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Twenty years ago, people came to work and were expected to leave their struggles at the door. And all that did was compound problems because you can’t do your best work when you’re struggling or caring for someone who is struggling. At Cummins, we’ve seen that the healthier our employees are, the stronger we are as a company.-Kate Fisher

This May, Cummins received Lyra’s Workforce Mental Health Company of the Year Award in recognition of its ongoing investment in employee well-being. What began as an effort to better support employees has evolved into a long-term strategy to build a healthier workforce. Today, it’s a foundational part of the company’s culture.

The best mental health strategies are built for complexity

Supporting 70,000 employees across roles, regions, and life experiences requires a mental health strategy built for a wide range of needs.

Some employees may need preventive support or coaching. Others may be navigating severe or complex mental health conditions. Cummins wanted a model flexible enough to support employees across the full spectrum of need.

“We have employees who just need preventive care. And then we have some who are really sick, maybe critically sick,” Kate says. “Lyra has helped us meet everybody wherever they are in their journey.”

For Cummins, that meant building a broader care ecosystem, not simply offering another EAP. 

“If somebody doesn’t need intensive therapy, maybe they can benefit from coaching. And we just added dialectical behavior therapy for people who have more severe mental health concerns,” she says. “Lyra brings all these benefits that we can use to build an entire care ecosystem, and we would not get that with a typical EAP.”

Culture changes when people start talking

Cummins’ global well-being campaign, It’s OK, was designed to reduce stigma and normalize conversations about mental health across the organization. More than 200 employees have shared their personal stories through the campaign. Managers have also received specialized  training to better support employees navigating challenges. Over time, Kate says, those efforts started changing everyday conversations.

“I hear from employees all the time who share their stories with me,” she says. One story in particular stayed with her. An employee said that she and her family were in “a very dark place” when she came across materials from the It’s OK campaign. She brought them to her manager, who responded by sharing their own experience using Lyra.

“The manager felt comfortable enough to say, ‘I, too, have had this struggle. I used the Lyra benefit and it’s helped me and I think you should do this too.’ And she was able to get the help she needed. That’s really the key to all of this,” Kate says.

For Kate, the breakthrough wasn’t the campaign itself. It was what happened next: an employee and manager having an honest conversation about mental health without fear or stigma.

Mental health support has to reach everyone

In 2026, Cummins launched a global Mental Health Ally Program to ensure every employee, from the corporate office to the manufacturing floor, has access to a supportive, informed, and clinically backed ecosystem of care.

“We have a big shop floor manufacturing population who are non-wired and hard to reach,” Kate says. “So we think having people on the ground who can talk to them—people they trust—is helpful.” 

The program trains employees to recognize signs of distress, have supportive conversations, and connect co-workers to the resources they need. They aren’t therapists, they’re trusted peers equipped to help guide employees toward support. “We’ve piloted it in the U.S. and we’re hoping to roll it out globally next year,” she says.

Employees stay where they feel supported

When asked what advice she’d give other benefits leaders, Kate points back to business impact.

“I would ask: Do they have any idea what they might be losing in productivity or absenteeism? Do they want to be able to attract great people and keep them? We know employees who feel genuinely cared for are much more likely to stay. If that’s what you want, then you have to create an atmosphere where people feel cared for.”

At Cummins, mental health support has evolved beyond a benefit offering. It has become part of how the company builds culture, earns trust, and supports employees through the moments that shape both work and life.

When a crisis affects employees, the expectation often falls on HR and benefits leaders to lead the organization’s response. They guide managers, communicate with employees, coordinate support, and help leadership navigate uncertainty. They also must make critical decisions before they’ve had time to process what’s happening themselves, and long before the full impact on employees is clear.

What often goes unspoken is that the people leading the response are also impacted by the crisis, too. They’re expected to stay calm, support everyone else, and keep the organization moving while carrying their own uncertainty, grief, or exhaustion.

As extreme weather events, workplace violence, geopolitical instability, and other disruptions continue to impact our lives, crisis response is becoming an essential organizational capability, not an occasional responsibility. Supporting employees through these moments is vital to the organization’s health and endurance. If you’re leading the response, sustaining yourself is just as important.

