The U.S. Has a Worker Anxiety Issue. How Can You Mitigate It?

Anxiety has vaulted to the No. 1 mental health issue among U.S. workers, according to a recent ComPsych analysis. Among the 300,000 cases in 2023 where workers reached out for mental health support, 24% were seeking help with anxiety.

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Total rewards professionals need to comprehend the magnitude and impact of this trend.

For context, in 2019, anxiety ranked fifth among mental health issues — behind depression, stress, relationship issues and substance use, according to ComPsych clinical director Dr. Jennifer Birdsall.

“Anxiety is the most common mental health concern seen in society today, with nearly 30% of adults experiencing an anxiety disorder at some point in their life,” Birdsall said.

Anxiety is frequently driven by uncertainty, and over the last four years, workers have faced plenty of that — the pandemic, global conflicts, a polarized political landscape, rising artificial intelligence and an unpredictable economy, in addition to changes or crises in their personal lives.

“It’s prevalent, and if you’re not experiencing it right now, a portion of the people you are working with are,” said Genevieve Hawkins, author of “Mentally at Work: Optimizing Health and Business Performance through Connection.”

Anxiety Shows Up at the Workplace

Missed work due to mental health annually costs the U.S. economy $47.6 billion in lost productivity, and depression and anxiety annually cost the global economy $1 trillion, Birdsall said.

“Anxiety symptoms can absolutely impact an employee’s performance, their morale and their job satisfaction,” she said. “So, it’s really important for managers and leaders to be able to recognize when an individual is struggling with anxiety so they can offer support.”

Birdsall said symptoms of anxiety in an employee may include:

Excessive worry about work, performance, projects or other duties
Frequent lateness or absenteeism
Complaints about personal health (e.g., headaches, gastrointestinal issues), which can cause an employee to underperform
Difficulties completing tasks or projects by their deadline
Conflicts with colleagues because of intense emotions or irritability.

While the pandemic worked to ratchet up workforce stressors, one silver lining from that period is that psychological safety — the belief that you are safe to take risks around your team — has gone mainstream, according to Laura Putnam, workplace wellbeing expert, public speaker and author of “Workplace Wellness that Works.”

“Give me any metric — safety on the job, performance on the job — and I can make a business case [for psychological safety],” Putnam said. “Even in tough industries like construction, leaders are talking about it.”

Lead by Example

Wellness-related initiatives such as employee support programs, meeting-free days and onsite mental health training may prove valuable to the organization and individual workers, and help mitigate worker anxiety. But to secure gains in this area, Birdsall, Putnam and other experts feel wider company culture should support mental health — and they believe leaders play a major role in driving and internalizing that culture.

“Leaders often hold on to the myth that because they are a leader, they should be able to handle it,” Birdsall said. “They might fear that others believe they are not capable of their leadership role if they acknowledge feeling stressed or anxious themselves.”

But managers have more impact on an individual’s mental health than their doctors or therapists, according to a 2023 Workforce Institute Study from human capital management solution provider UKG.

“Team leaders are in a position to be the first to spot an employee who is struggling,” Birdsall said. “They can be huge drivers of promoting benefits, and they can be instrumental in creating that positive mental health culture.”

They can also shift the conversation from advocating for self-care to advocating for team care.

“Companies and HR leadership are solving for the wrong problem; they’re providing resources for the individual, but the circumstances within which the individual is operating in, such as toxicity in the workplace, are superseding positive impact,” Putnam said.

Birdsall and Putnam state that leaders can make small but impactful changes. These may include:

Opening meetings with an icebreaker that asks colleagues to share something good.
Offering an employee flexibility in taking lunch breaks.
Scheduling breaks between meetings so employees can decompress between interactions.

Mental Health is a Priority for Top Talent

It’s up to total rewards professionals to drive this conversation. According to Hawkins, if they don’t, they won’t get coveted talent.

“There are employers who say, ‘We need you to be tough; we need you to be resilient.’ But if you want talent — talent comes with baggage,” Hawkins said.

In fact, the findings from the UKG report showed 80% of employees would rather have good mental health than a high-paying job.

Total rewards professionals can make strides here through leader training, culture enhancement and base benefits. They also may examine whether their wellness programs are built to meet employees where they are, with self-guided and digital solutions, as well as in-person services, Birdsall said.

“If we don’t have psychological safety in the workplace, [the results can be significant],” Putnam said. “Outdated notions that we check emotions at the door when we come to work are no longer relevant in our world today.”

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

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