Posts went out on 10 October 2026. Webinars were recorded, resources were shared, and employees were reminded where to seek help. These actions matter: they can raise awareness, challenge stigma and make support easier to access.
But a more difficult question remains. What happens when employees return to work on Monday? Have workloads changed? Are expectations clearer? Do managers have the skills and the authority to address problems before they become entrenched?
World Mental Health Day is an important opportunity to start a conversation. It is not a substitute for examining the conditions in which people work.
A workplace mental health strategy begins when awareness translates into action: changes in working conditions, management practices and the support available to employees. This article sets out a practical approach for turning that commitment into action over the first 90 days. The legal references are drawn mainly from European Union and national examples, while the World Health Organization (WHO) data are global; organisations elsewhere should adapt the approach to their own jurisdiction.
Why awareness weeks alone cannot change working conditions
Awareness is what people know: where to find help, how to raise a difficulty, which words to use. Exposure is what the job does to them: workload, time pressure, unclear roles, weak management, little control over how work is done. Awareness initiatives can help people recognise problems, challenge stigma and seek support. But they do not, by themselves, change the conditions that create or sustain psychosocial risks. That requires decisions about how work is organised, how expectations are set and how managers respond when pressure becomes excessive.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2022 Guidelines on mental health at work support an integrated approach. Organisational interventions should address psychosocial risks at their source, while manager training, worker awareness, individual support and return-to-work measures play complementary roles. The objective is not to choose between changing working conditions and supporting individuals, but to ensure that support for employees does not replace action on preventable workplace risks.
An awareness event is therefore an opening, not a strategy. It can give people permission to speak and give leadership a moment of attention. Its value increases when the organisation follows through: listening to employees, identifying risks, deciding what can change and reporting back on progress.
Work is not only a potential source of risk. When it offers fair conditions, meaningful contribution, supportive relationships and opportunities to develop, it can also support mental health. The goal is not simply to remove risks, but to create conditions in which people can work safely, contribute meaningfully and thrive.
What the law requires, and what organisations should do beyond compliance
European occupational safety and health legislation provides a general framework for prevention. The EU Framework Directive 89/391/EEC sets out employers’ responsibilities for workers’ safety and health, including risk prevention and assessment. The precise obligations that apply to psychosocial risks depend on the relevant legal framework, including national legislation and its interpretation. National laws implement this framework; examples include Germany’s Arbeitsschutzgesetz (1996) and Belgium’s 1996 law on the well-being of workers, as amended.
The European social partners’ 2004 Framework Agreement on Work-related Stress also identifies issues that organisations may need to examine, including work organisation, working conditions, communication and the working environment. It is an autonomous agreement implemented through national channels, rather than an EU directive in itself.
Requirements and implementation can differ between countries. Organisations operating internationally should confirm their obligations in every jurisdiction where they employ people, including any requirements for risk assessment, consultation, employee representation, prevention measures and documentation. This article provides general information, not legal advice.
Compliance is a necessary starting point, but it is not the same as an effective mental health strategy. Organisations should not wait for a dedicated legal requirement before examining avoidable risks, listening to employees or improving how work is designed and managed. Nor should a voluntary initiative be presented as a substitute for meeting applicable legal duties.
The human and business case for workplace mental health
The WHO reported in September 2026 that an estimated 12 billion working days are lost globally every year to depression and anxiety, at a cost of US$1 trillion per year in lost productivity. These global figures illustrate the scale of the challenge; they are not a forecast for any individual organisation.
The economic impact is only part of the picture. Behind the numbers are people whose health, confidence, relationships and ability to participate fully in working life may be affected. A supportive workplace can provide purpose, stability and social connection; poor working conditions can undermine those benefits.
For employers, the practical question is not how to translate a global estimate into a company-specific financial figure. It is how to identify working conditions that create avoidable risks, understand where action is needed and evaluate whether those conditions improve.
From event to system: the building-blocks of a workplace mental health strategy
ISO 45003 (2021) is the reference standard. It is the first international standard giving guidance on managing psychosocial risk inside an occupational health and safety management system. It treats these risks as hazards to identify, assess and control, with worker participation, like any other hazard.