Supporting yourself is part of leading well

You can’t predict or control the outcome of every critical event, but you can reduce the personal and operational strain of leading through one. Prioritizing your own health and well-being can be easier said than done, especially when working through unpredictable and unchangeable situations, which is why it’s important to take time to prepare in advance how you’ll care for yourself when a crisis arises. Rather than risking burnout, fatigue and overwhelm, consider doing the following:

  1. Name what’s hard: Acknowledge your own reactions instead of pushing through them. Naming what’s difficult helps you respond more intentionally. You can do this with trusted people and at times that work for your workday.
  2. Lean on your support system: Know who can step in, who you can turn to, and how to access professional support if you need it.
  3. Prioritize the fundamentals: Sleep, movement, nutrition, and recovery aren’t luxuries during a crisis. They’re what help you continue leading effectively.
  4. Protect your capacity: Delegate where you can, pause nonessential work, and build in moments to step away. Remember that joy and heavy realities can coexist—deliberately scheduling small moments of levity and connection prevents you from being consumed by the difficulty and keeps your energy sustained.
  5. Give yourself permission to be human: A crisis rarely allows for a perfect response. Focus on making thoughtful decisions with the information you have rather than expecting certainty.

Preparation protects your ability to lead

A critical event is the time to enact a plan, not create one. One of the best ways to reduce stress and decision fatigue during a crisis is to proactively develop a strategy. As you build your crisis response plan, establish these core components:

Remember that even a solid, well-thought out plan may not work for every scenario. Create your plan to be flexible and allow you and your team to pivot based on the unique needs of specific situations.

Recovery is essential to effective leadership

Every crisis becomes an opportunity to strengthen your organization’s ability to respond to the next one. Debrief with your team, identify what worked and what didn’t, and refine your approach while the experience is still fresh.

Just as importantly, give yourself time to recover. The organization may have moved on, but that doesn’t mean the people leading the response have. Allow yourself time to move at a slower, more intentional pace and engage in activities that are restorative and filling. Remember: investing in your own well-being isn’t an optional indulgence—it’s an essential part of sustaining your ability to effectively lead others through critical events.

When someone searches for a mental health provider, they may consider experience, availability, or specialty. What they may not see is the work that happens before a provider ever appears in their search.

At Lyra, that work has earned us Credentialing/Recredentialing Accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), independently validating the rigor and oversight behind our approach to provider credentialing.

Lyra first earned NCQA Credentialing Accreditation in 2023. Three years later, our latest review confirms that Lyra continues to meet NCQA’s rigorous standards even as our network has grown in scale and scope.

Independent recognition for the work behind our network

NCQA is an independent nonprofit focused on improving health care quality. Its Credentialing/Recredentialing Accreditation evaluates how organizations credential and re-credential health care providers, and maintain the quality of those processes.

For our latest accreditation, Lyra submitted six times as many credentialing files as we did for our initial accreditation three years ago. NCQA’s review included a sample of files evaluating key credentialing requirements, including verification of clinicians’ qualifications, licensure, training, and professional history.

Over that same period, our network expanded in scope, with growing specialty expertise to support a broader range of needs, including complex mental health conditions, pediatric mental health, neurodiversity, comorbidities, and chronic conditions. Of the files NCQA selected for review, Lyra received a score of 100%.

“I’m incredibly proud of our team and what we’ve been able to build,” said Amy Magnus, Manager of Credentialing at Lyra Health. “Even as Lyra has grown, we’ve continued to bring the same care, consistency, and clinical oversight to the way we credential providers across our network. Behind these credentials are thousands of highly skilled providers and the people who turn to them for help.” 

Quality starts before the first appointment

Finding mental health support can take courage, especially during a difficult time. People should be able to focus on finding a provider they connect with, while trusting that rigorous quality checks have already taken place.

Before providers join Lyra’s network, they go through a structured credentialing process designed to confirm that they meet our requirements, with clinical oversight built into credentialing decisions. That oversight continues after a provider joins Lyra. We monitor credentials and qualifications over time, and providers undergo re-credentialing every three years.

Confidence in the network behind your mental health care

Organizations that connect people to mental health care need confidence in the providers their members, employees, patients, and families rely on. But network size alone doesn’t show how providers were evaluated or how quality is maintained over time.

That’s why organizations like employers should ask mental health partners how they credential providers, how they monitor qualifications over time, and how they know those processes are working. Not every mental health network has independent validation of its credentialing practices. NCQA accreditation provides an additional way to distinguish networks that have demonstrated they meet rigorous, nationally recognized standards.

“Accreditation provides another level of confidence because an independent organization is doing the evaluation,” said Magnus. “It shows that you’re putting in the work to follow strict standards and maintain quality across your network.”

Ultimately, rigorous credentialing helps build trust in the network people rely on for mental health care. Organizations can have greater confidence in how providers are evaluated, while members can focus on what matters most: finding the right provider and getting the support they need.

Work can support mental health by providing purpose, structure, social connection, and a sense of accomplishment. However, workplace stress, unhealthy work environments, or overwhelming demands can have the opposite effect, contributing to depression or making existing symptoms harder to manage. 

