Discussing mental health in the workplace is often considered taboo, but a DC-based entrepreneur and business owner says normalizing discussion of how employees are thinking and feeling will reap financial benefits.

Discussing mental health in the workplace is often considered taboo, but a D.C.-based entrepreneur and business owner says normalizing discussion of how employees are thinking and feeling will reap financial benefits.

In his recent TED Talk, Dan Simons, co-owner of Founding Farmers Restaurant Group, and host of WTOP’s “Founding DC” podcast, opened with a question to business leaders: “You’re telling me, when we’re in the workplace, we can talk about our broken ankle, we can talk about our torn ACL, but we can’t talk about our depression and anxiety?”

Simons told business leaders “mental health is a workplace topic,” despite the current status quo in most companies when it comes to mental health: “The employee hides it, the employer ignores it, or when it does come to the surface, the person is just sort of pushed over to that silo of ‘human resources.’”

In a WTOP interview, Simons said the idea of expecting employees to leave their problems at home makes no sense.

Entrepreneur Dan Simons says supporting mental health yields profits

“If you can leave your problems at the door, then I can presume you must be able to leave your left leg at the door. I just don’t believe people can truly separate parts of themselves, nor should they, nor is it the most productive way to live,” Simons said.

He said bosses should encourage employees “to bring their whole selves” to the workplace. “No boss would encourage their employees to leave reading glasses at home, because their vision problems are a health problem and not appropriate for the workplace.”

Asked how business leaders might embrace the notion of supporting mental health, Simons said it starts with normalizing and destigmatizing conversations around mental health.

“Helping everybody to understand that the ‘human condition’ is what’s normal, it’s what we all have in common,” Simons said.

He compares a person’s mental health to a smartphone’s operating system. “We’re OK that sometimes they need to be rebooted, sometimes they need to be restarted and have glitches. The human brain simply has a human operating system, like our iPhone has the iPhone operating system.”

In his business, new employees are provided with a phone app, which provides free access to mental health providers.

Simons dismisses the idea that supporting employees’ mental health will hurt a company’s bottom line.

“This is a business proposition — this is a capitalist’s approach to productivity,” and that case studies back that up. “A dollar invested into mental health will yield 5x return, with productivity, higher retention, less absenteeism, lower error rates,” he said.

In his TED Talk, Simons boiled it down, in encouraging business leaders: “Mental health is health,” and that making it a workplace topic, “and showing that our brains, and our employees, and our companies, flourish into the most valuable versions possible.”

Simons said when supporting mental health in the workplace, “you’re not only lifting up your employees and your company, you’re impacting your community, and the world around you.”

“Person by person, this is about changing the world, one workplace at a time,” Simons finished, to applause.

Dan Simons: Supporting mental health makes good business sense

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