These initiatives are interconnected, but how they are brought together matters. Understanding the risks associated with the way work is organised helps determine where action is needed and which changes should take priority. Management practices and job design are important levers for addressing those risks at their source, while appropriate support must be available to employees from the outset. This is not a rigid sequence: urgent risks require immediate action, and support for individuals should never be delayed while organisational changes are being planned.
1/ Psychosocial risk assessment
Identify the features of work that may affect employees’ mental and physical health. Depending on the context, these may include workload and pace, working time, autonomy, role clarity, organisational culture, workplace relationships, discrimination, harassment, career development and the interface between work and home. Use available data to identify questions and areas for further investigation, rather than jumping to conclusions. Involve employees and their representatives in identifying psychosocial risks and shaping responses. Consultation should be meaningful: people need to understand how their input informs decisions and what will happen as a result.
2/ Management practice
Managers influence how expectations are set, how pressure is discussed, how fairly work is allocated and how people are treated when difficulties arise. Training can help managers communicate openly, listen without judgement, recognise when someone may need support and address work-related stressors within their authority. Managers are not expected to diagnose or treat mental health conditions. Their role is to foster a respectful working environment, discuss work demands, clarify priorities, respond appropriately to concerns and signpost relevant sources of help. Training is most effective when it translates into observable behaviours and is supported by clear responsibilities, sufficient resources and the authority to act.
3/ Job design and workload
This is often where organisations can make tangible changes to employees’ exposure to psychosocial risks. Examine staffing levels, deadlines, role scope, autonomy, work allocation, conflicting priorities and expectations of availability. Ask whether the work can reasonably be completed with the time, tools and resources provided. Operational leaders need to take ownership of changes to staffing, schedules and deadlines, with HR and occupational health and safety colleagues providing support. HR cannot be held solely accountable for decisions it does not control. Each action should have a named owner, a realistic scope and a clear way to assess its impact.
4/ Access to support
Employees should know how to access confidential and appropriate support, including occupational health services, employee assistance programmes where available, reasonable workplace adjustments and return-to-work support. The right arrangements will depend on the organisation and local context. Support must be available from the outset; it should not wait until an organisational risk assessment is complete. At the same time, individual support should not become a substitute for addressing work-related risks. Where an identified risk requires immediate intervention, action should not be delayed while a pilot or longer-term initiative is being designed.
Finally, make accountability explicit. Each initiative needs a clearly identified owner, with a defined reporting line to the executive sponsor. Without this, responsibility can drift to HR by default, leaving the function accountable for decisions it does not have the authority to make. The first governance task is therefore straightforward: document who owns each dimension, what decisions they can make, what resources they control and how progress will be reviewed.
Where reward can unintentionally work against wellbeing
Reward design can influence how people respond to pressure. Variable pay plans, performance targets, promotion criteria and informal expectations about availability may shape what employees believe they need to do to be recognised as successful.
For example, accelerators that reward performance well beyond target may encourage some employees to sustain unusually high levels of effort, particularly when targets are difficult to achieve within normal working hours. The risk depends on how the plan interacts with workload, staffing, performance expectations and management practices. The mechanism should be examined rather than assumed.
Unclear career and pay progression criteria can create uncertainty about how contribution is recognised. In some environments, this may encourage employees to prioritise visibility and extended availability over sustainable performance. Reviewing job architecture, progression criteria and workload expectations together can help organisations identify unintended incentives.
Pay transparency and job evaluation can be part of this wider conversation, but legal requirements vary and need to be checked locally. Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency required Member States to transpose its provisions by 7 June 2026; organisations should verify the current national rules and applicable requirements before relying on a particular interpretation.
Our recommendation is to review reward structures and job design together. A job architecture that evaluates skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions needs a realistic understanding of workload and availability. Considering these elements together can avoid duplicated analysis and help identify inconsistent incentives.
A useful question for leadership: Do our reward and performance systems recognise sustainable contribution, or do they unintentionally reward behaviours that depend on excessive availability and prolonged overextension?
The first 90 days: a sequence for the HR director
Phase 1 (first 2 weeks): Establish ownership. Start by choosing the sponsor. It should be an executive committee member with authority over operations, not only HR, because the decisions that matter sit in the business. HR runs the work and the sponsor removes obstacles. Settle this in the first two weeks, before any analysis.
