Dr Jane Semugga | Chief Medical Officer | Lyra Southern Africa | mail me |
Nearly seven in ten employees wait until the crisis point to seek help. Delays remain highest in male-dominated sectors. They remain lowest where support enables performance. Our data highlights a persistent gap. This gap exists between mental health need and help-seeking behaviour.
Men account for just three in ten users of employee wellness programmes. Mental health remains the largest category of concern in the data. Mental health issues represent 23.3 percent of all cases.
Workplace mental health gap and early intervention
Stress, anxiety and depression remain the main drivers year after year. This pattern reflects sustained pressure rather than a short-term spike. At the same time, delayed mental health care emerges as a major concern. Many employees only seek support when symptoms become severe.
In fact, delayed mental health care affects long-term recovery outcomes across organisations. At the same time, delayed help-seeking remains one of the most significant risks. In 2025, 67 percent of employees accessed support only at a severe stage. They also reported functional impairment at work.
For many men, challenges remain unspoken. They build quietly until a breaking point emerges. This dynamic reinforces delayed mental health care across workplaces. While it is encouraging to see men use workplace resources, engagement often happens too late.
While it’s encouraging to see men utilising our resources, they tend to engage with us too late to get the maximum benefit. With stress, anxiety and depression remaining so high, the delay in seeking help continues to be a major barrier to providing early, impactful support.
Sector differences and structural workplace pressure
The data shows that workplace environment shapes help-seeking behaviour. Sector-level patterns reveal strong cultural influences.
Basic Materials leads in delayed help-seeking. Mining, extraction and manufacturing dominate this sector. Nearly 80 percent of cases appear at severe stages. Consumer Services follows closely. It records rates above 75 percent. The Public sector sits just above 72 percent.
These environments share similar pressures. They combine operational strain, limited flexibility and endurance-based cultures. These conditions increase delayed mental health care among employees. By contrast, the industrial, financial and telecommunications sectors show lower delay levels. Their rates range between 60 and 63 percent. This still reflects high risk. However, it also shows earlier engagement in some workplaces. It also reduces the incidence of delayed mental health care compared to other sectors.
The difference between sectors reaches nearly 20 percent. This gap reflects organisational culture rather than access alone. In some environments, support is positioned as part of staying effective and managing pressure. In others, it is still seen as something you turn to when you can no longer cope. That difference directly affects when men come forward.
Age patterns, risk escalation and behavioural barriers
Age strongly influences help-seeking behaviour. Men aged 31 to 40 form the largest user group. Men aged 41 to 50 follow closely. These life stages combine multiple pressures. Work demands, financial responsibility and relationship stress peak together.
Across these groups, common drivers include work-life balance strain, financial pressure and relationship challenges. Over time, these pressures accumulate and intensify. Around one in ten male cases reaches high-risk stages. These cases involve substance use, suicidal ideation or gambling behaviour.
These outcomes often reflect prolonged stress exposure. They also reflect extended delayed mental health care patterns across individuals. Failing to receive early support allows pressure to build. This escalates manageable problems into serious issues with a higher risk of poor outcomes and complications. These are patterns we see repeatedly.
Workplace barriers and engagement inequalities
Across male-dominated sectors, barriers to early support remain consistent. Confidentiality concerns remain a major deterrent. Time pressure also limits access to care. Heavy workloads reduce opportunities for help-seeking. Awareness gaps further reduce engagement.
In basic materials, physical isolation reduces access further. Workplace norms also discourage early engagement. In consumer services, long working hours create additional barriers. Employees struggle to prioritise support. In the public sector, system complexity slows engagement. It also discourages early intervention.
Despite these barriers, one pattern remains clear. Female employees drive most engagement in workplace wellness programmes. This reflects continued male reluctance. Male utilisation remains steady at 31 to 33 percent. It shows little improvement over time.
This stagnation reinforces delayed mental health care trends across sectors. That tells us the issue is not awareness alone. If behaviour is not changing, the barriers are deeper and more structural.
Shifting workplace culture and enabling early support
Organisations must change how they frame mental health support. Language plays a central role. When organisations frame mental health around performance, engagement improves. When they link it to resilience, participation increases.
Support becomes more accessible when it feels routine. It also reduces delayed mental health care by encouraging earlier engagement. Access also matters significantly. Bringing services into workplaces reduces friction. It removes the trade-off between productivity and care.
Visibility further improves uptake. When support becomes part of the environment, employees engage earlier. Timing remains critical. Help-seeking windows often remain brief. Small behavioural signals matter. These include changes in behaviour or brief comments about pressure. Immediate responses improve outcomes. They also reduce delayed mental health care escalation risks.
Framing makes a real difference. When support is simple, relevant and available at the right time, men are far more likely to engage with it. Men are more likely to engage when support is positioned as part of staying resilient and performing well. That shift in framing changes behaviour.
In conclusion
Time and time again, medicine proves that early intervention allows us to catch small issues before they become deeply rooted and cause preventable harm.
Our priority is to normalise early help-seeking so that managing mental health becomes a part of how employees stay well and continue to perform, not the panic button and the last resort during a crisis.
I will end with one of my favourite quotes on the practice of mental health:
Without treatment, care and attention to mental health, we treat human beings no better than animals or plants.
