How employers can stay ahead of burnout in the workforce
The Keep Britain Working Report acknowledges the scale of the country's mental health crisis and advocates fundamental change through shared responsibility to improve lives, business resilience and public finances. The message is clear – employers need to do more.
Employers have long been on the pitch when it comes to tackling mental ill health. Aon’s UK Benefits and Trends Survey 2025 found 98% of employers have mental/emotional health as a pillar in their wellbeing strategy. Burnout, stress, depression and anxiety feature as the top health concerns with 74% of employees expecting better mental health awareness and support from their employers. So how can employers stay ahead of the game?
Mental health strategies must evolve, moving from fragmented initiatives towards integrating mental health into work design, leadership behaviours, engagement, safety and business strategy with cross functional governance. Burnout and workplace stress are indicators of poor work design.
Credible strategy
Future-ready organisations examine the system such as ways of working, workload, unclear expectations and conflicting priorities to address prevention at source, which also mitigates against material breaches of health and safety legislation. Leaving this on the sidelines prevents delivery of a credible mental health strategy.
Shared responsibility requires employers to listen to the actual needs of employees in different contexts, taking in to account factors such as multigenerational differences or types of job role to co-create a mental health strategy.
Future-ready organisations leverage data and analytics to understand employee needs, identify when and where support is required, and prioritise relevant initiatives to deliver measurable outcomes.
Supporting employee wellbeing was ranked as the top employee expectation in Aon’s 2025 Employee Sentiment Study.
In a marketplace saturated with mental health resources, employers must make mental health support easy to access and navigate. If employees can quickly answer: What are my options? Which are right for me? What happens next? - this is a good indicator of success.
Shared responsibility
Managers, to a large extent, are the true delivery system of any mental health strategy, and this is where mental health strategy intersects with talent and leadership development.
A written policy is words on a page, but how a person experiences their manager’s support, or experiences psychological safety in the workplace is what really counts. This requires redesigning the manager role, codifying expected leadership skills and behaviours which support good mental health and sustainable performance. Without the experiential shift, mental health strategy remains theoretical.
While manager mental health training has been around for a while and is a staple feature of many mental health strategies, managers still fear saying the wrong thing. This can lead to saying nothing, missed opportunities for early intervention, employee disengagement and worsening mental health.
Shared responsibility for mental health means that employees must now step up.
Supportive workplaces matter and so does personal responsibility, according to the Keep Britain Working: Final Report. Disengaging from work and potential support leads to detachment and dependency; staying connected to work supports recovery and resilience, it added.
Employers must continue the focus on early intervention and helping employees to stay in work.
Research from Vitality revealed that between 2019-24 the use of talking therapies for mental health increased by 167%, which could suggest employees are increasingly taking responsibility for their mental health and seeking help early.
Fostering optimism
Recovery from poor mental health does not happen in a vacuum. It is influenced by surrounding circumstances and requires support from multiple parties, including employers. And it isn’t necessarily about the absence of symptoms, but the ability to live a meaningful life.
Work can contribute to that, providing purpose, connection and identity. While each person’s situation is unique, with the right support and adjustments, many experiencing mental health issues can and do work successfully.
Perhaps what is needed most of all is a shift in attitudes and perspective where the focus is less on ‘fixing’ the individual and what they can’t do and more on fostering optimism in recovery to empower employees to achieve and live a fulfilling life.