Phase 2 (weeks 3 – 5): Build an initial picture. Read the data you already hold: absence, turnover, working time and survey results, aggregated by team. This takes about three weeks and often shows where to look first.
Phase 3 (weeks 5 – 8): Assess risks and agree priorities. Work with focus groups or employee representatives where they exist. In some countries their involvement is a legal requirement, so confirm with legal counsel; where formal consultation is required, this phase and the next may take longer than planned. The assessment examines workload, deadlines, role clarity, autonomy and availability expectations, using groups of workers and never individual cases.
Phase 4 (weeks 8 – 12): Implement initiatives and test the change. Select two or three practical changes with a clear scope, named owner and review date. Examples might include revising target-setting in one function, clarifying after-hours communication expectations, reviewing staffing in an overloaded process or improving how workload is discussed in team meetings. Pilots can help organisations learn, but they must not delay action where an identified risk requires immediate intervention. Involve affected employees in designing the change and check whether it creates new constraints elsewhere.
Phase 5 (weeks 12 – 15): Review, learn and report. The 90 days produce a diagnosis and tested changes, not a finished programme. Review what was changed and why, what the data and employee feedback show and what will be adjusted, then report this back to employees and the executive sponsor. The tracked measures concern work, not individuals’ health, for two reasons. The organisation has no expertise to interpret health information, and collecting it undermines the trust the whole effort depends on.
How to measure progress without turning mental health into an individual score
Measurement should focus on working conditions, organisational actions and employees’ experience of work. No single indicator can tell the whole story; use a balanced set of measures and interpret them in context. Establish a baseline at the start, using the data gathered in Phase 2, so that change can be shown.
Exposure indicators can include hours above contract, overtime patterns, compliance with working-time and rest requirements, workload trends and after-hours availability. Organisational indicators can include the proportion of risk-reduction actions completed on time, changes to targets or staffing, and manager training linked to observable practices.
Experience indicators can include employees’ perceptions of workload, role clarity, autonomy, fairness, psychological safety and managerial support. Confidential and appropriately aggregated feedback can help establish whether changes make a meaningful difference. Set a minimum group size below which results are not reported, and check data protection requirements, such as the GDPR, before collecting survey data. This is not the same as asking managers to assess individual mental health or using personal health information as a performance indicator.
Report progress as a record of decisions and changes: what was changed, why it was chosen, what the working-time or workload data show, what employees report and what will be adjusted. Avoid causal claims that the evidence cannot support. A short, honest account of action and learning is more useful than a headline score with no clear owner.
Make awareness lead to action
A workplace mental health strategy should move organisations beyond awareness alone. Awareness should lead to conversations, to a clearer understanding of psychosocial risks, and that understanding to practical changes in the way work is organised.
Progress does not require a perfect programme from day one. It requires leadership commitment, meaningful employee participation, clear accountability and a willingness to examine what is working and what is not.
At Kibo Consulting, we help organisations connect people strategy, job design, reward and organisational effectiveness. A workplace mental health strategy is an opportunity to bring these dimensions together, identify where change matters most and translate priorities into practical action.
The next World Mental Health Day will matter only if, by then, something about the way work is organised has measurably changed. The place to decide what that should be is a first conversation with us.
This article is published for information only. It is not legal, medical or psychological advice. For an individual situation, consult a qualified professional.
Sources
Guidelines on mental health at work, World Health Organization, 2022.
WHO and ILO call for new measures to tackle mental health issues at work, news release, World Health Organization and International Labour Organization, 2022.
Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work, Official Journal of the European Union, 1989.
Framework Agreement on Work-related Stress, European social partners (ETUC, BusinessEurope, UEAPME, CEEP), 2004.
European Parliament resolution of 5 July 2022 on mental health in the digital world of work (2021/2098(INI)), European Parliament, 2022.
Directive (EU) 2023/970 to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms, Official Journal of the European Union, 2023.
Arbeitsschutzgesetz of 7 August 1996, Federal Republic of Germany, 1996, as amended; Law of 4 August 1996 on the well-being of workers in the performance of their work, Belgium, 1996, as amended in 2014.
ISO 45003:2021, Occupational health and safety management, Psychological health and safety at work, Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks, International Organization for Standardization, 2021.
