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Why Manager Mental Health Training Is Essential for Workplace Wellbeing

Workplace mental health is increasingly shaped by the quality of conversations employees have with their managers. The article argues that while awareness of mental health has improved, many managers still lack the confidence and skills to provide meaningful support. Training managers to recognise signs of distress and create psychological safety is critical.

This article was written by Sophie Wood and published in Fair Play Talks.

One in five UK workers took time off in the past year due to stress-related poor mental health, according to Mental Health UK’s Burnout Report. Among younger employees, that figure rises to nearly two in five.

The scale of the issue is becoming impossible for employers to ignore. A recent report on workplace burnout and stress highlighted how burnout, financial pressure, AI anxiety and job insecurity are creating a sustained wellbeing crisis across UK and US workplaces.

At the same time, organisations continue to lose employees to stress, disengagement and poor workplace culture. These are not isolated cases happening behind closed doors, they are widespread challenges affecting teams across every sector. Yet despite growing awareness, many managers are still being left to “figure it out” on their own.

Workplaces mental health conversations

While workplace conversations around mental health have improved significantly over recent years, awareness alone does not change someone’s everyday experience at work. The factor that often makes the biggest difference is conversation. And in most workplaces, those conversations begin with a manager.

In the sessions I run, I often ask managers how confident they feel having a mental health conversation with someone in their team. The responses are usually strikingly honest:

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”
“What if I make it worse?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

So instead, many managers check in superficially or avoid the conversation altogether, hoping things improve naturally. But when someone is struggling, silence can feel louder than anything else.

This leadership confidence gap is becoming increasingly visible. Recent research on leadership and workplace mental health found that while many organisations publicly prioritise wellbeing, relatively few managers feel equipped to support employees effectively in practice.

Hidden signs of poor workplaces mental health

One of the challenges with poor mental health is that people often mask what they are experiencing. Many employees continue to perform, socialise and appear “fine” while privately struggling.

However, mental ill health often leaks out through visual, behavioural or emotional changes. These signs are often only recognised in hindsight. Because every individual is different, those warning signs can vary significantly. But the common thread is usually a noticeable change from someone’s normal behaviour.

For people suppressing stress, anxiety or low mood internally, thoughts and emotions can intensify over time. These experiences are often complex and multi-faceted, sometimes requiring clinical support, medication, therapy or social prescribing. Managers are not expected to provide those interventions.

How managers can better support staff struggling with mental health issues

When we talk about managers supporting mental health, we are not talking about managers becoming therapists. We are talking about managers learning how to:

notice changes in behaviour
show care and attention
listen without judgement
create psychological safety
signpost people towards support

Those seemingly small interactions can have an enormous impact. If employees feel safe discussing what is on their mind, they become less likely to continue masking distress or withdrawing emotionally. Simply saying difficult thoughts out loud can help move someone from emotional overwhelm towards clearer cognition and perspective. This is where management capability matters.

Read the full article here: Mental Health Awareness Week: Why Manager Training is Critical to Workplace Mental Health