When a team regularly works late to compensate for unclear priorities and insufficient staffing, another time-management seminar will not solve the underlying conditions. The World Health Organization identifies factors such as excessive workload, low job control, discrimination and poor support as risks to mental health at work.
The core idea
A useful approach distinguishes what individuals can do to manage demanding moments from what employers must improve in the design of work. Both matter, but organizational action is essential where the working environment itself creates the risk.
How to apply it
- Ask workers where pressure originates: competing deadlines, unpredictable shifts, role ambiguity, interpersonal conduct or lack of tools.
- Use confidential and appropriate channels for concerns, protecting personal information and avoiding unqualified diagnosis.
- Assess what the team can realistically change: workload, staffing, task priority, flexibility, supervision or reporting mechanisms.
- Assign control owners and verify whether conditions improve, not only whether a workshop was delivered.
- Provide appropriate support pathways and make clear how workers can obtain help when needed.
A workplace example
A department has frequent last-minute requests and weekend work. A manager analyzes demand and discovers that two teams are producing duplicate reports. By agreeing on one reporting owner and establishing an escalation threshold, the team reduces unnecessary work rather than simply urging people to be more resilient.
What to watch out for
Do not infer an individual medical condition from work performance. Always distinguish psychosocial risk management from clinical care. Respect privacy and local employment law, and do not publish personal health details in performance dashboards.
Practice and reflect
Ask the team to identify one recurring work-system problem that could be removed or redesigned rather than tolerated.