The American Institute of Stress estimates that job stress costs the United States economy $300 billion annually due to absenteeism, decreased productivity and employee turnover.
This is deeply felt at the local level as Mesa County continues to navigate an extreme mental-health-care shortage.
To relieve these challenges, Mesa County Public Health’s Behavioral Health Division, in partnership with the Mesa County Suicide Prevention Coalition and the Counseling and Education Center, developed a Workplace Resiliency tool kit for employers. The goal is to shift workplace culture in Mesa County toward actively supporting employee mental-healthcare access and promoting collaborative teams built on connection.
Root causes of workplace stress
Numerous studies over the past few decades have shown an increase in job-related stress impacting millions of Americans. This stress is influenced by factors such as demanding workloads, lack of control over processes, and workplace relationships.
When stress goes unmanaged, employees often experience difficulty focusing, decreased effort and lack of motivation. These factors significantly impact employee mental health, leading to burnout and the search for other opportunities.
Now more than ever, implementing resiliency practices is a business necessity.
Employer and employee benefits
Investing in workplace resiliency directly benefits all individuals in an organization. For every $1 invested in mental health, employers see an average $4 return in productivity and reduced turnover (National Safety Council and University of Chicago, 2019). Financial strain is mitigated as retention and attendance improves.
For employees, a cultural shift prioritizing mental health relieves them from burnout. When staff feel supported, they experience higher job satisfaction, stronger company loyalty and increased productivity.
The Workplace-Resiliency Continuum
Incorporating mental health practices doesn’t have to be strenuous or costly. Mesa County Public Health’s framework has been developed with organizational capacity in mind.
Behavioral Health Division Director Jennifer Daniels explains, “We want to provide organizations with simple and efficient strategies that are easy to implement in everyday workflows. Each workplace is unique and encounters varying levels of mental-health challenges, so it’s important that we provide practical guidance tailored to our businesses.”
The handbook includes four levels of workplace resilience, offering actions from everyday practices, to conversation scripts, to a post-crisis debriefing guide:
Level 1: Everyday Resilience – Ways to build a culture that ensures employees feel valued and supported each day.
Level 2: Early Support – Techniques for recognizing strains and stepping in to prevent problems from growing larger.
Level 3: Crisis Response – Support in developing a clear, written plan for responding to a crisis.
Level 4: Post-Crisis Recovery (Postvention) – Approaches to helping staff recover, restoring operations and rebuilding trust.
Next steps
Mesa County Public Health plans to collaborate with businesses directly and present benefits of the toolkit implementation. Mesa County Public Health also encourages employers and their employees to take the organizational self-assessment linked within the toolkit to identify opportunities for improvement.
For additional mental health information and resources, visit our behavioral health webpage at mesacounty.us/health. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to access the Colorado Mental Health Line.
When employers prioritize mental health in the workplace, they aren’t just boosting morale. They’re building a culture that supports a healthy, resilient community.
Elliotte Schroeder is the communication specialist at Mesa County Public Health.