Stephanie Harrison’s Post

On World Mental Health Day, I'd like to talk about something I call 'mental-health-washing.' When I was in college, I took a class on greenwashing — where companies spend more money marketing themselves as environmentally-friendly than they do on actually protecting the environment. Unfortunately, the exact same thing is happening with mental health. There are so many companies out there spending a huge amount of money and energy to market themselves as mental health-supportive — yet who consistently fail to make the systemic changes that would actually meaningfully support employee well-being. Here are some common examples of mental-health-washing: — Putting executives on stage at fancy summits to talk about how much they care about well-being, while failing to establish a culture where employees can actually take care of their well-being (unfortunately, more often than not, they're creating a culture that actively harms it) — Weaponizing mental health topics like resilience, optimism, the growth mindset as a way to shut down honest conversations and employee boundaries — Hiding behind a mission of 'doing good in the world' while over-working and under-supporting the employees who are actually doing that work — Permitting toxic leaders to stay in their roles because they're high performers, even though their behavior has a deleterious effect on their team members and the organization's culture — Offering webinars about how to take care of your well-being, but never providing the time, space, or support to actually implement those strategies and/or discriminating against those who do — Publicly talking about how much they respect and support their employees, but never addressing ongoing, preventable sources of employee stress and suffering — Celebrating those who 'work the longest' or 'push the hardest' or 'sacrifice the most,' a practice that clearly tells your employees what is valued and rewarded — Promoting your culture of belonging, equity, and inclusion, while also permitting discrimination and inequitable behavior towards employees with different identities, needs and backgrounds — Running employee surveys and making a big deal about how important their feedback is, but never making meaningful changes that address employee concerns — CEOs conducting layoffs, saying "I have made huge mistakes, this is on me," while never once considering cutting their own compensation or removing themselves from the organization to actually protect their employees — Maintaining absurd executive-employee pay ratios that leave many of their employees struggling to survive and to meet their basic needs Companies: you can do better. There are many meaningful ways that you can start actually create a workplace that supports mental health. Just like with greenwashing, I think that it's time that we hold you accountable for aligning what you say with what you do.