Creating meaningful conversations about mental health

Permission to speak doesn’t equal psychological safety

Many organisations have done the work of giving permission. Mental health is discussed openly, leaders talk about vulnerability, and wellbeing is positioned as a priority.

But psychological safety isn’t created by messaging alone. It’s shaped by what people see and experience every day. Employees are constantly scanning their environment, asking themselves quiet questions: What happens if I say I’m struggling? Will this change how I’m seen? Will it come back to bite me later?

Reluctance to speak up is rarely about a lack of self-awareness or confidence. It’s about risk. If someone has previously seen a colleague side-lined after opening up, or felt subtly judged for needing flexibility, that learning sticks. Once trust is damaged, it’s very hard to repair.

When openness becomes performative

One of the more difficult patterns I see is when openness becomes performative rather than protective. Leaders may genuinely want people to talk, but aren’t always prepared for what they’ll hear, or for the responsibility that comes with it.

If an employee shares something personal and nothing changes; no follow-up, no adjustments, no acknowledgement; the message they receive is clear, even if it’s unintended. Speaking up didn’t make things safer or easier. Over time, people learn to keep things to themselves.

This is why meaningful conversations depend less on saying the right thing in the moment, and more on what happens afterwards. Trust is built through consistency, follow-through, and a sense that sharing leads to support rather than scrutiny.

What stops people speaking up

There are a few common barriers that come up repeatedly:

• Fear of being seen as less capable or reliable
• Worry about long-term career impact
• Previous experiences of not being taken seriously
• Managers feeling uncomfortable or unsure how to respond
• A culture that values resilience but struggles with vulnerability

These aren’t individual failings. They’re cultural signals. And they require organisational responses, not just personal bravery.

Moving from reactive to proactive conversations

One of the most effective shifts organisations can make is moving away from waiting for people to reach crisis point. Many employees won’t raise concerns until they’re already struggling, if they raise them at all.

Proactive conversations: regular check-ins that go beyond performance, managers who notice changes early, leaders who model boundaries themselves. This all reduces the pressure on employees to “make a case” for support. They normalise wellbeing as part of working life, not something that only surfaces when things go wrong.

Crucially, managers need support too. Expecting them to hold complex wellbeing conversations without training, time or backing is unrealistic and unfair. Psychological safety is a system, not a single interaction.

Building trust over time

At Perkbox, we talk a lot about wellbeing as something that’s built day by day, not delivered through one-off initiatives. The same is true of trust. It’s shaped in small moments: how flexibility requests are handled, how mistakes are responded to, how consistently values are lived rather than stated.

Meaningful conversations happen in environments where people believe they’ll be met with fairness, respect and care; not just kind words.

If we want employees to speak openly, we have to focus less on encouraging the conversation, and more on creating the conditions that make it safe to have. That’s where wellbeing moves from intention to impact.