Read.Watch.Listen. Mental Health in the Workplace
- SE3 Committee
- Mar 2
- 3 min read
March 2026 Issue
A monthly forum to share diversity, equity, and inclusion resources.
Welcome to the next installment of Read.Watch.Listen. Last month, we discussed generally how anxiety, stress, and burnout can negatively affect engineers in particular. This month, we focus on specific mental health resources and techniques that can help address these issues, with resources for individuals as well as organizations and managers to help ensure that teams can communicate effectively regarding mental health issues and options. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Architecture and Engineering as an industry has the fifth-highest suicide rate in the country, and with 48% of engineers reporting symptoms of burnout, right now is the time to address these issues and ensure all members of our community have access to necessary resources to help with these struggles. By creating emotionally intelligent workplaces and communication resources for all employees, we can ensure resilient individuals and systems that allow the full community to thrive.
Image by rawpixel via Freepik
How Leaders Can Build Psychological Safety at Work - Center for Creative Leadership
Psychological safety is “the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” Psychologically safe workplaces have higher levels of engagement from staff and report higher levels of performance. This article discusses why psychological safety is so important in workplaces, provides 8 steps towards creating more psychological safety at work, and the 4 stages of psychological safety. It is important to recognize that a sense of belonging is key to creating a psychologically safe workplace, as an employee must feel accepted in order to contribute fully.
Published April 2024; Estimated Read Time - 11 minutes
Talking About Mental Health at Work- Can I Speak to Your Manager? - Mark Bailey, TEDxDayton
In this TEDx Talk, Mark Bailey shares his personal experience with mental health in the workplace and highlights the importance of managers who can foster an environment that is psychologically safe. He explains how empathy, compassion, and vulnerability from managers can help employees feel supported and empowered to bring their most authentic selves to work. Mark also offers practical strategies leaders can use to create healthier, more supportive workplace cultures. Regardless of whether you are a manager or not, there is value in Mark’s words for everyone.
Originally aired February 2022; 00:10:22
How to Ask For Help From the Right People (And Then, How to Accept It) – Fried, The Burnout Podcast
In many industries, not least structural engineering, ‘independence’ is a frequently sought-after trait in employees. It is desirable and marketable to be able to operate in a bubble, without reliance on others that might be characterized as weakness or insufficiency. This podcast delves into the issues resulting from this approach, wherein seeking to demonstrate self-reliance results in isolation, burnout, and other negative outcomes. The contributors discuss means of reaching out and soliciting support, including tips on whom to talk to, what to say (and not say) and how to work on setting boundaries and support systems to prevent future recurrences.
Originally published December 2025; 00:29:29
This article was originally published in the NCSEA's Structural Connection newsletter.
Read.Watch.Listen is a monthly forum hosted by the NCSEA SE3 Committee to share and promote conversations on diversity, equity and inclusion within the structural engineering profession. Each month, we will curate a series of articles, audio-visual and digital media to facilitate self-education in matters that affect our professional practice as structural engineers. Whether you choose to read, watch, or listen (or all three!), we hope you will join us in this important conversation. Missed the previous issue? Check out the NCSEA SE3 Committee News and Publication page.
Share your thoughts and/or recommended resources for the next issue at ncsea@ncsea.com.
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