People need their jobs. But increasingly, they don’t have the psychological capacity to do them.
This is becoming a serious workforce problem.
According to Mercer, the incidence of mental-health-related short-term disability claims is up 41% compared with pre-pandemic levels.
From 2023 to 2025 alone, those claims increased 21%.
And in certain white-collar sectors — including finance and technology — the increased approached 60%. (Mercer)
Guardian’s own claims data tells a similar story: mental-health-related short-term disability claims increased approximately 50% between 2019 and 2024.
People are OVERWHELMED.
They are working while navigating chronic stress, financial pressure, caregiving, uncertainty, information overload, relationship strain and increasingly complex professional demands.
Many still show up.
They still perform.
Until they CAN’T.
The traditional corporate response tends to begin once functioning has already deteriorated: leave, disability, therapy referrals, accommodations, EAPs.
BUT WHAT IF WE MOVED UPSTREAM?
What if we treated psychological capacity as infrastructure — something that can be assessed, strengthen and maintained before overload becomes IMPAIRMENT?
It’s about making sure they have the psychological capacity to sustain the lives and jobs we are asking them to perform.
High-functioning does NOT necessarily mean MENTALLY WELL. And EMPLOYMENT does NOT necessarily mean capacity.
