A positive work culture can help ensure that employees remain engaged and productive. 

Work-life balance has been a hot topic since the pandemic. Whether your employees are already back in the workplace full-time, or you embrace remote or hybrid models, shifting expectations could make it more challenging to ensure a mentally healthy workforce.

In November 2024, Mental Health UK surveyed 4,418 UK adults, 2,436 of which were workers. 91% of participants reported that they’d experienced high or extreme levels of pressure in the last year [1].

Meanwhile, according to research from the McKinsey Health Institute, 4 in 5 HR leaders say that mental health and wellbeing is a top priority for their organisation [2]. 

Employees may be at risk of burnout if they experience long-term stress and constant pressure
Mental Health UK describes burnout as a “state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion”. This can occur as a result of long-term stress or feeling under constant pressure.
 
There are a wide range of symptoms associated with burnout.
 
Common symptoms include:

• Procrastination / taking longer to complete tasks
• Feeling continuously tired or exhausted
• Feeling helpless, trapped, or defeated
• Feeling detached or alone in the world
• Loss of interest and enjoyment
• Feeling overwhelmed

Below are some practical steps that could help decrease the chance of burnout affecting your team.

Review your mental health policy
Ideally, you should already have a strategy, policy, or plan that directly addresses employee mental health. 

This shouldn’t just be taken out and dusted off on rare occasions, rather it should be proactively implemented and reviewed at regular intervals.
 
It should be your go-to resource for preventing stress and burnout, as well as setting out how to address cases when they occur.

Encourage senior leaders to champion workplace mental health
Senior management and team leaders being seen to actively take care of their own mental health and wellbeing can be a powerful approach – akin to “giving permission” for the wider workforce to do the same.

Ensuring that senior leaders and managers maintain a healthy work-life balance and refrain from working when they are unwell could go a long way to creating a healthy, productive team.

Ensure workloads remain reasonable and achievable
The chart below illustrates the leading causes of stress.

Mental Health UK, The Burnout Report 2025 [3]

Beware of high workloads; if you ask people to do too much you risk poor output. If it’s a regular and ongoing problem, you may find that more employees leave or become ill and go off sick.

Offer an employee assistance programme as part of your benefits package
9 in 10 organisations around the world offer some form of wellness program. One simple way to implement this is through an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).

An EAP provides a wide range of support for workers’ mental health and wellbeing. Typically offering services such as counselling, GP access, and discounts on a range of healthcare, they may present opportunities for your team to take proactive steps to support their wellbeing at less cost.

As well as introducing an EAP to your benefits package, you may find it possible to offer other wellness initiatives such as:

•    Workshops on time management and productivity
•    Lunchtime or after-work yoga sessions
•    Subscriptions to meditation apps
•    Wellbeing days

Support your team to cope better with external pressures 
As well as considering workplace stress, there are relatively simple ways to also acknowledge factors outside of work that could affect employees’ mental health.

The chart below shows the degree of stress caused by external factors.

Source: Mental Health UK, The Burnout Report 2025

The second most common cause of stress outside of work relates to “money worries”, which 49% of survey participants cited as a problem area.

So, offering financial advice as a workplace benefit could help your staff.
 
This is an area that we can help with. We provide practical advice around workplace pensions and retirement savings, offering one-to-one conversations or financial advice workshops.

Get in touch
To discuss how we could help support employees’ mental health and reduce the risk of burnout,  please get in touch. Email info.wp@titanwh.com or call us on 0800 048 0150.

Please note
The information contained in this article is based on the opinion of Titan Wealth Planning and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation for any investment or retirement strategy.