What Can Management Do about Employee Mental Health?

This chapter addresses how senior managers (executives, directors) and immediate managers (those to whom employees report directly) can protect, if not enhance, employees’ mental health. We begin by defining the broad concept of employee “mental health.” We then review scientific literature addressing senior and immediate managers’ potential roles in supporting employee mental health. Although more has been published on immediate managers, much of that work has failed to provide practically useful insights, because of vague conceptualizations, poorly developed measures, or insufficient integration across related topics of study. To help fill that gap, we propose a comprehensive behavioral taxonomy of mental health–supportive supervision. This taxonomy integrates evidence-based insights on the types of behavior that immediate managers should avoid, those they should display, and helpful actions advocated by mental health first aid training programs. Lastly, we list several pressing avenues for future research.