Understanding work depression

Work depression isn’t a clinical diagnosis, however it mirrors some symptoms of major depression. Depression at work is sometimes diagnosed as an adjustment disorder with depressed mood because it’s tied to one area of life.

Work can trigger depression in some people and intensify symptoms in others. Like depression itself, work-related depression can range from persistent sadness and loss of motivation to symptoms that make it difficult to get through the workday.

Depression affects employees, teams, and organizations. That’s why it’s important to recognize how it shows up at work.

Signs of depression at work

Depression in the workplace doesn’t look the same for everyone. Some people notice changes in their mood, while others struggle with focus, energy, or motivation. Symptoms may develop gradually or become more noticeable during periods of increased stress.

Common signs include:

Changes in mood

Changes in thinking

Changes in work habits

Physical changes

Although these symptoms may first appear at work, they often impact other parts of life, including relationships, hobbies, and daily routines.

Stress, burnout, or depression?

Stress, burnout, and depression can overlap, and it’s possible to experience more than one at the same time. Recognizing the differences can help people find the right support. 

Stress and burnout may improve with workplace changes, stronger boundaries, or mental health coaching. Depression often requires additional care, such as therapy, medication, or both. If symptoms persist or begin affecting daily life, it’s important to talk with a health care provider or mental health professional.

Stress Burnout Depression
Often tied to a specific challenge or deadline Develops after prolonged workplace stress Can be influenced by work and often has multiple contributing factors
Feeling overwhelmed or anxious Emotional exhaustion and detachment Persistent sadness, hopelessness, or loss of interest
Usually improves when stress decreases May improve with rest and workplace changes Often requires treatment and additional support
Energy and motivation often return Motivation may remain low Symptoms can affect work, home, relationships, sleep, and physical health

What fuels depression at work

Depression rarely has a single cause. It’s influenced by factors like family history, medical conditions, trauma, grief, financial stress, and relationship challenges. Certain aspects of the work environment can contribute to depression or make existing symptoms harder to manage. These include:

What can help depression at work

Some workplace challenges are difficult to change on your own. That’s why managing depression often involves both personal support and, when possible, changes to the work environment.

#1 Talk with your manager if it feels appropriate

You don’t need to share every detail about your mental health, but discussing adjustments that would help you succeed can be productive. Flexible scheduling, dedicated focus time where you’re not expected to attend meetings or respond to interruptions, temporary workload changes, or time for appointments may make a difference.

#2 Seek professional support

Depression is highly treatable. Evidence-based approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), lifestyle changes, and medication can help many people reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning. A mental health professional can help determine which approach is most appropriate.

#3 Break work into smaller steps

Depression often makes even routine tasks feel overwhelming. Focusing on one task at a time, creating a simple schedule, and celebrating small accomplishments can help build momentum throughout the day.

#4 Prioritize basic needs

Sleep, regular meals, movement, hydration, and time outside all support mental health. These habits aren’t a substitute for treatment, but they can make symptoms easier to manage.

#5 Build connection into your day

Depression often leads people to withdraw from others. A short conversation with a coworker, attending a team meeting, or working alongside colleagues can help reduce feelings of isolation.

#6 Take breaks

Take small breaks throughout the day. Go for a walk or run. Stand up, stretch, and breathe. Visit with a co-worker. Try to be in nature as much as possible on breaks. Even a quick walk in the park can provide mood-boosting benefits that could help ease depression at work.

#7 Consider whether your work environment is contributing

If you’ve sought support and your symptoms remain closely tied to your workplace, it may be worth exploring whether a different role, team, or organization would better support your well-being.

How managers can help

Managers often notice changes in an employee’s behavior before anyone else. While they aren’t responsible for diagnosing depression, they can create opportunities for supportive conversations and help employees connect with available resources.

When concerns arise, managers can start with curiosity instead of assumptions. A simple check-in such as, “I’ve noticed you seem quieter lately. How are things going?” can create space for a conversation without putting someone on the spot.

Managers can help by:

Positive exchanges with a manager can serve as a protective factor for depression in the workplace. 

Recognizing depression is the first step

Depression is treatable, and early support can improve outcomes. Whether that support comes through a mental health coach, therapist, health care provider, or workplace resources, no one has to navigate depression alone.

Some mental health challenges require more than talk therapy alone. When someone is struggling with self-harm, substance use, intense emotions, relationship conflict, or recurring crises, understanding what’s happening may not be enough to change it. They may need practical skills to manage difficult moments, along with specialized care designed for more complex needs.

