Surgeon General: Many workplaces don't 'necessarily support mental health and well-being'
In a new interview with Yahoo Finance senior reporter Anjalee Khemlani, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy discussed his work on mental health and the workplace.
Video transcript
VIVEK H. MURPHY: COVID-19 has revealed to us the profound challenge we have with mental health. And I say reveal not in the sense that this is a new problem, but this is a problem that preceded COVID-19. We were struggling with high rates of anxiety and depression and suicide, including among young people, long before COVID-19 came. And the question is, what are we going to do about it, recognizing that for many people, the crisis of COVID-19 has actually increased rates of depression and anxiety.
And this is having an impact on the workplace as well. Look, we know that an extraordinarily high number of people are considering quitting their jobs. Over 50% of people 18 to 25, you know, in a survey a few months ago said that they were considering quitting their jobs.
And but when asked more deeply about why this is, I think it's a few things. I think it's that the pandemic, being a profound and traumatic experience for people, has made people question what matters to them, has made them recognize that their mental health and well-being is really important. And I think some people have had their realization that the workplace that they currently operate in may not be supporting their mental health and well-being in the way that they need.
And what that highlights to me is something that I was studying and thinking about actually in the years preceding the pandemic, which is the fact that, number one, loneliness and isolation in our workplaces is actually quite high. And it comes with a consequence for retention for productivity, for creativity in the workplace.
The second thing that it's pointed out is that for many people, the culture in their workplace does not necessarily support mental health and well being. There's still, unfortunately, too many quarters a sense of shame that people feel when they admit that they may be struggling with their mental health.
