MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors

From mindfulness seminars to massage classes to sleep apps, employee mental health services are a billion-dollar industry. But a recent study of over 46k workers suggests these services don’t necessarily improve well-being, when compared to colleagues who don’t participate.

1. The study examined 90 distinct interventions enabled by in-office mental health services and made an intriguing discovery: among all of the services offered there was one notable exception– only one mental health service that showed consistent boosts in employee happiness: workers given opportunities for charity or volunteer work showed improved well-being.
2. This analysis suggests that employers concerned about workers’ mental health would do better to focus on “core organizational practices” like schedules, pay and performance reviews.
3. However, doing away with these practices altogether may be an overcorrection. These findings do not change the fact that practices like mindfulness can have a positive effect. Controlled studies have consistently demonstrated lower stress and decreased anxiety and depression after mindfulness training.
4. Founders of office mental health companies are understandably critical of the survey’s findings, saying that it does not allow respondents to adequately track progress over extended periods of time.
5. A key takeaway from the findings are that while mental health programs in the office may provide positive pathways for growth, they will not allay the mental burden of burnout, low pay, and poor culture.

1. Several countries are considering raising their retirement age to offset the economic pressures of aging population. While a later retirement age may have clear overall economic benefits, the physical and mental implications of making such a drastic collective change must be considered.
2. While life expectancies have gone up over the last hundred years, the type of work people are doing has also changed. In 2020, roughly 45 percent of the American labor force worked in a knowledge-based field, such as management, business and finance, education, and health care. In 1935, these types of professions accounted for just 6 percent of the workforce.
3. Experts think that the collective rise of knowledge-based jobs makes a higher retirement age a bit more reasonable, as cognitive properties stay sharp into one’s 70s. Staying at work in some capacity has shown to have health benefits for people in their 70s as well, as long as the work is not physically laborious.
4. This is not to say that a raised retirement age should be instituted across the board. Jobs that are more hands-on, active, and laborious, might in fact require a slightly younger retirement age. There is research that shows retirement around the mid-sixties from physically challenging work can lead to stronger cognitive output.
5. Overall, the article shows that a single, uniform retirement age is always going to be imperfect. There are too many factors– the type of work, a worker’s ethnic background or socioeconomic status– to find a perfect number. On an individual level, we should take every step we can to ensure that our retirements are healthy, physically, mentally, and financially.