That’s where dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) comes in. Originally developed as a cognitive behavioral treatment for borderline personality disorder, DBT has become one of the most effective evidence-based treatments for helping people manage overwhelming emotions, change harmful patterns, and build healthier lives, including those who experience suicidal ideation and those who engage in non-suicidal self-injury. 

For employers, DBT highlights an important shift in mental health care: effective support isn’t just about providing therapy. It’s about connecting people to evidence-based treatment that matches the complexity of their needs. 

What is DBT?

Dialectical behavior therapy is a structured, skills-based treatment that helps people learn new ways of managing emotions, navigating distress, and responding to challenges. It’s a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), but comprehensive DBT involves more than individual therapy alone.

A comprehensive DBT program brings several types of support together. People work one-on-one with a therapist who has specialized training in DBT, participate in skills training—often in a group setting—and have access to coaching between sessions to help them use those skills when difficult situations arise. DBT therapists also work as part of a consultation team that helps them deliver the treatment consistently and effectively.

At the heart of DBT are four areas of skill-building:

The combination of these practical skills and DBT’s structured approach helps people create more space between what they feel and what they do. That might mean pausing before sending an angry email, asking for support instead of withdrawing, or choosing a response that aligns with long-term goals rather than reacting in the moment. Over time, these choices can have a meaningful impact on relationships, work, and overall well-being.

Who can benefit from DBT?

Today, DBT is used to support people with a range of emotional and behavioral challenges, including difficulties with emotion regulation related to ADHD or trauma, substance use, eating disorders, depression, and recurring relationship challenges. It can be especially helpful when intense emotions or coping patterns are disrupting daily life and a more structured, skills-based approach is needed.

DBT gives people practical tools to navigate difficult moments, build healthier coping strategies, and improve how they function in their relationships, work, and everyday lives.

The hidden risk of mismatched care

Many conversations about mental health focus on access. Access is important, but it isn’t enough.

When people with complex needs are matched to care that isn’t designed for those needs, they often bounce between providers, repeat their stories, and begin to lose confidence that treatment can help. In some cases, they may be told their needs are too severe for a particular program without receiving a clear path to more appropriate care. The result is a fragmented experience that can delay recovery and increase the likelihood that needs escalate over time.

This issue is personal for me. A family member once sought help through an employee assistance program and was told her needs were too severe. Without a smooth transition to more appropriate care, her situation worsened before she was able to get the support she needed.

Experiences like that are a reminder that a referral alone isn’t enough. People need care pathways that help them successfully reach the support they need.

What employers should look for in a mental health partner

As workforce mental health needs become more complex, employers should look beyond access metrics alone. A strong mental health benefit should be able to identify complex needs early, connect people to the appropriate level of care, and support them throughout treatment. It should:

  1. Reduce the burden of finding care. Employees shouldn’t have to contact multiple providers or navigate repeated assessments before reaching appropriate treatment.
  2. Provide access to specialty-trained clinicians. A large network doesn’t guarantee expertise in DBT or other complex needs. Because comprehensive DBT requires specialized training and a structured treatment model, look beyond network size to whether employees can access clinicians equipped to deliver the full approach.
  3. Use evidence-based assessment and treatment. Standardized measures should inform care decisions and track progress over time.
  4. Match people to the right level of care. Both undertreatment and unnecessary escalation can create harm. The goal is the most appropriate level of support for the person’s current needs.
  5. Coordinate transitions between levels of care. When someone needs a different provider or a higher level of care, the handoff should feel supportive—not like rejection or abandonment.
  6. Measure outcomes beyond symptom reduction. Outcomes should include how well people are managing relationships, responsibilities, and life outside therapy.

The goal isn’t simply helping people find a therapist. It’s helping them receive the right care at the right time.

The future of mental health care is more specialized

Traditional therapy will always play an important role in supporting mental health. But increasingly complex needs require increasingly specialized solutions.

DBT is one example of how evidence-based, skills-focused care can help people move beyond insight and create meaningful change in their lives. For employers, that means focusing not just on access, but on matching people to the right care. The strongest benefits strategies support the full spectrum of need, from everyday stress to high-acuity conditions, and connect people with the right care at the right time.

Artificial intelligence’s most effective uses appear to be around supporting the human user to generate ideas, synthesize information, and solve sophisticated problems. That makes the distinctly human parts of problem-solving—judgment, curiosity, context, and critical thinking—even more valuable.

We can improve our problem-solving skills through targeted practice. Like any other workplace skill, employees build them through feedback-informed practice; managers strengthen them through coaching; and organizations create the conditions for people’s cross-functional problem-solving to flourish. As work becomes more complex, all three are essential.

