Mental health challenges can affect us all – in life and at work. Employees worldwide, as recent findings show, feel more – not less – stressed and one in four employees are experiencing signs of burnout. Symptoms of depression and anxiety remain widespread and persistent, even a year after the pandemic, which exacerbated these and related issues.  

“There is no health without mental health,” says Thuy Binh. “Our mental health is as important as our physical health, and both are linked because the mind and the body are connected.”

Thuy Binh knows what she is talking about. A risk manager in Julius Baer’s credit department with more than 20 years of experience on one hand, she is also a certified psychology-based nutritionist and psychosocial health trainer on the other. Since 2021, she splits her time between the bank and her work as an independent sports, nutrition, and health coach.

At Julius Baer in Zurich, where Thuy Binh and her team are located, she is a respected voice on health-related matters. Just recently, for example, she gave presentations about emotional eating and mental wellbeing at an employee health day in Zurich. 

“I’m a risk manager through and through. And there’s also risk management involved in what we can do for our own life, in taking care of our mental and physical health,” she says. “Good mental health is important to cope with the stresses of life, learn and work well, and realise our own abilities.”

A broader view on mental health and well-being

David Durlacher, CEO of Julius Baer International, shares this notion. “As much as mental health relates to struggles and issues such as anxiety, depression, and cognitive impairments or illness, it is also about creating resilience, about our capacity to engage and people’s sense of being able to perform well,” he says and adds that “it should be as normal for us to talk about mental health as it is about how we keep fit and physically well.”

As a long-time senior leader in the wealth management industry, David puts the topic into broader perspective. “Mental health is foundational for our employees and our clients alike,” he says.

“Our clients often are surrounded by few people they can really trust. We get to see their full lives, and we have the immense privilege of doing that,” he says. “As they look to us as their trusted advisors, we are there and able to engage with them as fellow humans.” And that includes, he explains, “walking through life’s ups and downs. Because clients will face the same challenges as we will face. This could be through grief, divorce, anxieties about children. Through worries about their corporate future or through mental decline and cognitive issues as they age.

“Engaging with them on such topics does not cross a professional boundary. It’s part of the humanity that is at the core of our profession.”

Facing and overcoming challenges

For Thuy Binh, the human connection plays an equally important part. With her background and experience she can naturally relate with clients or colleagues on the complex challenges surrounding mental well-being. “It’s not only theory what I’m telling people. I can feel what they feel and relate to the fears that they have.”

Thuy Binh refers to her own journey of overcoming burnout and depression. “A few years ago, I suffered from two episodes of depression, the second being more of a depressive burnout,” she says and recounts how she started to realise, back then, that she was focusing her life too much on her work and social expectations. “I neglected myself,” she says. “I had this fear of not being able to fulfil the role that I imposed on myself and that other people imposed on me. It was making me blind towards the first signs of depressive symptoms.”

The more she fought and ignored these early signals that her body was giving her, the deeper she fell into a depression. “I started being a person that I was not and I was very irritable. It was hard to face that, and it was hard for people who cared for me,” Thuy Binh recalls. Luckily, she decided to consult specialists early on. “At the beginning, when you think that it’s not so bad, you try to fix everything yourself. But it’s really important to understand where your limits are, and then go and look for specialists because they’re there to support you.”

It took Thuy Binh two years to recover. “As a risk manager, normally, you never do something when you don’t know what’s coming. But because I’m a risk manager, I also realised that I’m going directly into a risky situation, and I had to overcome my biggest fear – which is insecurity – and let go. I had to learn to let go to take care of myself. I eventually came back strong and resilient.”

Thuy Binh openly shares her experience. “I’m convinced that being able to speak about it helps a lot. I also want to show that one should not be ashamed and that it’s possible to recover and get healthier and stronger.”

Putting people first

The struggles that Thuy Binh had faced confront many of us in different forms and stages of our lives and are among the most common conditions of mental ill health at the workplace. Globally, the World Health Organisation estimates, 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety.

Against this backdrop, how we look after our teams and support the mental well-being of employees is becoming even more important. As David points out: “We have a highly skilled workforce in all areas of our industry and they are operating under considerable pressure. In order for them to be able to perform well, we need to be able to engage in more than just simply their output.

“Shakespeare had this line: ‘the world is a stage and people are mere actors who play their part.’ That can be true for employees, too. They leave home and put on this invisible corporate cloak that says, ‘this is the professional I need to be’.” In doing so, he explains, they leave behind something of themselves at the front door. The danger is when we therefore treat each other less than people and more as outputs of productivity.

“Employees are not commodities,” he says. “They want to be engaged, and we have a responsibility to help them to engage and bring themselves to work, motivating them and supporting them when life goes through its downs as much as through its ups.

Normalising the conversation

Not least because of the pandemic, which brought mental health challenges to the fore, a lot of action has been taken to tackle stigma and provide more support for employees in just the recent three years.

“There is a huge amount that’s being done,” states David. “At Julius Baer, the efforts address multiple levels. From training for client-facing employees to understand and recognise, for instance, signs of dementia and issues around mental capacity, all the way to training and resources for managers and staff, and employee-for-employee initiatives such as our mental health first aiders.”

One of Julius Baer’s mental health first aiders is Thuy Binh. “Mental health first aiders are empathic and trained employees interested in supporting colleagues who are fighting against mental health issues by offering them space to talk about it in a trusting and confidential conversation,” she explains. “Colleagues shouldn’t be afraid to contact us. We are also trained to walk with open eyes and open ears and address colleagues when we have the impression that they are not doing fine and fighting against mental issues.”

On the path towards real progress

It is initiatives like these that contribute to normalising conversations about mental health in the workplace. “We’ve had people talking about their experiences, or those of people they know, with battling suicidal thoughts, going through menopause, experiencing anxiety, or dealing with burnout,” says David. “In the industry and society at large, it is becoming okay to talk about some of these things. And we find that those conversations, or even a few short words of encouragement that help people to keep going can have a profound effect.”

While the impact of the initiatives is hard to quantify individually, they contribute to an overall positive effect that is measurable. Ratings on employee mental well-being in the bi-monthly company-wide pulse surveys have sustainably developed upwards over the last two years, showing a ten-point improvement in net promoter score over 2021.

In combination, the highlighted efforts are part of the Bank’s wider commitment to foster an inclusive, sustainable workplace and culture, supportive of employees’ well-being, individual learning, and growth, and where employees can be themselves to realise their potential. It’s a commitment that is deeply rooted in Julius Baer’s core values – Care, Passion, and Excellence.

Thuy Binh and David both acknowledge the progress that has been made, yet the two advocates also agree that more needs to be done.

“I am proud to say that within Julius Baer, we are going in a very good direction. But it needs everyone, from the top to the bottom, to shift attitudes,” says Thuy Binh. “In my view - thanks to the mental health first aiders, the courses and employee community initiatives - people speak more openly about their mental issues, feel understood and taken seriously. This helps to break down stigma and activate resources. We need to continue on this path. Changing people’s behaviours takes time.”

David agrees and adds: “The biggest challenge of all is that it remains taboo. And for as long as we all put on our invisible corporate cloak each day, this will be the case to some extent. It takes vulnerability at times to talk about life’s ups and downs and vulnerability requires courage. But a corporate environment where that is allowed and welcomed is a really healthy environment and a company that we all want to work at.”