These Companies Combat Burnout by Prioritizing Mental Wellbeing

A workplace that prioritizes mental health is one where employees have a greater opportunity to perform their job well.

According to the U.S. Office of Disability Employment Policy, about one in five Americans experience some form of mental health condition every year. In recent years, companies across the country have been working to better address the needs of employees, including by improving workplace culture and enabling better work-life balance.

"Positive mental health strengthens a person's resiliency against life's stressors and setbacks," Melanie Tinto, the chief human resources officer for WEX Inc., wrote in an email to Newsweek. WEX is a company that provides corporate payment solutions.

"Helping employees build resiliency can help them better navigate these challenges with agility and remain productive," Tinto added. "A healthy state of mind translates into a greater sense of self-worth/happiness, and companies reap the benefits of these positive states in attraction, retention, productivity and employee satisfaction."

WEX is a five-star company on Newsweek's recently published 2024 ranking of America's Greatest Workplaces for Mental Wellbeing, which recognizes the top 750 companies across 78 industries that are making strides to prioritize the mental health and wellbeing of their employees.

The ranking was determined through a series of metrics, including pre-study surveys with human resources professionals, a main employee survey, research into relevant mental wellbeing KPIs in the workplace and media monitoring of any legal disputes related to the workplace. Each company included on the list was given a rating of four, four-and-a-half, or five stars.

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The following five-star companies spoke with Newsweek about how they've implemented policies to focus on employee wellbeing and support mental health in the workplace.

Essentia Health

Over the past few years, the health care industry has undergone a major shift. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, burnout was common among employees. According to the World Health Organization, burnout is an occupational phenomenon that results from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.

A 2021 Mayo Clinic study found that nearly 63 percent of physicians reported symptoms of burnout, up from 38 percent in 2020. Another study published in the JAMA Network from the American Medical Association found that emotional exhaustion increased among U.S. health care workers over the three years of the pandemic, suggesting that many employee wellbeing resources and programs "may be inadequate."

"Burnout was becoming increasingly recognized as highly problematic even prior to the pandemic...and the pandemic just magnified that so much, and so we need to attend to the wellbeing of our colleagues," Essentia Health's Chief Wellbeing Officer Dr. Nancy Sudak told Newsweek. "We feel especially fortunate that we have leadership who's really willing to support, promote and amplify our messages."

Essentia Health is an integrated health system serving patients in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. With headquarters in Duluth, Minnesota, Essentia Health has more than 15,000 employees, including more than 2,200 physicians and advanced practitioners.

Since stepping into her role as chief wellbeing officer, Sudak said Essentia has implemented several programs to improve employee wellbeing—many of which come from ideas of team members who identify issues and are seeking solutions. Those programs include an employee support line to bring awareness to the company's resources, self-care programs, peer support groups, burnout surveys and compassion and emotional intelligence leadership training. There are also diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging training and colleague resource groups, flexible work schedules and changes to credential language to reduce stigmatizing employees seeking help for mental health or substance issues.

Sudak said these programs' effectiveness is evaluated through surveys, utilization data and anecdotally from team members. While success is difficult to track, Sudak said she is confident that Essentia is making a difference.

"When we tend well to ourselves, we provide better care, we make less medical error," she said. "So there's really no downside to this work."

With the emotional exhaustion health care workers faced during the pandemic, paired with increased resignations and the current economic strains on hospitals and employees, Sudak said there is a "tug of war" between maintaining the company's financial wellbeing and the wellbeing of health care workers.

"It's a very stressful time to feel that we are having to do more on less resources, and yet we have to support our workers and so we can do that in ways that are not exorbitantly expensive," she said.

While the company is seeing improvements to employee wellness, Sudak said Essentia cannot get complacent because it is still a "really turbulent time" to be in health care, and these programs can save someone's life. What's important, she adds, is that executive staff makes employees understand that burnout is not a personal failing.

"I think that everybody in my role struggles with this—we never want to convey to our colleagues that they're burnt out because they're not resilient enough," Sudak said. "I think that's a really important point to make. Resiliency is important, it is a protective factor. When it comes to burnout, however, we really want to address burnout as close to the driver level as possible."

Ochsner Health

Ochsner Health is a not-for-profit health system based in the New Orleans metropolitan area of southeast Louisiana, serving 46 hospitals and more than 370 health and urgent care centers.

Melissa Love, the vice president of professional staff services and human resources of Ochsner Health, told Newsweek that wellbeing can be just another buzzword at many companies. But at Ochsner, there is an organizational commitment to the health of employees. There was a recommendation to start an office of professional wellbeing in 2019, she said, and the executive leadership "responded with wholehearted support."

"We've really evolved a lot of programs to meet what we've heard from our employees that they were looking for," she said.

Dr. Nigel Girgrah is Ochsner's chief wellness officer. He said the wellness programs are all data-driven, using quantitative and qualitative measures to check burnout, track success and discover opportunities to improve. He told Newsweek that employee wellness cannot be examined in isolation. "You have to look at systematic issues as well as the individual," he said.

