Mental health | Ways to get your male employees talking

By Tracey Ward, Head of Business Development and Marketing, Generali UK Employee Benefits

It’s not easy to get male employees to open up about mental health. Recent research for the Mental Health Foundation found that 35% of men suffering with poor mental health struggle on for at least two years without telling their friends or family – never mind their boss.

This unwillingness to talk about mental health issues is perhaps one reason men are so much more likely to commit suicide. Three-quarters of the 4,382 people who committed suicide in the UK in 2017 were male, as “has been the case since the mid-1990s”, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

So how can employers help male workers feel comfortable discussing their mental health?