The end of the year is fast-approaching, and you know what that means? Teams across organizations, from executive leadership all the way down, are meeting to discuss strategic plans and goals for the new year. Everything from departmental budgets to KPIs to benefits, vendors, and Q1 initiatives will be on the table. But there’s one key thing that’s missing from most organizations’ planning processes: employee mental health.
When employee mental health is poor, the effects ripple through every facet of the business: absenteeism rises, presenteeism quietly drains productivity, healthcare costs increase, and burnout and turnover accelerate. In fact, research from the World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety cost the global economy nearly $1 trillion every year in lost productivity alone. But when employee mental health is strong, everything in the organization improves – performance, focus, innovation, engagement, retention, team cohesion, revenue, and more. A large percentage of organizations now recognize the importance of supporting employee wellbeing. But it’s time to take it a step further.
The most strategic, proactive move leaders can make heading into 2026 is to bake mental health directly into their annual planning – not as an afterthought or a background initiative, but as a measurable, strategic priority. Doing so signals real commitment to your employees, anchors proactive mental health in the operational systems that drive your company forward, and ensures that the focus on mental health remains strong all year long.
What does this look like? In this article, we share recommendations for how to integrate mental health into your 2026 planning, the structures to put in place, and what to measure to track your progress. It starts with understanding the state of mental health within your organization now.
Gather data to understand your organization’s mental health baseline
To create any goals or long-term plan, you have to know where you’re starting from. When it comes to employee mental health, that means gathering varied quantitative and qualitative insights that reveal how your employees are doing today and where mental health support gaps may exist within your organization.
- Use 1:1s and team meetings for end-of-year pulse checks. Ask employees how they’re doing, what’s been challenging for them this year, and what support would help. This informal, qualitative information can help leaders gauge the cultural tone in the organization around mental health more broadly and start identifying patterns.
- Distribute validated, clinical mental health assessments. Clinical assessments – conducted confidentially, with anonymized results for organizations – show more concretely how many employees are struggling with mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. They can also surface early signs of conditions, helping leaders intervene before issues escalate. Common assessments include:
- Outcome Rating Scale (ORS) – The ORS measures the current state of four areas of people’s wellbeing: personal, interpersonal, social, and overall.
- General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) – The GAD-7 screens for the severity of someone’s anxiety symptoms.
- Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) – The PHQ-9 assesses levels of depression and risk factors.
- Collect feedback about current mental health programs. Use anonymous surveys to learn how well your existing culture and mental health programs serve your employees’ wellbeing so you know what needs more attention in the new year. SHRM has created an example survey with 9 helpful questions, including…
- How comfortable do you feel discussing mental health with managers or HR?
- How easy is it to access your mental health benefits?
- How would you describe the organization’s culture around mental health?
- Have you ever used our mental health benefits or recommended them to colleagues?
- Do you believe leadership prioritizes workplace mental health?
- Analyze usage data from EAPs and digital platforms. Aggregated, anonymous data from your EAP and mental health apps or digital platforms can reveal crucial insights on things like department-specific stress levels, utilization of mental health resources by region, seasonal patterns in engagement levels, and which resources garner the most and least engagement.
- Review related data points on business and workforce performance. Measures like absenteeism, turnover, and healthcare spend tend to correlate to employee wellbeing. Stronger workforce wellbeing typically brings down absenteeism, turnover, and healthcare spend, whereas poorer wellbeing typically contributes to increases in these areas. Monitoring these numbers can help indicate whether or not your mental health culture and programs are on the right track.
Set mental health goals and communicate them broadly
Once you understand your mental health baseline, set measurable goals that align with your organization’s values and business priorities, targeting specific data points that could signify improvements in mental health. Goals should be visible, specific, and tracked just as you would track revenue, customer growth, or other strategic milestones.
Here are a some example goals you might consider:
- Improve clinical assessment scores year over year by X points.
- Increase employee engagement with the mental health benefits and/or EAP by X%.
- Reduce burnout, absenteeism, and turnover by X%.
- Improve employee perceptions of psychological safety and support.
- Increase PTO usage and reduce end-of-year carryover.
- Allocate X% more of the budget to mental health programs or ERGs.
It’s also important that leaders communicate these goals across the organization so that (1) every team member understands the intention, and (2) they can hold leadership accountable if they don’t see changes in policy or culture that would help achieve these goals. Treating mental health in this way is a true proactive shift that acknowledges the role of employee mental wellbeing as a strategic performance lever – an advantage to company health, not a liability to hold at bay until a crisis boils over.
How leaders and managers can help achieve mental health goals
Managers are the front line of workplace wellbeing. Their support – or lack thereof – shapes day-to-day experiences of employees far more than written expectations or stated ideals. To meet your 2026 mental health goals, leaders and managers must double-down on policies, practices, language, and behaviors that facilitate a proactive mental health culture and aid employee mental health all year long.
- Help direct reports reflect on their mental health in regular check-ins. People often need gentle “nudges” to think about how they’re really doing. Having managers prompt this reflection in regular check-ins or 1:1s, or having leaders of employee resource groups ask about it during ERG meetings, can help normalize conversations around wellbeing, build trust, and reduce stigma. It’s also an effective proactive measure to detect mood shifts and changes in team dynamics quickly so leaders can respond right away when someone’s struggling. Our internal Journey team also uses the 5-15 Report, a written check-in on productivity blockers, stressors, and personal wellbeing needs that takes employees just 5 minutes to complete and managers 15 minutes to review.
- Plan intentionally for predictably stressful periods. Look at the calendar and take note of busy seasons, large product releases, financial closes, peak service windows, and holidays. These are the times teams may experience heightened stress and need additional mental health support. Prepare in advance by setting realistic deadlines and expectations with team members, encouraging PTO ahead of time, and promoting resources around stress management and related topics.
- Encourage, and model, time off and healthy working rhythms. Employees who take regular breaks and vacations return more focused and productive – and they’re less likely to be in danger of burnout to begin with. It’s not enough to encourage your employees, though. Leaders and managers also need to model this behavior to send a clear message that employee mental health and wellbeing are top priorities at the organization.
- Regularly and proactively promote available mental health resources. Don’t assume employees know how to get help. Instead, be proactive about communicating the support available consistently and clearly so that employees know what mental health resources exist, how they can access and use them, and that they’re completely safe and confidential.
- Share progress on the mental health goals. As leaders collect and analyze that data throughout the year, share it with employees, along with what you’re learning and how it’s impacting your approach. This shows employees both that you’ve still got your eye on the ball as the year goes on and what kind of impact proactive mental health measures have.
Use metrics to drive strategic, proactive mental health improvements – and real business outcomes
Your strategy to achieve annual business goals isn’t static; your strategy to achieve your mental health goals shouldn’t be either. As you collect data from check-ins, assessments, EAP utilization, retention numbers, and employee feedback, use it to refine your programs. Which initiatives drive the most engagement with mental health benefits? Which interventions boost team morale? Where are the biggest stress hotspots? What additional resources do employees request most? Change your mental health programs accordingly so you can get ahead of employee mental health needs, proactively address blind spots, and actually achieve your mental health goals.
By grounding your strategy in data, defining clear targets, and facilitating a proactive mental health culture with structures for continuous feedback, organizations can create workplaces where employees feel supported and deliver the best results possible.
This is how mental health integrates into annual planning – not as a one-time initiative on the side, but as an ongoing strategic pillar that influences both human and business outcomes in meaningful ways.