"It's not just building stronger canaries but redesigning the coal mine," Girgrah explained. "Resilience and mental health are extremely important areas of focus but that always has to be in the context of the occupational environment, whether that's practice efficiency, the quality of our leadership or the overall culture of wellbeing."

Some of the programs Ochsner offers include professional experience programs, a resource that helps clinicians experiencing burnout identify the root cause of their issues in the workplace and work to "uncover tailored, actionable solutions to improve the provider's experience at work," according to the Ochsner website. There is also a resilience course designed by the office of professional wellbeing and Ochsner Learning Institute which the Ochsner website says helps employees improve their handling of physical, mental and emotional stress so that "you remain more purpose-driven personally and professionally."

Girgrah said that in the past few years, the company has seen improvements in measurable factors, like reducing burnout, increasing job satisfaction and in employees feeling valued by the organization.

"When I think about the culture in 2024 compared to 2018, I think there's much more of a sense of empowerment on the mental health front," he said. "I think our employees are much more comfortable bringing forward concerns about their own mental health [or] if they're concerned about a colleague, and that comes from culture on a mental health front."

Having an open dialogue can raise awareness and reduce stigmatization of mental health issues, Girgrah said, adding that he has shared his own struggles with anxiety and depression with colleagues. This is especially important, he said, in an industry like health care, which attracts people who are willing to go the extra mile for patients but who are also prone to burnout.

"People who are drawn to this type of work environment are built a little differently and have a tendency to overextend themselves in efforts to help other people," Love said. "So it's important that we take care of our team and proactively provide ways for them to take care of themselves so that they can do that successfully."

WEX Inc.

WEX is a technology-based company that deals with commercial and government fleet payments, and other systems for corporate purchasing and transaction monitoring.

Like health care, the technology industry is also dealing with increased burnout. According to a 2022 study from the Burnout Index (a survey initiative conducted by technology firm Yerbo), one in five tech workers surveyed show a high risk for burnout, 62 percent feel physically and emotionally drained, and 42 percent of IT professionals with a high level of burnout risk are considering quitting their company in the next six months.

Tinto, the chief human resources officer for WEX, said the technology industry continues to see increased attrition rates, higher incidences of burnout and stress, poor quality of life and reduced productivity.

"When employers focus on the sum total of employees—by offering a wide variety of tools and resources to support the wellbeing of their employees—they can become a catalyst to help mitigate some of these challenges," she told Newsweek over email. "Taking a more meaningful approach to employees' wellbeing can show them that you care."

At WEX, Tinto said employees are offered a "robust" mix of benefits, "regardless of where they are in their wellbeing journey." She said that WEX looks at wellness on a holistic level to include mental, physical and financial health in a "continuum of care."

"Being well or unwell in one of these areas is going to contribute to the wellness of the other two areas," she said. "What we're seeing and what we're learning is that employees want choice. Everyone has different wellness needs. And so many other aspects of people's lives are personalized. They want an experience that speaks to them."

Tinto said the company offers a variety of programs to make resources more accessible and usable. She said the emotional wellbeing solutions serve as an extension of WEX's diversity, equity and inclusion goals and are fully integrated into the medical and leave programs. For example, the company's global Emotional Wellbeing platform partners with medical professionals for virtual or in-person clinical and crisis care that covers everything from stress management to addiction.

Effective mental health resources can save lives, Tinto said. Last year, WEX started offering employees Lyra, a wellbeing provider that triages and provides individualized care for burnout, stress, anxiety, addiction and suicide. Since launching the program, Tinto said 90 percent of program users reported an improved health status within the first six months of use and that the program's tools helped people who reported having suicidal thoughts.

WEX uses metrics collected from employee surveys, employee resource group leaders and outside partners to measure utilization, engagement, employee satisfaction and improvements in health status. Tinto said this data helps the company understand how to best meet employee needs in an "ever-evolving environment" and informs decision making for future benefit programs.

Cox Automotive

Cox Automotive, a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, is an automotive services and technology provider that works with digital advertising as well as creating dealer websites, software for running dealerships and managing vehicle inventories, and related duties.

"At Cox, we are committed to making the world a better place for our employees, our customers and our communities," Karen Bennett, Cox Enterprises' chief people officer, told Newsweek over email. "Caring for our people, in all aspects of their lives, is our priority and we believe that this empowers them to make bold decisions to then care for our customers and communities."

The company offers employees free counseling through Teladoc and Resources for Living, access to virtual mental health care for kids and teens via Brightline and a free subscription to the Calm guided meditation app.

According to the Cox Enterprises career page, the company also offers on-site fitness centers and health screenings, fitness and nutrition resources, flexible time off and hybrid work options, as well as other benefits to support a healthy work-life balance.

"To prioritize mental wellbeing, companies need to create a safe place for their people to bring their entire, authentic selves to work," Bennett said. "Fostering this place of belonging provides an invaluable opportunity to listen and learn what employees need to care for themselves and their loved ones. When they see that their employer heard and acted, offering the benefits and programs to care for their total wellbeing, they are empowered to focus on being innovative, solving problems and driving the business forward."