Chinnapong / iStock

Enhancing the Mental Wellbeing of Federal Workers

Employee mental health is an important barometer of the health of agencies, with implications for retention and productivity.

The Office of Personnel Management and the HRStat Community of Practice recently hosted a summit on employee retention in the federal government. Nearly 1,500 people participated. One of the most enthusiastically received presentations concerned the assessment of employees’ mental health within organizations through the use of the Mental Health Quotient, or MHQ.  

The MHQ is a scientifically developed, comprehensive assessment of mental wellbeing that positions individuals on a continuum of mental health from clinical to thriving and provides aggregate metrics along functional dimensions such as Mood & Outlook, Drive & Motivation and Social Self. By incorporating demographic and life experience elements, the MHQ provides deep insights into what drives our mental wellbeing status. Presently deployed as part of the Mental Health Million project, a public interest project that tracks mental wellbeing across the globe on an ongoing basis, the MHQ provides insights into the distinct profiles and the challenges of different demographic groups (see the 2020 Mental State of the World Report). In 2020, the Mental State of the World Report revealed that approximately 25% of the U.S. population have or are at risk for clinical mental health challenges, while 41% of Americans were at succeeding or thriving mental health levels, as shown in the chart below. The U.S. MHQ data leads to a compelling question: How many federal employees are succeeding or thriving in their mental health?  

U.S. Population Mental Health Status (5/1/2020 to 4/30/2021)

In the context of measuring employee mental wellbeing within organizations, the Workforce MHQ, a tailored version of the MHQ for organizations, provides aggregate metrics of the mental wellbeing of organizations’ workforces. The Workforce MHQ results can inform the strategic design and delivery of practical solutions benefitting federal employee and agency wellbeing as well as enhanced productivity.  

Impact on the Federal Workforce

Mental wellbeing extends beyond feelings of happiness or life satisfaction to encompass the breadth of emotional, cognitive and social function and capability. These functions and capabilities evolve with life circumstances and the wider social, economic and environmental landscape. Changes to this landscape can therefore result in changes to the nature and prevalence of mental health challenges, as evidenced by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted in the Mental State of the World Report and other publications. Where the federal workforce stands on the continuum of mental wellbeing therefore serves as an important barometer of the health of federal agencies, with implications for retention, productivity, and employee wellbeing.   

As agencies’ missions expand and new work responsibilities burgeon, federal employees confront increased psychological pressures. The pandemic has compounded existing high rates of job burnout and concerns about role ambiguity, job inflexibility, and workload. These pressures are different across occupations, leading to distinct mental health challenges. For example, those in frontline roles, who have frequent face-to-face interactions with the general public, can often find themselves in situations that involve interpersonal conflict, high-pressure decision making and limited flexibility in work scheduling. Employees performing desk-bound work in remote settings may find the boundaries between personal and work life blurred, leading to a disruption of family norms and difficulties maintaining a healthy work-life balance.  

Across all jobs, personal challenges such as child and elder care problems, financial concerns or social isolation can spill over into the workplace, affecting employee performance and lowering resiliency in the face of challenging situations. Conversely, how people respond to personal and work pressures is also informed by their mental wellbeing.  

In the federal workplace, agencies’ human capital data-driven reviews (HRStat) frequently focus on measurement and interventions to address employees’ absenteeism, attrition, and alignment between workforce management and mission objectives. These outcomes are all known to be affected by the mental health status of employees with strong evidence from various research studies and polls. Furthermore, depression ranks among the leading sources of health-related productivity loss due to presenteeism. 

Among public-facing and frontline employees, such wellness issues can compromise organizational goals and objectives. The use of HRStat within agencies could therefore be materially enhanced by understanding the mental challenges within agencies’ workforces using an ongoing assessment of employees’ collective mental health.  

Workforce MHQ: A Strategic Approach 

The Workforce MHQ is uniquely suited to the assessment of employee mental wellbeing, delivering insights that guide the strategic development of interventions tailored to different workforce segments. For the employee, it provides a comprehensive whole person assessment of mental functioning that takes less than 15 minutes and is fully anonymous with privacy safeguards. On completion, it provides each employee with an individualized report on their mental wellbeing along with coping strategies, thereby promoting employees’ honest answers and high completion rates. 

For an agency and its components, the Workforce MHQ provides a neutral “Mental State of the Organization” report not tied to any particular intervention platform.  The report provides metrics of mental wellbeing that can be tracked over time and benchmarked to the national population, and insights into the distinct challenges and strengths by demographics, job roles, and geography. Agencies may include customized supplementary questions to aid in identifying key levers and determinants unique to an organization to help focus intervention strategies to address problems.  

In total, the Workforce MHQ provides federal agencies with a refined capability to measure organizational mental wellbeing and to manage it strategically for the optimized benefit of federal agencies and their employees. If the government is committed to remain a world-class employer, then agencies must embrace employee mental health as a proactive mission imperative, requiring valid scientific assessments and the development of effective data-based mental health interventions for employee and agency wellbeing. 

Tara Thiagarajan, Ph.D., is the founder and chief scientist at Sapien Labs. John Malgeri, J.D., Ph.D., is co-chair of the HRStat Community of Practice. For additional information on the Workforce MHQ, see: sapienlabs.org/workforcemhq. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the viewpoints of any federal agencies. 

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.