What percentage of your time at work is spent connecting with others? A central tenet of behavioral and mental health care is how we show up matters. Yet, a desire to care for the wellbeing of others does not directly translate to wellness among our workforces. The National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s 2023 survey found 62% were experiencing moderate or severe levels of burnout. This trend is not isolated to behavioral healthcare, with a 2021 survey of 238 businesses across various industries in New York State finding that half were experiencing financial loss due to workforce wellness concerns, and leaders were spending approximately 39% of their time responding to these issues, often reactively addressing crises after they have taken a toll.
These widespread concerns prompted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to release the 2022 Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing, which identifies Connection and Community as essential ingredients for workplace wellness. To understand why connection is key to workplace wellness, it helps to consider what burnout entails. The Maslach Burnout Inventory describes three components of burnout: exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal achievement. Each component can be considered an arena of disconnection: first from one’s role, then from others, and finally from one’s sense of self. Recognizing burnout as disconnection reveals the path forward: to prevent and remediate burnout, organizations must adapt and develop strategies to strengthen connections in the workplace.
What is Connection
Connection is defined as a verb “to bring together or into contact so that a real or notional link is established,” or a noun “a relationship in which a person, thing, or idea is linked or associated with something else.” While connection in the workplace can begin with the employment contract, it reaches far beyond this initial link and continuously shifts due to the bidirectional nature of connection. Examples include how often employees meet with supervisors and what is typically discussed, the social norms established in a case conference, or the expected responsiveness and degree of helpfulness of care management team members. The complexity of these examples demonstrates why workplace connections are often implicitly understood, rather than explicitly addressed. SAMHSA’s Toolkit for Addressing Burnout in the Behavioral Health Workforce, released in 2022, highlights two often overlooked examples of connection in the workplace: organizational culture – the way work is completed based on shared norms, and organizational climate – the way employees perceive the overall work environment. Organizational culture describes how things are done, while climate reflects how it feels to work within the organization. Connections play a vital role in shaping culture and climate, showing up as shared norms, group perceptions, and overall environment.
Connection as a Structural Intervention
Commonly, workplace health promotion programs aim to address individual employees by offering support in making personal healthy choices, such as company-sponsored 5k runs, personal finance education, and vaccine clinics. In contrast, workplace wellness programs targeting organization-level factors aim to create a supportive environment that reinforces the benefits of making healthy choices. Research suggests interventions promoting workplace wellness are more effective when they include structural strategies and organization-directed approaches (Olsen et al., 2019).
A further study compares a health promotion program targeting the workplace’s social climate to a program targeting employees’ personal health choices, and measures effects on wellbeing outcomes. The study also compares each program’s mediating effects (if any) on wellbeing climate, defined as perceptions of coworker relationships, policies, and supervisor behavior that support optimizing physical and mental health. The findings indicate workplace health promotion programs targeting social climates positively correlate with positive wellbeing outcomes (perceived wellbeing, positive unwinding, help-seeking attitudes), negatively correlate with negative wellbeing outcomes (health symptoms, work-family conflict, stress, substance use), and have a significant mediating effect on the organization’s wellness climate. In contrast, the program targeting individual health choices had no effect on workplace wellbeing climate, a result likely attributable to the mediating effect of the workplace’s wellness climate (Reynold & Bennett, 2023).
How Organizations Can Build Connection
Connection is a key element distinguishing organizational strategies for workplace health promotion from interventions targeting individual behavior change. Connection is the driving force in wellness interventions such as communication skill development workshops, leadership development programs, role-playing activities for peer support, and facilitated discussions on topics such as workplace norms and policies, organizational values, and resources available to staff both inside and outside the workplace (Reynolds & Bennett, 2023; Olson et al., 2019).
There are numerous creative ways to center connections in the workplace. Providing staff with guidelines for healthy communication and tools to improve communication and listening skills, such as journal prompts and reflection questions, can improve workplace conversations and culture. Similarly, offering leadership training can break down silos and increase positive behavior modeling, creating far-reaching effects. Providing education on the early warning signs of stress among coworkers and offering guidance on how to seek help can improve psychological safety and increase prosocial behavior. Normalizing feedback and assessing and responding to the workplace wellness climate demonstrates that the organization truly values employees’ perspectives and presence.
Conclusion
Workplaces are a major point of connection in people’s lives, and a focal point within communities. Connection is more than a soft skill, but a structural determinant of wellness. Organizations that intentionally cultivate connection not only support our workforce but also improve outcomes for the people we serve.
Kara Cloud is the Team Awareness Workplace Wellness Project Coordinator at the National Council for Alcoholism and Drug Dependence – Rochester Area. Kara Cloud may be reached at (585) 719-3480 or kcloud@depaul.org.
References
Maslach, Christina & Jackson, Susan & Leiter, Michael. (1997). The Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual. Evaluating Stress: A Book of Resources, 3, 191-218. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277816643_The_Maslach_Burnout_Inventory_Manual
National Council for Mental Wellbeing. (2023). New Study: Behavioral Health Workforce Shortage Will Negatively Impact Society. National Council for Mental Wellbeing. https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/news/help-wanted/
Organizational Wellness and Learning Systems & Collaborative Recovery Empowerment of the Southern Tier. (2022). Workplace Well-being: A Real Strategy to Increase your Business Productivity. Collaborative Recovery Empowerment of the Southern Tier. https://admin.steny.org/southern-tier-8/assets/rvd19iyc7sgs08ow
Office of the Surgeon General. (2022). The U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being. Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/workplace-well-being/index.html
Olson, K., Marchalik, D., Farley, H., Dean, S. M., Lawrence, E. C., Hamidi, M. S., Rowe, S., McCool, J. M., O’Donovan, C. A., Micek, M. A., & Stewart, M. T. (2019). Organizational strategies to reduce physician burnout and improve professional fulfillment. Current problems in pediatric and adolescent health care, 49(12), 100664. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cppeds.2019.100664
Reynolds, G.S., Bennett, J.B. (2023). The Role of Wellness Climate in Small Business Health Promotion and Employee Wellbeing. Occup Health Sci, 7, 417–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-023-00148-w
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2022). Addressing Burnout in the Behavioral Health Workforce through Organizational Strategies. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. https://nhtac.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Addressing-Burnout-in-Behavioral-Health.pdf
