Germany: Mental Health in the Workplace and Corporate Culture: A Strategic Impulse for Prevention

Deadlines, constant availability, shift work and emotional overload: modern working life presents employees with a wide range of stresses. There are legally regulated protective measures for physical strain. However, mental stress is difficult to measure and often intangible, yet its effects are profound and far-reaching.

Mental illness has become one of the most common causes of absence from work. In Germany, the average absence due to mental health problems is almost 33 days, which is five times longer than for respiratory diseases. These figures are more than just statistics; they reflect a changing world of work. Economic uncertainty, skills shortages, changing working models, digital acceleration, and long-term environmental pressures require new approaches to protecting and promoting mental health in the workplace.

A balancing act: how organisational culture shapes mental health.

Mental health is much more than an individual issue; it is also influenced by the culture and structural conditions within an organisation.

The way in which corporate culture is shaped significantly influences how stressed employees feel and how they deal with stress.

A forward-looking organisation must therefore ask itself: How can we create structures that enable safety and health, especially in times of constant change?

Healthy leadership means healthy employees.

It has been proven that the quality of leadership impacts the mental and physical health of employees. Managers who demonstrate transparent communication, participatory decision-making processes, and appreciative behaviour can significantly reduce stress and promote well-being in the workplace.

A health-promoting leadership style can strengthen individual resilience and increase job satisfaction while reducing absenteeism due to illness. This demonstrates that good leadership is essential for a health-promoting work culture.

Leadership culture is the key to employee retention.

Leadership directly impacts emotional experiences in the workplace. It shapes the social climate within the organisation, determining whether employees develop trust and engage with their work, or withdraw internally.

When leadership is experienced positively, it reduces absenteeism and turnover while promoting innovation, team cohesion and long-term loyalty.

An effective leadership culture is based on the following principles:

• Transparent and appreciative communication
• Clear distribution of roles and responsibilities
• Participation and genuine freedom to act.
• Recognition of individual contributions.

According to a German survey, nearly 50% of employees would consider changing jobs if they perceived the leadership as negative, compared to just 8% of those with positive leadership experiences. In times of demographic change and increasing skills shortages, leadership behaviour is therefore a key factor in retaining employees.

For leadership to be an effective resource rather than a stressor, managers need professional development opportunities. Reflection formats and coaching enable them to consciously shape their role and reflect on their impact. Anyone who wants to promote mental wellbeing in organisations must recognise leadership as a central cultural area of action.

Legally enshrined in occupational health and safety.

In Germany the consideration of mental stress is legally required as part of risk assessment (§ 5 (3) ArbSchG). Employers must systematically record mental health risks and implement appropriate protective measures.

Nevertheless, there is a clear implementation gap in practice. According to the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy (GDA), mental stress is not consistently addressed or assessed in many companies and institutions. The reasons for this are unclear, but one possible explanation could be uncertainty about how to deal with mental stress due to a lack of expertise, insufficient resources, or cultural barriers within the company.

To help companies and institutions implement these measures, the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) provides a variety of practical guidance. This includes training courses for managers, structured risk assessments focusing on psychological factors and practical tools such as Culture Dialogues: Prevention.

“Dialogue instead of stigma”: cultural work as a preventive measure

The DGUV offers a tried-and-tested tool for promoting a preventive corporate culture in the form of its Culture Dialogues: Prevention’ initiative. While the Culture Dialogues do not replace risk assessments for psychological stress, they complement them by providing organisations with a concrete, accessible format for making cultural work tangible within teams.

This dialogue-oriented format comprises 30 basic cards that encourage employees and their managers to discuss safety and health issues in their day-to-day work. The cards cover six key areas of action, including

• leadership,
• communication,
• social climate,
• error culture,
• participation,
• safety and health.

The Culture Dialogues enable structured, everyday, low-threshold processing within small workshop teams. They are particularly beneficial for smaller companies due to their ease of use. Participants document their own examples and ideas for improvement on a work poster. An accompanying explanatory video clearly illustrates the process. In addition to the classic card set, a digital version is available as a PDF file, including an English translation, for use anywhere.

Topic-specific supplementary card sets enable in-depth discussions on specific risk areas. Even after the Germany-wide prevention campaign ‘kommmitmensch’ concluded in 2021, DGUV expert groups further developed the topic of ‘culture of prevention’, including a comprehensive set of cards on mental stress.

DGUV services help embed mental health as an integral part of occupational health and safety, representing a strategic investment in employee health, well-being, performance and motivation, and ultimately in occupational health and safety.

Mental health is more than just a health issue.

Mental health is not a marginal issue. In addition to individual factors, it is also an expression of leadership, organisational culture and responsibility. Strengthening mental health requires more than individual measures; it requires a culture that is structurally anchored throughout all hierarchical levels and enables security and participation. This culture must accept mistakes and demonstrate appreciation. This creates healthy and safe working conditions, as well as more productive and resilient employees and organisations. ●

Further Information:

Culture of prevention: https://www.dguv.de/en/prevention/visionzero/culture_of_prev/index.jsp

Culture Dialogues for prevention (tool): https://www.dguv.de/en/prevention/visionzero/culture_of_prev/culture_dialogues/index.jsp

Video Culture Dialogues: Prevention https://www.tube.dguv.de/video/Ep_oVK6G6x6L_4HhMeCKXS#top

Video: 5 Level Model: https://www.tube.dguv.de/video/1oNzPGtQTC9W7Wax_nkvX9#top

Prevention campaign on culture of prevention (2017-2021): https://www.dguv.de/en/prevention/campaigns/prev_campaigns/ausblick/index.jsp