and how to balance various long-term payments like mortgages, student loan repayments, or monthly rent expenses, employers can not only help to improve staff’s financial wellbeing but their emotional and even physical wellbeing as well. This may be achieved by potentially reducing the amount of anxiety that staff may feel in their day-to-day lives, by enabling them to get a better night’s sleep, to reserve enough energy to make health, nutrient-rich meals at the end of the day, and to prioritise expenses related to their health and wellbeing.
Why this type of approach is so critical for employers to adopt is because research continues to show time and time again that individuals’ best bet for avoiding adverse mental health outcomes hinges on ensuring that all other needs are met to the best of their ability. The problems of today—and the problems of tomorrow, for that matter—are not going away—at least not to the point that would allow mental health trends to recover on their own. Improving Australians’ mental health requires proactive intervention; and it demands an approach that encompasses more than just traditional mental health care.
Australians today know that they are struggling. They know that their mental health is not where it should or can be. They’re open to talking about it; they’re open to seeking help for it. But they simply need more than what they’re currently getting.
By partnering with a holistic wellbeing solutions provider like WPO, employers can take the crucial first step to providing their employees with that greater level of care, offering them integrated, multimodal access to a comprehensive suite of holistic health services. By working with WPO’s expert team of consultants, employers can also strive to address the many stressors present in the workplace itself, and the unique roles that they play in shaping their employees’ overall health. They can find an effective way to say, ‘Hey, we see you. We recognise what’s happening at work, at home, and in the world. We understand the impact these things are having on you, and we’re here to help.’ And they can subsequently discern an effective method for tracking any progress that’s made, and for monitoring workforce health.
The major stressors that we see impacting our lives today are likely to stay with us for some time. As such, the record-high anxiety, depression, and chronic stress that we’re seeing—especially among today’s youth—is likely to stick around, too. Getting ahead before it gets worse, and helping employees to slowly but surely get back on track, is no longer a good idea, it’s an imperative. By partnering with a provider like Workplace Options, employers can begin to put their employees on that path to wellness, and reap the benefits of a psychologically healthy, and psychologically safe, workplace.
