Meeting Crisis With Care: How HR Can Navigate Mental Health Challenges

HR and People & Culture teams are often the first to notice when something isn’t right. Supporting an employee in acute distress, responding to disclosures of self-harm or suicide risk, or navigating the balance between compassion and accountability when mental health is raised in a disciplinary process, these are among the most challenging situations HR professionals face. They come with high stakes, yet many HR leaders say they don’t feel fully equipped to manage them. And as these situations become more common in workplaces today, the need for practical tools and guidance becomes even greater.  

Clearhead Clinical Psychologist Barry Kirker says it is a growing challenge. 
“Since Covid there seems to be an increase in agitation and anxiety in society generally, and we’re seeing this play out in the workforce too,” he explains. “Employees who have been through years of upheaval and heightened uncertainty are more likely to bring their struggles into the workplace. HR teams are often the first to deal with that.” 

Navigating Difficult Situations 

Unlike traditional HR skills such as performance management or compliance, the situations HR leaders now face often involve high levels of risk and emotion. These scenarios can include: 

• An employee discloses thoughts of suicide or self-harm. 
• A team member is in visible distress but does not recognise or accept their mental health challenges. 
• Mental health is raised during a disciplinary or performance conversation. 
• Staff experience survivor guilt or trauma following organisational changes such as redundancies. 
• HR professionals themselves carry the weight of supporting everyone else, sometimes as the only person in their organisation who can. 

“These are not situations where there is a quick policy fix,” Barry says. “They demand empathy, calm, and clear boundaries, and they take a toll on the people handling them.” 

Preparing Yourself for Difficult Conversations 

When employees bring heavy mental health challenges into the workplace, HR professionals often feel pressure to respond immediately. In these moments, it is not about waiting until you feel ready but about having practices in place that help you enter conversations as calm and grounded as possible. 

He encourages practitioners to check in with themselves daily, rating their emotional state on a scale from one to ten. A score of six or above suggests they are in the green zone, able to handle heavy conversations with composure. A four or five signals the orange zone, when caution is required. Anything lower indicates a red zone, when it may be wiser to postpone high-stakes meetings or involve additional support. 

“You cannot always control what happens in the workplace, but you can control whether you enter a conversation ready or depleted,” he says. Checking in with your own readiness and using your breaks to change how you are feeling can make all the difference. That might be as simple as taking a lunchtime walk, listening to music or doing some breathing exercises. 

Frameworks for Difficult Conversations 

For HR professionals, some of the hardest moments are when you need to raise sensitive issues with an employee - whether that is about performance, behaviour of concern, or how their wellbeing is affecting their work. These conversations can feel daunting, but having a clear structure can help. 

Barry points to a set of tools drawn from dialectical behaviour therapy, known by the acronym DEAR: 

• Describe the situation in factual, neutral terms. 
• Express why it matters, for the individual and the organisation. 
• Assert what needs to change or what support is available. 
• Reinforce the benefits of taking action, or the risks if nothing changes. 

He also highlights the “six Cs”: approaching conversations calmly, compassionately, consistently, and with clarity, confidence, and consequences. 

“These structured approaches give you a map to follow,” Barry explains. “They help you stay steady and keep the conversation constructive, even when the subject is challenging or emotionally charged.” 

The Boundaries Question 

HR managers often struggle with blurred boundaries. Unlike other departments, their role requires them to be both an advocate for staff and a guardian of organisational policy. Friendships at work, while natural, can complicate the impartiality that is needed in moments of crisis.  

“If you are finding yourself overly angry on behalf of someone, or overly sympathetic to their pain, that is a sign your boundaries are being affected,” Barry explains. “It does not mean you do not care, it means you need to recalibrate so you can actually help them effectively.” 

Boundaries can also protect HR professionals from becoming the primary outlet for an employee’s distress. While showing care and compassion is essential, so is ensuring employees are connected to appropriate professional help, whether through an EAP such as Clearhead, GP, or specialist services. 

Caring for the Carers 

Underlying all of this is recognition that HR professionals cannot continue to support others if they are running on empty themselves. Barry warns that without deliberate strategies for recovery, it is easy for HR leaders to experience compassion fatigue, burnout, or even mental health struggles of their own. 

“You can do everything right in the room,” he says, “but if you are not looking after yourself outside it, you will burn out.” 

That means deliberately building recovery into the workday: stepping away from the desk after a difficult meeting, journaling about difficult interactions, or talking through situations with trusted peers. For HR leaders who are the only people in their role, finding external support networks such as EAP services or peer supervision is especially important. 

Meeting Crisis With Care 

Workplace crises involving mental health are not going away. If anything, they are becoming more common as employees feel more able to speak up about their struggles. For HR professionals, the challenge is balancing empathy with clear decision-making while protecting their own wellbeing in the process. 

Remember, you and your employees do not have to do this alone. It is important to have a trusted specialist provider that you can lean on for advice and professional support. Having a trusted EAP provider like Clearhead is one way you will feel that you are equipped with the tools you need to do your job well in this new environment with ever chaning employee expectations.  

“Crisis is inevitable,” Barry says. “What matters is how you meet it.” 

The DEAR framework originates from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha Linehan (1993) as part of her skills training modules. 

Reference: Linehan, M. M. (1993). Skills training manual for treating borderline personality disorder. New York: Guilford Press.