Awareness Isn’t Enough: Why Managers Need to Prioritize Their Wellbeing
Most organizations have no shortage of wellbeing awareness. There are mental health days on the calendar, webinars on stress, and posters in the pantry. October is National Mental Health Month and companies are raising awareness on mental health, emphasizing work-life balance, and advocating for well-being across its organization. Yet the people expected to turn all that awareness into everyday action, managers, are often running on empty themselves.
Awareness tells people that wellbeing matters. It doesn’t give a manager the time, skills, or permission to act on it, or to protect their own.
The Strain Is Measurable
Recent research points the same way. Lyra Health’s 2026 report, drawing on 500 benefits leaders and 7,500 employees across six countries, found that 54% of managers say the role is harming their mental health, 46% are considering leaving, and 22% have taken mental health leave. WebMD Health Services’ 2026 survey of more than 3,800 US employees found middle managers reporting burnout rates over three times higher than individual contributors, and higher even than senior leaders. In the UK, Avilio’s survey found that 46% of people in management positions say their job is their main source of stress and anxiety.
The pattern isn’t new. A UKG Workforce Institute survey of 3,400 people across 10 countries found that 46% of middle managers said they were likely to quit within a year because of work stress. Gallup and MetLife research showed manager burnout rising from 27% in 2020 to 35% in 2021, with only one in four managers strongly agreeing they could balance work and personal responsibilities. The problem has persisted across several years of “awareness.”
Why Managers Get Squeezed
Managers sit at the intersection of competing demands. They’re expected to deliver results, support employee wellbeing, and lead through constant change, yet many still handle high-impact situations in real time without consistent, practical support, even as organizations add training and resources. In effect, they are the wellbeing safety net for everyone else, while their own wellbeing is nobody’s job.
That matters well beyond the managers themselves. WebMD found that trust is a strong predictor of wellbeing and engagement, with employees who highly trust their organization being 27 times more likely to be highly engaged. Managers are where that trust is built or eroded every day. A depleted manager has less patience, less time for conversations, and less capacity to notice when someone on the team is struggling.
Why Another Awareness Session Won’t Fix It
This is a learning design problem as much as a wellbeing one. In our work on large-scale digital learning programs, we’ve seen that converting content into modules doesn’t equal engagement. Materials often focus on delivering information rather than on practice and application. Manager wellbeing training tends to fall into the same trap: a one-hour session on the signs of burnout.
But knowing the signs is not the same as having a difficult conversation, setting a boundary with your own leader, or pushing back on an unrealistic deadline. Research on learning transfer shows that what sticks depends on how people apply learning in real workplace contexts and support for managers has to be designed around the moments where they actually need it.
What Going Beyond Awareness Looks Like
Using our DRIVE Human-Centered Design Method (Discover, Relate, Ideate, Visualize, Evolve), here is how we would approach it:
Discover before designing. Interview managers and observe a typical week. Where does their time go? Where do conflicts and interruptions pile up? Don’t assume the problem is a knowledge gap.
Frame the real problem. Turn what you learn into “How might we…” questions, such as: How might we help managers support a struggling team member without sacrificing their own time and energy?
Practice, not just information. Scenario-based simulations and branching scenarios let managers rehearse hard conversations safely. Short microlearning fits the limited time managers have between meetings.
Offer different levels of support. Some managers are comfortable learning on their own, while others prefer guided support or peer discussion. Design for both.
Evolve based on evidence. Look beyond completion rates. Ask whether managers are applying what they learned and whether their workloads and conditions are actually changing.
Fix the System, Not Just the Skills
Even excellent learning design can’t compensate for an unsustainable job. If expectations are conflicting, workloads are heavy, and taking time off feels risky, no workshop will close the gap. Organizations also need to set realistic priorities, protect time for managers to recover and reflect, and make it visibly normal for leaders to use support. When senior leaders model prioritizing their own wellbeing, managers get permission to do the same.
The Takeaway
Awareness is a starting point, not a strategy. Managers carry much of the weight of workplace wellbeing, and the data suggests many are struggling under it. Supporting them takes more than another talk on stress. It takes learning experiences built around their real work, practical tools they can use in the moment, and an organization willing to treat manager wellbeing as a priority in its own right.
Want to explore how this could look for your managers? Visit prevo.org to see our upcoming webinars and browse through our online resources for materials that support your wellbeing.
You could also book a FREE Workplace Diagnostic Session below for your workplace.
References
Tabungar, M. B. (2026). Rethinking Learning Design through Human-Centered and AI-Enabled Approaches. In The Talent Journey Playbook: Practical Tools for Talent Development.
Lyra Health. (2026). State of Workforce Mental Health 2026: State of Managers. https://www.lyrahealth.com/resources/report/state-of-workforce-mental-health-2026-state-of-managers/
WebMD Health Services. (2026). 2026 Workplace and Employee Survey Report. https://www.webmdhealthservices.com/?p=17254
Startups Magazine. (2026). UK faces a “stress epidemic” with almost 12M workers experiencing burnout (Avilio survey). https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-uk-faces-stress-epidemic-almost-12m-workers-experiencing-burnout
Fortune. (2023). Middle managers are so burned out that nearly half want to quit within the next year (UKG Workforce Institute survey). https://fortune.com/2023/02/08/work-burnout-middle-managers-nearly-half-want-to-quit-within-year
Allwork.Space. Why Millennials Are Experiencing The Bulk Of Manager Burnout (Gallup and MetLife findings). https://allwork.space/?p=1008283
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