Why problem-solving is getting harder

Today’s employees are solving problems that span teams, functions, and technologies, while navigating competing priorities, constant change, and more information than they can reasonably process. That can challenge even experienced problem solvers.

When people are mentally overloaded, they’re more likely to rely on shortcuts, fall back on familiar assumptions, or settle on the first solution that seems good enough. Stress can make this harder by narrowing attention and reducing the mental flexibility complex problems often require.

Problem-solving skills don’t disappear under pressure. They simply become harder to use. Recognizing that distinction can help people understand when they need to slow down, question an initial reaction, or approach a challenge differently.

Strong problem-solvers stay curious longer

One of the most useful problem-solving skills is also one of the simplest: resisting the urge to solve a problem before you understand it. When we’re under pressure to act, the first plausible explanation can feel like the right one. Curiosity creates enough distance to ask: What else could be going on?

One way employees and teams can challenge their first assumption is the Five Whys, a root cause analysis technique that involves asking “why?” repeatedly. Each answer prompts another question that gets closer to what’s actually causing the problem.

Say a team repeatedly misses project deadlines:

What initially looked like a productivity problem may actually be a decision-making problem.

Despite the name, five isn’t a magic number. You may get to the root cause in three questions, or it may take more than five. The point is to stay curious long enough to understand what you’re solving before jumping to a solution.

Employees can practice this individually, too. Asking, What am I assuming? What information might I be missing? Why would others see this so differently than I might?, can interrupt automatic thinking and open up other possibilities.

Strong problem-solvers aren’t the people who always know the answer immediately or intuitively. They’re the ones confident and skilled enough to willingly question their first answer, tolerate some uncertainty, seek information that challenges their thinking, and change course when the evidence points somewhere new.

Better thinking benefits from different perspectives

Curiosity becomes even more powerful when it happens collectively. No one person sees a complex problem from every angle. Employees closest to the work may have context leaders don’t typically seek out in their roles. Colleagues from other teams may question assumptions that have become routine in ours. Managers may be more frequently exposed to dependencies or organizational priorities that aren’t visible to individual contributors.

The challenge is making those different perspectives useful in collaboration with one another. That takes people who are willing to speak up, ask questions, listen to viewpoints they disagree with, and revise their own ideas, and leaders who validate and encourage thoughtful disagreement as welcome.

How leaders respond in these moments matters. If an idea doesn’t work, asking What did we learn? is more likely to generate useful information than immediately focusing on who got it wrong. Leaders who openly reconsider their own assumptions also demonstrate that changing your mind in response to new information is a strength, not a failure.

These everyday interactions can create psychological safety: the confidence that people can ask questions, raise concerns, acknowledge mistakes, and contribute ideas in an environment where they won’t be punished for pursuing innovative and managed risk-taking.

How to strengthen problem-solving skills at work

1. Make room for deeper thinking

Complex problem-solving takes mental energy. Stress, burnout, constant demands, and ever-changing priorities all compete for the same cognitive resources people use to analyze information and make thoughtful decisions. 

Employees can develop habits that protect their attention: setting aside focused thinking time when possible, taking breaks after cognitively demanding work, and recognizing when fatigue is affecting their judgment.

Managers can support those habits by clarifying what priorities matter most, helping teams resolve competing values influencing their decisions, and reducing unnecessary complexity where they can.

This isn’t about removing challenging work. Some of the best skill development happens through difficult problems. But challenge and overload aren’t the same thing. People need enough capacity to engage thoughtfully with the challenge in front of them.

2. Build the mental skills behind better decisions

Problem-solving requires skills like emotional regulation, self-awareness, and adaptability. Mental health support can help people protect their capacity to think while strengthening these underlying skills.

3. Coach the process, not just the answer

Managers often feel pressure to have the answer, especially when an employee is struggling. But immediately jumping in with a solution can unintentionally take away an opportunity for the employee to develop their own problem-solving skills.

Guided inquiry offers a different approach. Say an employee who usually meets their goals has fallen short for the past two quarters. Rather than assuming the problem is performance, a manager might ask, What do you think has been getting in the way? From there:

The employee remains responsible for thinking through the challenge while the manager provides context, perspective, and direction where it’s useful. Over time, that can build something more valuable than solving a single problem: greater confidence and independence in solving the next one.

4. Use AI to expand thinking, not replace it

AI can be a powerful problem-solving tool. It can organize information, surface patterns, generate possibilities, and take routine cognitive work off people’s plates.

