Mental Health First Aid helps make mental health a workplace priority

Megan Hammes says prevention is key when it comes to health and wellness — and if people can take precautions to avoid illness and harm to the body, the same precautions should apply to mental health, as well.

Ms. Hammes is the owner and founder of Hammes Homestead and Consulting, a company that conducts mental health awareness training for businesses.

“There’s a lot of stigma associated with mental health and historically, mental health is something that we are not comfortable talking about in the workplace. It is not treated the same as our physical health,” Ms. Hammes said.

She’s determined to change that. 

The mental health awareness consultant launched her business in 2023 after nearly 20 years in the employee health and well-being sector at the University of Iowa.

“I’ve spent my entire career studying worksite wellness and worksite well-being. The root cause of a lot of the health — both physical and mental health challenges — that people were experiencing were different workplace stressors,” she said, such as juggling caregiving responsibilities alongside a full workload.

Mental Health First Aid

Using Mental Health First Aid training from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, Ms. Hammes teaches supervisors, safety managers and HR professionals to recognize signs and symptoms of mental health or substance use challenges and how to connect those individuals with support and services.

“One of the reasons I fell in love with the (MHFA) curriculum is the emphasis on preventing mental health and substance use crises before they get to the point of an emergency,” she said. “There’s a high focus on caring for oneself (and) reminding people that you can’t pour from an empty cup. It is not selfish to take care of yourself,” adding that “it teaches us … to be bold enough to have a conversation.”

Ms. Hammes’ primary clients so far have been mid-to-large sized companies in the manufacturing and construction sectors.

“Their culture is tough and gritty and very stressful,” she said, and sees high rates of suicide across all job descriptions.

“The unfortunate reality of mental health challenges that go unchecked is people die by suicide,” she continued. The worst-case scenario with workplace injuries is the loss of life, she added, while “the worst-case scenario with a mental health challenge that is ignored is that somebody is going to die by suicide … we should look upstream at what are the root causes that are contributing to this severe state (of mind).”

Using data from MindShare Partners and the American Psychological Association, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 76% of U.S. workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition; 84% of respondents said their workplace conditions had contributed to at least one mental health challenge; and 81% of workers reported that they will be looking for workplaces that support mental health in the future.

Employers can cultivate mental well-being in the workplace by creating people-friendly policies, Ms. Hammes asserted, and can include:

• Paid time off to take care of appointments
• Intermittent flexibility
• Covered mental health care benefits
• Employee Assistance Programs

“With financial stress being one of the number one stressors Americans are facing, we need to figure out creative ways that employees can stay in paid status,” Ms. Hammes said, “because when push comes to shove, if the leave is unpaid, they’re going to pick the paycheck over the life needs.

“Workplaces that take better care of their employees do better overall. You’re more likely to retain employees and attract new employees,” she added.

Ultimately, employee mental health is “everybody’s responsibility, from the top all the way down. It’s a culture of caring, and it’s everybody’s responsibility … it’s not only my responsibility to take care of my brain that’s under that hard hat, but it’s my responsibility to take care of my coworkers as well,” she said.

Mental health misconceptions

Despite progress in destigmatizing the discussion around mental health, misconceptions persist.

“When people talk about mental health, they’re often talking about it like it’s a problem,” Ms. Hammes said, but the truth is that everyone’s brains function on different levels at different times. “Just like our physical health, we have good days, we have bad days. We have whole months where we’re under the weather.”

Leadership attitudes toward mental health can go a long way in shaping workplace culture, she said. 

“When leaders are brave enough and bold enough to step out and say, ‘No, I have mental health, here’s my encounter and experience with my own mental health,’ that just breaks down so many stigmas and so many barriers for employees talking about it themselves,” she added.

Businesses interested in hosting Mental Health First Aid training can reach Ms. Hammes at www.hammesconsulting.com.