HR Understaffing is Undermining Mental Health Care

By Ariela Safira, Founder + CEO, Zeera

I became passionate about mental health care eleven years ago now, fueled by the suicide attempt of a friend. I was shocked to see what her care looked like, and adamant about learning why the mental health care system was built in the way that it is. And so, I took on what would become a decade-long journey, receiving grant after grant to interview and learn from the people informing mental health care: patients, their families, therapists, psychiatrists, department leaders of in-patient mental health facilities, janitors, nurses and staff members who maintain rehabs and clinics, people failed by the system, people saved by the system.

By 2019, when I ventured to launch Zeera, I was confident that I understood why mental health care looked like this; it lacked preventative care. I knew that I could change it.

But I missed the key component to our mental healthcare system: HR.

Over the past 16 months, I’ve had the privilege of meeting over 200 HR leaders, and what’s suddenly become clear is that HR is on the frontlines of America’s mental health care system.

The frontlines of America’s mental health care system is made up of HR professionals.

1. HR leaders have the best data behind the mental health issues our population faces. From people engagement surveys, to leave of absence requests, to claims data, to countless individuals personally turning to their HR leader for resources, making them intimately aware of employees’ struggles surrounding anxiety, depression, domestic abuse, burnout, eating disorders, death of a loved one, managing their children’s mental health issues…of all stakeholders I have met, HR leaders are equipped with the most data points surrounding what are people struggling with right now.
2. HR leaders have the best understanding of the mental health solution landscape today. In order to craft their own company’s benefits package, HR leaders are pitched mental health solution after solution, both directly from vendors as well as from brokers and consultants. Their mandate being: find the right mental health solution(s) for our workplace.
3. HR leaders see first-hand the difference between pretty-looking (and often false) marketing versus the actual outcomes behind each mental health solution. HR leaders have been tracking the efficacy of the mental health solutions they have implemented in their workplace, giving them a front-row seat to: is this working? Are employees even using these solutions? Are employees satisfied or seeking more? If you want to know which mental health solution people actually use, ask HR—they know more than anyone that 85% of employees don’t use the mental health benefits offered to them (source).
4. HR leaders are personally building their workplace’s mental health care model. HR leaders have become so well-versed in the inadequacies of our mental health care system alongside the needs of their employees, that they are single-handedly crafting new models of care to support their workforce’s unique needs, picking and choosing subsets of different vendors’ care models in order to sculpt what they believe will best support their workplaces. One vendor’s 1:1 coaching solution; another vendor’s psychiatry offering; another vendor’s group therapy package; another vendor’s content model—HR leaders are functioning as product managers, partnerships builders, system creators. Each HR leader is inventing a new care model.

Now, the problem: this same individual (or small team) who is responsible for crafting your employer-sponsored mental health care program, is also responsible for:

• Crafting and implementing your employer-sponsored primary care program
• Crafting and implementing your employer-sponsored cardiology care program
• Crafting  and implementing your employer-sponsored chronic illness care program
• Defining your PTO plan, your paternity & maternity leave, office-wide holidays
• Defining the company’s salary leveling strategy
• Defining the company’s response to Trump getting shot last night
• Managing that one exec’s sudden and abrupt layoff
• Picking up the phone to handle that obscure crisis in engineering
• Finding an immediate solution when the payroll platform has an outage on payday

The list goes on. There is a full list of responsibilities that extend far and beyond “how do we support the mental health of our employees”. 

What’s more, HR is historically the most understaffed team within an organization. Often seen as cost centers and not revenue drivers, HR teams are the first to be slashed amidst budget cuts, and they are consistently tasked to manage leaner ships than their peers. A report by SHRM revealed that 61% of HR professionals are working without enough staff and 70% of HR professionals are working beyond capacity (source).

While the HR leader is most equipped to define which mental health solution might support their workplace, they often aren’t given the time or resources to do so.

The result? Our country’s mental health continues to decline. I’m the first person to point out the therapist shortage in the US, but employees aren’t even able to make it to therapy’s 3 month waitlist if their HR professional doesn’t have enough time to onboard a therapy benefit, let alone vet multiple other mental healthcare options to determine which one will be the most effective. 

In a world where mental health care is increasingly recognized as critical to overall wellbeing, HR leaders stand at the forefront of this battle, armed with experience, data, appropriately skeptical perspectives, and deep empathy for people in need of care. They are the unsung champions of mental health care in our country, navigating complex challenges with limited resources and an unwavering commitment to their people.

To HR leaders: You are the glue holding together the mental health and wellbeing of countless employees, even as you navigate the frustrations of inadequate support and overstretched teams. Know that your efforts are not just shaping workplace benefits packages—they are shaping lives. They are shaping the possibility of our country overcoming today’s mental health crisis. Thank you.