May is Mental Health Awareness Month, an important reminder that mental health impacts every workplace—employee wellbeing, engagement, and safety performance included. In Safety, we work to reduce exposures that can harm people. That same mindset applies to mental health: when stress is unmanaged or someone is struggling, attention, decision-making, and communication can suffer.

Why This Month Matters (a snapshot from Mental Health America) 

Mental Health America (MHA) is a national nonprofit focused on mental health promotion, wellbeing, and prevention. Each year, MHA publishes an annual State of Mental Health in America report using data across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The report looks at both prevalence (how many people are experiencing mental health or substance use challenges) and access (insurance coverage, treatment availability, and barriers to care).

Graham Company is headquartered in Pennsylvania. In 2025, MHA’s overall rankings placed Pennsylvania at #7.  Check how your state ranks regarding mental health are access to care here: State of Mental Health in America

States ranked 1–13 generally reflect lower prevalence and higher access to care across the combined measures. However, access barriers still exist nationwide.

MHA’s 2025 findings reinforce what many employers are seeing firsthand.

• In 2024, over 60 million adults in the U.S. experienced any mental illness (AMI) in the past year. Over 14 million adults reported serious thoughts of suicide, and over 46 million adults had a substance use disorder (SUD) in the past year.
• Access to care remains out of reach for many—including a national estimate of 320 individuals per 1 mental health provider, and more than 7 million adolescents who did not have a preventive health visit in 2022–2023 (often a first point for screening and early intervention).

From an employer and safety perspective, these are not abstract statistics. They can show up at work through attention lapses, increased errors, conflict, fatigue, missed work, and disengagement.

What Employers Can Do and Why it Strengthens Safety Culture

Employers can’t control every factor that affects mental health, but employers can shape the work environment. The work environment can either reduce stressors or amplify them.

The goal is to create a culture where challenges are motivating, expectations are realistic, and people reach out early, before stress leads to concerns such as burnout, absenteeism, turnover, reduced productivity, unsafe decisions, or crisis.

Here are practical actions that align with strong culture and safety programs:

1. Build a “safe” culture, not just a compliant one. Treat psychological wellbeing as part of exposure reduction. Consider applying the NIOSH/CDC’s Hierarchy of Controls mindset to stressors and organizational risk factors (for example, designing work to prevent harm, not just responding after issues surface).
2. Design schedules and workloads that protect wellbeing. Monitor fatigue risk. Ensure workloads challenge without discouraging and create room for recovery during sustained peak periods.
3. Increase employee voice and participation. Involve employees in decisions that affect how work is performed. Autonomy and participation are meaningful buffers against chronic stress.
4. Reduce avoidable stressors in the work itself. Where feasible, reduce unnecessary obstacles and chronic “administrative drag.” Build in variety, breaks, and recovery time, especially for monotonous or emotionally demanding work.
5. Normalize mental health conversations (without requiring disclosure) Recognition matters. So does consistent messaging that it’s okay to seek support, without putting pressure on anyone to share personal information.
6. Train leaders to respond early and appropriately. Equip leaders to recognize signs of distress, communicate effectively, and guide someone toward the right support pathways. Leaders should be educated on how to identify a crisis and how to act in those situations.
7. Make support easy to find, and easy to use. Promote available resources, such as your Employee Assistance Program, consistently. People can’t use what they can’t find. Encourage employees to learn how to access the EAP before they need it.

If someone is in crisis

If you have concerns about someone’s mental wellbeing, or your own, call 988 the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the US.

If someone is at immediate risk of suicide, call 911. Do not leave the person alone. Stay with the person until help arrives.  If you cannot stay with them, arrange for someone else to stay with them.

References (Employer resources)

The following resources provide additional background and guidance on workplace stress and mental health, including tools employers can use to support well-being.

• NIOSH, Stress at Work booklet
• National Safety Council, SAFER: Mental Health and the Workplace
• Healthy Work Campaign, Healthy Work Tools
• OSHA, Worker Fatigue

Mental Health Awareness Month is a powerful reminder to renew our commitment to supporting the mental well-being of every individual in our workplace and community. Strengthen this commitment through: reducing preventable stressors, supporting leaders, and building a culture where it’s safe, and encouraged, to speak up. Supporting mental wellbeing supports overall safety.

At Graham Company, our Safety Services Department reinforces that culture beats compliance. A true safety culture starts with leadership, carries through day-to-day policies and procedures, and stays focused on continuous improvement—not simply meeting minimum OSHA requirements.

If you are looking for ways to educate employees and improve mental health within the workplace, reach out to your Graham Company Safety Consultant today.