Employees still have an important job to do: deciding what to ask, evaluating what comes back, recognizing what’s missing, accounting for context, and ultimately deciding what to do. Rather than simply asking AI for an answer, employees can use these tools to strengthen and refine their own thinking:

Used this way, AI can expand the thinking process rather than shortcut it. As AI becomes more capable, requesting an AI-generated answer may matter less than knowing how to question, evaluate, and apply a decision based on the AI output. That’s where human judgment becomes even more important.

The value of better problem-solving

As AI gets better at providing targeted answers, the ability to input the right questions becomes even more valuable. Curiosity, judgment, adaptability, and critical thinking grow through practice, coaching, and experience. Strengthening those skills can help people make better decisions, navigate ambiguity, and solve increasingly complex problems.

Mental toughness has long been celebrated as the ability to push through discomfort, ignore distractions, and keep going no matter what. But that definition captures only part of what’s needed to navigate today’s workplace. Today’s employees are dealing with more competing pressures than ever before, both inside and outside of work. Financial uncertainty, health concerns, rapid technological change, and shifting expectations all place new demands on people’s time, energy, and attention.

Work has become more dynamic, more complex, and more unpredictable. Employees are facing AI adoption, organizational change, evolving roles, and competing demands at work and at home. Success no longer depends on simply enduring more. It depends on staying focused, adapting quickly, recovering from setbacks, and continuing to perform over time.

Mental toughness needs a broader definition. It isn’t just about grit. It also includes mental health, recovery, and adaptability. Supportive workplace conditions help employees put those capabilities into practice.

Rethinking mental toughness

Many of us grew up with the idea that mental toughness meant never showing weakness. Push through. Stay strong. Keep going. 

Those messages still influence how people think about success at work. Employees often feel pressure to stay productive no matter how overwhelmed they feel. But the demands of work have changed, and resilience alone isn’t enough.

Mental toughness must include more than endurance to sustain. It also needs to recognize the role of adaptability, recovery, and mental well-being in helping people handle challenges.

That view of mental toughness depends on three capabilities:

Capacity

Employees need the mental energy, focus, and emotional resources to meet the demands of their work. Even high performers have limits, and capacity fluctuates over time. Recognizing those limits helps organizations set employees up for sustainable performance.

Recovery

High performance isn’t sustained by constant effort. Recovery restores focus, decision-making, creativity, and energy so employees can continue performing over time.

Adaptability

Today’s workplace rewards employees who can adjust quickly when priorities, technologies, or business conditions change without losing effectiveness.

Mental toughness doesn’t develop in isolation

Organizations often ask employees to become more resilient. But resilience isn’t built through individual effort alone.

The way work is designed influences whether people can sustain high performance. Unrealistic workloads, constant context switching, unclear priorities, and poor communication drain the very capabilities organizations expect employees to demonstrate. Just as importantly, supportive managers, realistic expectations, strong team values, and accessible mental health care strengthen those capabilities.

Organizations can’t build mental toughness for employees, but they can create conditions that help it develop and endure. 

How organizations build mental toughness

Organizations face real pressure to move faster, adapt quickly, and do more with less. Employees feel those same pressures every day. Sustainable performance depends on giving people the support, clarity, and resources they need to manage change without sacrificing their well-being.

Design work for sustainable performance

Resilience is often viewed as an individual responsibility, but workplace conditions also shape how employees experience stress. Clear priorities, realistic workloads, role clarity, effective processes, and access to the right tools make it easier for employees to stay focused when demands increase. Employees perform better when they can focus on meaningful work instead of unnecessary friction.

Help managers recognize strain early

Managers often notice changes in performance before anyone else. With the right training, they can recognize early signs of strain, have supportive conversations, adjust priorities when appropriate, and connect employees with resources before challenges escalate.

That’s especially important because high performers aren’t always the first to ask for help. Many continue delivering results while quietly struggling.

Reduce uncertainty where you can

Periods of uncertainty naturally create questions. Organizations can’t always provide certainty, but they can communicate clearly about what’s changing and where employees should focus. Trust doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it helps people wade through it together.

Make recovery part of performance

Recovery isn’t the opposite of productivity. It’s what makes sustained productivity possible. Teams perform better when people have opportunities to recharge, reflect, learn, and reconnect after periods of sustained effort.

Make mental health support easy to access

Performance depends on mental health. It shapes how people solve problems, make decisions, collaborate, manage stress, and adapt when circumstances change.

That’s why organizations shouldn’t wait until employees reach a breaking point. Early access to evidence-based mental health care, coaching, and skill building helps people with challenges before they affect performance, engagement, or well-being.

