Businesses are now more than ever at the coalface of psychosocial challenges. This has seen an insurgence of workplace programs designed to address mental health (MH). Workplaces offer a prime setting for the delivery of MH initiatives. Businesses have an obligation to safeguard the psychological safety of employees. Though, many business leaders appear to struggle with how to best address workplace mental health (WMH).
Organizations benefit from promoting a mentally healthy workforce through early detection and intervention (EI). However, businesses face significant financial, feasibility and cultural barriers to program uptake. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face these challenges and additional complications affecting uptake.
To address these issues, businesses require easily accessible and applicable industry-focused programs. A generic, one size fits all approach lacks credibility amongst business leaders. Specifically, this qualitative systematic literature review examined 53 sources between 2008 and 2019, in which the implicit theme indicated that businesses benefited most profoundly from a tailored approach of program delivery.
The present article aimed to discuss current program offerings globally, with a special focus on the needs of Australian SMEs. It addresses the significance of WMH programs, accessibility barriers, facilitators and enabling factors; and reviewed implementers that promote uptake. Scholarly literature was reviewed and revealed the perspectives of both MH program participants and implementers with a workplace focus. Future research may explore industry-specific solutions to WMH, and notably, the peculiar and nuanced MH issues that impact SMEs and which have proven a challenge to address.