Investing in workplace wellbeing is not simply about helping employees feel better. Mental health and wellbeing can influence attendance, engagement, productivity, confidence, relationships and an employee’s ability to perform effectively at work.
The scale of the issue is significant.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 15% of working-age adults experience a mental health condition at any given time. Depression and anxiety alone are estimated to result in 12 billion working days being lost globally every year, with an estimated US $1 trillion lost annually through reduced productivity.
For employers, this highlights an important point: supporting employee mental health is not separate from organisational performance. The two can be closely connected.
Can Workplace Wellbeing Training Improve Performance?
Research suggests that well-designed workplace mental health interventions can have benefits for both employees and organisations.
A best-evidence synthesis examining 14 high-quality systematic reviews found overall moderate evidence that workplace mental health interventions can improve workplace outcomes, including outcomes relating to productivity, absence and organisational costs. The evidence was particularly supportive of approaches that incorporated multiple components rather than relying on a single intervention.
The UK Government has also reviewed evidence examining the relationship between employee wellbeing and workplace performance, including the employer practices associated with improved wellbeing and the relationship between wellbeing and business performance.
However, effective workplace wellbeing should go beyond simply offering employees a one-off wellbeing activity.
The WHO recommends both organisational approaches that address psychosocial risks within the workplace and individual interventions that help employees develop skills for managing stress.
This is important because workplace wellbeing is a shared responsibility. Employees can benefit from developing psychological skills, but organisations must also consider factors such as workload, workplace culture, communication, management and the wider working environment.
Why Psychological Skills Matter at Work
The WHO specifically identifies interventions based on approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), mindfulness and stress-management skills as approaches that organisations may consider to promote positive mental health, reduce psychological distress and improve work effectiveness.
This is particularly relevant to the approach we take at Glasgow Cognitive Therapy Centre (GCTC).
CBT provides employees with a practical framework for understanding the relationship between:
Thoughts → Emotions → Physical Responses → Behaviour
Within the workplace, understanding this relationship can help employees begin to recognise how they respond to pressure.
For example, an employee experiencing increased demands may begin thinking:
“I’m never going to get everything done.”
That thought may increase anxiety, physical tension and feelings of overwhelm. In response, they may procrastinate, avoid difficult tasks, work increasingly long hours or struggle to switch off outside work.
These behaviours can then reinforce the original belief that they cannot cope.
CBT-informed workplace training can help employees recognise these cycles earlier and develop more helpful ways of responding.
Supporting Employees Before Difficulties Escalate
Workplace wellbeing training can also provide employees with psychological knowledge before difficulties become more significant.
Research synthesised for the WHO found that workplace psychosocial interventions show small-to-moderate benefits across a range of outcomes, although the certainty of the evidence varies and further high-quality research is required.
The aim, therefore, should not be to promise that wellbeing training will prevent every mental health difficulty.
Instead, high-quality training can give employees a greater understanding of:
- Stress and their individual warning signs
- Thoughts, emotions and behaviour
- Psychological resilience
- Healthy coping strategies
- Boundaries and recovery
- Communication
- Managing difficult emotions
- When additional support may be required
This can contribute towards developing a workforce that is more psychologically informed and better equipped to recognise and respond to difficulties.
Managers Have an Important Role Too
Workplace mental health cannot sit solely with individual employees.
Managers and leaders can influence how safe employees feel discussing difficulties, how workplace pressures are managed and whether people feel appropriately supported.
The WHO Guidelines on Mental Health at Work therefore include recommendations covering manager training, worker training and organisational interventions, rather than focusing exclusively on individual employees.
At GCTC, our manager training can help leaders develop confidence in recognising when someone may be struggling and approaching wellbeing conversations appropriately.
Importantly, we also help managers understand their boundaries.
A manager does not need to become a therapist.
They need to understand how to recognise, respond, support and signpost appropriately, while maintaining the responsibilities and boundaries of their professional role.
Wellbeing Training Should Not Replace Organisational Change
This is an important principle within our approach at GCTC.
Teaching employees how to manage stress is valuable, but psychological strategies should never be used to suggest that employees simply need to become more resilient within an unhealthy working environment.
The WHO recommends organisational interventions that identify and address psychosocial risks within the workplace, alongside interventions that develop employees’ individual psychological skills.
Recent research also reinforces the need for some caution. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of participatory organisational interventions did not find statistically significant overall improvements in mental health or work performance. However, studies reporting more favourable outcomes tended to involve structured employee participation, alignment with employees’ needs and consideration of the organisational context.
For us, this reinforces why workplace wellbeing cannot simply be a tick-box exercise.
Effective workplace wellbeing means considering both:
What can we help our employees learn?
and
What can we improve within our organisation?
Creating Psychologically Informed Workplaces
At Glasgow Cognitive Therapy Centre, our aim is to help organisations move beyond surface-level conversations about workplace wellbeing.
We bring together psychological theory, CBT-informed approaches, mental health education and practical workplace strategies to help organisations develop greater psychological awareness.
Depending on the needs of your organisation, GCTC workplace services can include:
- Workplace mental health training
- CBT-based wellbeing workshops
- Stress and burnout training
- Mental health awareness for employees
- Mental health training for managers
- Resilience and psychological skills training
- Communication and workplace relationship training
- Employee wellbeing workshops
- Workplace coaching
- Bespoke corporate wellbeing programmes
Our training can be delivered in person in Glasgow and across Scotland, with online options available for organisations throughout the UK.
Investing in Your People Means Investing in Your Organisation
Behind every organisation are people.
When people are struggling psychologically, the impact can extend beyond the individual to teams, relationships, attendance, engagement and organisational performance.
With depression and anxiety contributing to billions of lost working days internationally, the evidence increasingly supports taking workplace mental health seriously.
At Glasgow Cognitive Therapy Centre, we help organisations translate psychological knowledge into practical skills that employees and managers can use in real working environments.
If you are searching for workplace mental health training in Glasgow, corporate wellbeing training in Scotland, CBT workplace training, employee wellbeing workshops or mental health training for managers, contact GCTC to discuss how we can develop training around the needs of your organisation.