Performance isn’t just pushing harder

Work isn’t getting simpler, and expecting employees to simply push harder isn’t a sustainable strategy. Organizations that consistently perform at a high level will be the ones that help people adapt, recover, and stay healthy through constant change.

That’s the new definition of mental toughness, and the foundation for sustainable performance.

Supporting employee mental health has become more complex for the global workforce. Access to mental health care remains essential, but for multinational organizations it’s no longer the only expectation. Increasingly, companies must assess workplace risks, put preventative controls in place, and demonstrate how they’re reducing psychosocial risks before they affect employee well-being.

To help organizations respond to these changes, Lyra’s Global Psychosocial Risk Management program is now available across many regions. It helps organizations understand workplace risks, navigate regional needs, and turn insights into action through localized expertise, assessments, and practical action plans.

The evolving reality of mental health in the workplace

In many regions, the conversation is expanding beyond access to services like coaching and therapy—employer responsibilities around mental health now include identifying and managing workplace factors that may contribute to psychological harm.

That means looking at factors like excessive workloads, poorly managed organizational change, unclear expectations, or ineffective communication. These conditions can affect employee well-being, and in many countries they’re also recognized as workplace health and safety risks that carry operational and regulatory consequences for organizations. 

Understanding these patterns can help uncover what’s contributing to burnout, health-related leave, turnover, and disengagement, giving leaders clearer insight into where organizational changes can improve both employee well-being and organizational performance.

Psychosocial risk management helps organizations proactively identify and address workplace conditions that may contribute to stress, creating opportunities to reduce risk before employees need additional support. Mental health care helps employees get the support they need. Together, they support both employees and the workplace conditions that influence their well-being, creating a more unified strategy that leads to better organizational health outcomes.

One global workforce. Many local approaches.

The challenge isn’t simply that requirements differ. The landscape is changing, with 45+ countries continuing to introduce and expand psychosocial risk requirements in different ways. 

In Australia, mental health has moved onto the safety checklist, and employers may be required to treat psychosocial hazards like other workplace risks: find them, control them, and prevent harm before it happens. While in Japan, annual employee stress checks may be required, and, in Mexico, psychosocial risks are identified and addressed through structured workplace evaluations, including support for employees affected by traumatic workplace events or violence.

These are just a few of the unique approaches emerging around the world. For multinational organizations, keeping pace with local needs can quickly become complex, especially when HR and health and safety teams are coordinating across multiple regions.

Turning assessments into action

Many multinational organizations rely on separate consultants, fragmented assessments, resources, and regional partners to manage psychosocial risk. Coordinating those efforts across dozens of countries creates significant administrative work for HR, and health and safety teams.

Drawing on Lyra’s global care network, which supports members in more than 220 countries and territories, the program brings those capabilities together with wrap-around support from in-house workforce experts. Grounded in ISO-45003 frameworks and global best practices, Lyra’s support combines localized assessments, expert-led focus groups, country-specific toolkits, regional organizational development consultants, and tailored action plans—all available within a single, trusted mental health care ecosystem.

The result is a more consistent, centralized approach that helps organizations reduce complexity while operationalizing regional programs with confidence.

Supporting organizations across borders

Supporting the global workforce of today requires more than expanding access to care. As countries continue to strengthen psychosocial risk requirements, global leaders need increased visibility into organizational policies and practices that could compromise employee well-being. These insights should be paired with practical ways to respond consistently while adapting locally. Lyra’s Global Psychosocial Risk Management helps organizations do both, offering localized support and coordinated implementation powered by a trusted network of organizational health experts.

Building AI for mental well-being is about understanding people.

A one-size-fits-all approach to AI doesn’t work. Culture shapes how people seek help and respond to support. An AI model that performs well in the U.S. may overlook important cultural signals in India, France, or elsewhere.

That’s why launching AI to supplement well-being coaching requires adapting the experience for local culture before it ever reaches members for any new launch.

As Lyra’s AI guide expands beyond the U.S. to 12 additional countries, including Canada, France, Germany, India, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with additional launches planned later this year, we’re applying this ethos every time, tailoring our approach for every new country. 

What happens before AI reaches a member

Every launch begins long before the first conversation. Before Lyra’s AI guide becomes available, each expansion undergoes a comprehensive review to help ensure the experience reflects local cultural nuances and regulatory needs.

Meeting local standards

Every country has its own requirements for privacy, safety, regulatory, and AI governance. Before launch, Lyra evaluates country-specific regulations to help ensure the AI guide aligns with local laws and member expectations.

Building with local expertise

Technology can help people find support faster, but regional coaches remain central to how care is delivered. Local Lyra clinicians help evaluate the AI guide before launch, ensuring it reflects local practices, cultural norms, and member needs. Their expertise helps shape how the AI guide responds in every market, keeping providers at the center, with AI serving as a complement rather than a replacement.

