Young men are taking mental health leave. The harder part is getting them back

Young men appear more willing to step away from work when their mental health suffers, being more likely now to take mental health leave. New research raises a harder question for employers: what happens when they try to return?

For years, workplace mental health campaigns have encouraged men to speak up, ask for help and stop treating struggling in silence as a sign of strength.

There are signs that message may be getting through.

Research published this year by US insurer The Standard found that one in five men aged 18 to 26 had taken leave from work to address their mental health. That was the same rate as women of the same age and higher than the figures reported by millennial, Generation X and baby boomer men.

But another finding is harder to celebrate: among those taking mental health leave, 20% of Gen Z men reported not returning to work, compared with 13% of Gen Z women.

The research does not tell us why. It cannot show that taking leave causes somebody to leave their employer, or that poor management is responsible. But it does expose a useful blind spot.

HR has spent a great deal of time thinking about whether employees feel able to disclose a mental health problem. Less attention has gone into what happens after somebody does.

Leave is only one part of the process

Ryan Eripse, Clinical Director at The Cabin Group, which runs a residential programme for young men, argues that employers often manage the absence more carefully than the return.

“Organisations plan the absence; the cover, the paperwork, the handover. Nobody plans the Monday he comes back, and that is the day that decides whether any of it worked.”

That distinction is increasingly important in the UK. The government-backed Keep Britain Working Review has put return to work firmly into the workplace health conversation. Its proposed Healthy Working Lifecycle covers the journey from recruitment and healthy work through illness, absence, return and, where necessary, exit and re-employment.

Crucially, it recommends structured Stay-in-Work and Return-to-Work Plans rather than treating sickness absence as a standalone event.

The report says a good return should involve active planning, adjustments and support for sustainable reintegration. It also proposes that, where somebody is absent, return-to-work planning should begin within weeks rather than waiting for the employee to reappear at their desk.

That is a rather different model from: take the time you need, send us a fit note, and let us know when you are ready.

What does somebody actually come back to?

The practical questions are fairly ordinary.

Has the workload that contributed to the problem changed?

Does the employee return at full capacity on day one?

Who keeps in contact while they are away?

What will colleagues be told, with the employee’s agreement?

Does the manager know how to handle the first week without either ignoring what happened or making the returning employee feel permanently defined by it?

And perhaps most importantly: does anybody check what happened six or twelve months later?

The Standard’s findings are useful precisely because they shift attention from whether people take mental health leave to what happens afterwards.

For younger employees, that may be particularly important. Someone early in their career may have thinner relationships, less confidence asking for adjustments and less organisational standing to fall back on when they return.

A poorly handled absence can therefore change not only their health but their relationship with the organisation.

Speaking up only works if employees trust what happens next

There is a broader trust problem here too.

Recent EmEx reporting found that employees frequently conceal work-related distress rather than disclose it through formal workplace channels. In one US survey, only 10.8% said they had told a manager or HR representative about work-related distress, while many chose less exposed ways of coping instead.

Encouraging openness is therefore only half the job.

Employees are also watching what happens to the people who do speak.

Eripse puts it more starkly:

“The men we treat are rarely the ones who never said anything. A great many of them said something once, watched what happened next, and drew a conclusion about what disclosure costs.”

That is his clinical perspective rather than something demonstrated by The Standard’s survey. But the question behind it is worth HR leaders asking.

World Mental Health Day will bring another wave of messages encouraging employees to talk.

Perhaps the more useful test this year is what would actually happen if they did.

Because an organisation can have an excellent awareness campaign, a well-used EAP and compassionate absence policies, and still lose people during the part of the process that receives far less attention: coming back.

The Cabin Group provides residential mental health and addiction treatment, including The Edge, a programme for young men.