For Jill DiGrappa, the next evolution of workplace mental health isn’t about adding another resource. It’s about looking more closely at the conditions employees experience every day.
“In my experience, employers are getting mental health ‘right’ when they move beyond awareness and access, to create healthier conditions for work—managers who recognize when employees are struggling, leaders who model sustainable boundaries, and flexibility that acknowledges people have lives outside of work,” she says. “The strongest organizations are treating mental health as part of how they lead and design work, not as something employees have to navigate on their own.”
That perspective reflects more than 20 years of experience across corporate fitness and wellness. Today, as an AVP and Health & Productivity Consultant at Alliant Insurance Services, Jill helps employers think strategically about the benefits, workplace practices, and conditions that enable people to thrive.
Her approach is practical and prevention-focused. Jill is a Certified Exercise Physiologist, Certified Corporate Wellness Specialist, and Mental Health First Aid responder, and her career has centered on helping organizations connect employee health and wellbeing with business performance.
While mental health isn’t her only area of specialization, Jill sees it as increasingly inseparable from the broader questions employers are trying to solve around sustainable productivity, engagement, and organizational performance. And that means looking beyond whether support exists to whether the workplace itself supports well-being.
As Jill points out, even strong mental health resources can only go so far when workload, job design, management practices, or workplace culture undermine well-being every day. Her perspective challenges employers to think more broadly: mental health isn’t simply something employees should be given tools to manage. It’s something organizations can actively influence through how they lead, how they structure work, and how they support their people.
That shift—from helping employees navigate mental health on their own to creating healthier conditions for work—is where Jill sees some of the greatest opportunity for employers to make a lasting difference.