Putting AI to the cultural test

A response can be grammatically correct, and still miss what someone is really trying to say. As our AI guide expands globally, local teams work together to test how the technology responds to culturally specific situations, and lived experiences. Testing includes scenarios such as:

Recognizing different ways people talk about risk

People don’t always describe concerns in the same way. Some concerns are expressed directly. Others are communicated through cultural references, family dynamics, or indirect language. Our teams evaluate whether the AI guide recognizes these important signals across cultures.

In Mexico, local idioms and colorful metaphors are frequently used to describe interpersonal friction and workplace frustrations. When an employee explains that a coworker “le echa mucha crema a sus tacos,” Lyra AI needs to look past the literal translation of the words to understand the cultural idiom of exaggeration and bragging. Instead of taking the phrase literally, our AI guide must recognize the underlying social context to help the member professionally navigate workplace dynamics and boundary-setting.

Understanding the realities shaping well-being

Well-being doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Immigration experiences, discrimination, financial strain, workplace stress, and access to basic needs can all influence how people experience—and talk about—emotional well-being. Our teams test the AI guide across a wide range of real-world situations to help ensure responses remain relevant and supportive.

In Singapore, males are required to serve two years active duty in the National Service starting at age 18. When supporting Singaporean teenagers, particularly approaching their 18th birthday, through anxiety or hesitations, Lyra AI needs to acknowledge the local cultural context before moving into advice on how to manage anxious thoughts.

Responding with cultural awareness

Conversations about identity, family expectations, stigma, body image, gender, sexuality, and bias require thoughtful, culturally informed support. Our teams evaluate how the AI guide responds to these sensitive topics across different cultural contexts to help ensure members receive respectful, appropriate support, and guidance.

In India, workplace gender dynamics can be shaped by deep-rooted cultural norms. If a female employee worries about having a female boss or prefers male leadership, our AI guide should understand internalized gender biases within the Indian cultural context and thoughtfully explore how societal expectations and past leadership experiences shape perspective. 

Launch is just the beginning

Localization isn’t a one-time project. Cultural norms shift and new challenges emerge. The way people talk about well-being changes over time.

That’s why local provider feedback continues well after launch. Lyra continuously evaluates the AI guide against country-specific safety and culturally responsive standards, using insights from regional provider teams to inform ongoing testing and improvements.

A higher bar for global AI

People place enormous trust in well-being support and coaching. Expanding AI globally means earning that trust in every country where it’s available.

It takes local provider expertise, rigorous testing, continuous evaluation, and a commitment to understanding the people behind every conversation. That’s the standard Lyra is bringing to every new market as our AI guide expands around the world.

When you’re evaluating mental health benefits, one question matters more than most: Will this actually help my employees get better?

That’s where Lyra has always led: 9 in 10 Lyra members improve or recover. Results like these happen because our entire model is built around evidence-based, measurement-driven care, validated by 24 peer-reviewed studies.

Now, we’re bringing that same standard to your dashboard. Lyra Connect—the platform HR leaders use to track and manage their benefit—is fully redesigned so it’s just as powerful as the care itself.

Managing mental health benefits shouldn’t mean choosing between clinical quality and operational simplicity. Lyra gives you both.

Introducing the new Lyra Connect

The reimagined Lyra Connect gives you the clarity and control to run a best-in-class program without the administrative burden.

Smart insights that optimize performance: See how your program metrics compare against industry peers—and where you’re outperforming. Each insight is paired with relevant resources, so you’re not just reviewing numbers; you’re acting on them to drive better results.

A resource hub that drives engagement: Strong outcomes start with strong engagement. Our refreshed resource library brings together over 1,000 clinically backed assets, employee communications, and workforce strategy materials. New filters and an improved search bar help you find and launch promotional campaigns in seconds to keep utilization high.

Streamlined navigation for quicker visibility: A redesigned interface puts everything within reach from a single navigation bar, including dashboards, resources, events, and campaigns. Less time spent digging means more time focused on the metrics that prove your program’s value.

More ways to prove and drive workforce recovery

Over the next nine months, we’re adding even more features to increase visibility into workforce recovery and simplify benefit management.

Proven value

Operational simplicity

Imagine walking into your next executive review and presenting more than just engagement data. With the new Lyra Connect, show exactly how many employees clinically recovered, and the direct, positive impact that has on your bottom line.

The proof is in the platform

Lyra’s care produces the best outcomes in the industry. The new Lyra Connect makes sure you can prove it.