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Posted: Mon 17th Aug 2026
Last updated: Mon 17th Aug 2026
8 min read
Sooner or later, someone on your team will tell you they're struggling.
It might come as a sit-down conversation or slip out at the end of a Tuesday catch-up. But in a business of five to 50 people, it lands on you, because you have no HR department to hand it to.
Fortunately, though, you don't need to fix anything in that first conversation.
Supporting employees with mental health starts with something much smaller, which is staying calm, listening properly, avoiding promises you cannot keep and agreeing one sensible next step.
Instead, most owners fall into one of three traps – they either freeze, promise too much, or steer clear of the person afterwards. This blog is about avoiding all three.
When a friend opens up to you, all they need is your attention.
When an employee opens up, they're talking to the person who sets their pay, approves their leave and shapes their future, which means it took more courage than it looks like, and your reaction carries more weight than you think.
Most owners feel that weight and go stiff, worrying about the wrong words, the legal side and what the business can afford. And stiff reads as cold.
Fewer than half of adults in England with symptoms of a common mental health condition receive any treatment, according to NHS England's Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, so work is often where struggling first becomes visible.
The official guidance agrees. Acas advises that if you believe someone is struggling, you should arrange a conversation as soon as possible and consider whether changes at work could help.
Your opening line matters less than you think, as long as it's warm and unhurried.
Something like "Thank you for telling me, I know that won't have been easy" does more work than any polished speech, because the question in their head is whether telling you was a mistake, and you've just answered it.
Then let them talk, sit with the silences and make it clear they don't have to share anything they would rather keep private.
When it feels natural, ask the question that separates a useful conversation from a sympathetic one: "Is there anything at work that is making things harder right now?"
You can't fix what they might be experiencing at home, but workload, deadlines and rota pressure are yours to change.
End with one concrete next step and a named day – something like "We don't need to sort everything today, let's talk again on Friday and see how the week has gone."
That's the whole job of the first conversation, and sometimes it can be enough.
Almost every damaging response is well-intentioned.
"I know exactly how you feel" moves the spotlight onto you. "Are you sure it's not just stress?" sounds gentle but comes across as doubt, and they won't raise it again.
Amateur diagnosis of any type – even a kindly "that sounds like anxiety to me" – isn't your call to make.
"Take as much time as you need" is a promise a small business often can't keep. And rowing it back three weeks later does more damage than never having said it.
Offer what the business can genuinely sustain and nothing more.
Be specific rather than saying "Let me know if you need anything", which sounds kind but hands the whole burden straight back to the employee.
And the easiest mistake of all is avoidance, where you go vague and scarce because you feel awkward. They will notice within days, and regret that they ever told you.
"Reasonable adjustments" sounds like a legal term, but in practice it means ordinary flexibility applied deliberately. For example, you might:
reshuffle the person's workload for a few weeks
allow them to start work later while their sleep is rough
take away the most pressured duties for a short spell
give the person time off for appointments without asking why
make shorter and more frequent check-ins rather than holding one long review
Two rules make adjustments work.
First, agree them with the person rather than imposing what you assume they need, because the wrong adjustment confidently applied helps no-one.
Second, put a review date on everything. Open-ended arrangements curdle, either into resentment on your side or awkward permanence on theirs, and a review date is what makes generosity sustainable.
In a small team, making notes might feel bureaucratic. But the alternative is your memory, and your memory is hard at work running a company.
The rule is to record decisions, not disclosures. Note the date, what you agreed, any adjustments and the review date, and nothing about symptoms, diagnoses or anyone's history.
Keep it somewhere private and don't share it with anyone without the person's consent.
By taking this approach, you're both protected.
The short note you've made means the support you promised actually survives during your busiest times, and it's a fair record that you responded properly if things ever need to become more formal.
The first conversation is the part people worry about, but the two weeks that follow is where you prove your support.
Keep the check-in you named, and keep it low-key. A private "How has this week actually been?" does more than a meeting with an agenda.
Between check-ins, be normal. Talk to the employee about work the way you always have, because the most common mistake in the first week is coming off as distant.
And never ask how they're doing in front of the team.
Around the two-week mark, review the adjustments together and decide whether to keep, tweak or wind them down. Let the employee lead the answer.
Throughout, what you're watching is direction rather than diagnosis – better, level or worse.
If things are clearly worse despite the changes you've made, that isn't your cue to try harder yourself. It's your cue to signpost them to support, which I discuss in the next section.
Your role is to support someone at work and point them towards proper help, not to become their therapist.
The moment you feel out of your depth is usually the moment you are.
The GP is the right first port of call, and in England anyone can refer themselves to NHS talking therapies without one.
If you have an employee assistance programme or any support benefit, remind the person it exists and ask whether they'd actually feel comfortable using it.
Because a scheme with too many hoops, or one that doesn't quite fit what they're dealing with, will go unused.
If they ever say anything that makes you worry for their immediate safety, Samaritans are available around the clock on 116 123, and immediate danger is a 999 call.
Signposting can feel like passing the buck, but it's the opposite. Pointing someone towards the right help, while keeping their job feeling secure, is the most useful thing you can do as an employer.
I avoided support of every kind for about a decade before founding Wobble, a new low-friction way to access personalised mental health support.
So I can tell you from the other side of this conversation that the words, helpful as they are, were never the whole of it.
What people remember is whether telling you made their life better or worse.
Supporting employees with mental health requires calm, honesty about what you can offer, and follow-through on what you agreed.
So pick a day to check in, write down what was decided and keep the door open. That's the whole job, and it's well within yours.
