For too long, companies treated mental health as “an extra”, when in fact it must necessarily be seen as strategic: it affects attention, memory, decision-making, creativity, talent retention (in other words: the core of productivity).
And the data confirms it:
- Search Of 15% of working-age adults have a mental health disorder at a given time (WHO, 2022);
- Globally, it is estimated that 12 billion workdays are lost a year due to depression and anxiety — with an economic cost of around US$ 1 trillion per year (WHO, 2022);
- In the European Union, in 2020, around 44.6% of employed workers reported facing risk factors for mental well-being at work (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2025);
- In Portugal, the numbers are alarming: around 22% of the Portuguese population had a mental disorder in the previous year, one of the highest values in Europe (OPP, 2023);
- In Portugal, costs associated with stress and psychological health problems at work increased by more than 60% in the last two years, reaching around €5.3 billion (OPP, 2023).
These numbers tell us that our brains are functioning with deficits, absenteeism, presenteeism, turnover, and burnout.
At MindPartner, the premise is: it's not enough to “just do a resilience workshop” or “distribute a wellness brochure”. Applied neuroscience + rigorous evaluation + personalized intervention is needed. Here's how that translates:
1. Psychological Screening
- Map cognitive, emotional, and behavioral conditions using validated instruments adapted to the work context.
- Extract aggregated data to identify risk patterns: e.g., high cognitive load, routines that favor Multitasking, lack of mental recovery.
2. Evidence-based intervention
- Dynamics involving training for leaders on emotional and neurofunctional literacy (such as attention, memory, cognitive fatigue).
- Programs of coaching, group therapies, psychological support, adapted to the reality of the organization.
- Creation of “mentally healthy organizations”, that is, not only treating the problem, but redesigning the work context (autonomy, clarity of function, control, cognitive pause).
3. Impact measurement and continuous improvement cycle
- Through mental health indicators + business indicators (absenteeism, turnover, productivity, satisfaction).
- Structured feedback, adjustment of actions based on data.
- Continuing education and organizational culture that reinforces practice.
In practical terms, we share with you how we think at MindPartner:
A) How to promote
- Contextualize: Instead of “let's do a stress session”, we promote “how does the brain work under pressure” — inviting leaders to think: what do I do that prevents my team's brain from recovering?
- Repositioning mental health as a key performance and sustainability variable, and not just “well-being”.
- Create literacy: train everyone to notice early signs (not to be clinical, but to recognize and act at the organizational level).
B) How to work
- Organizational diagnosis: where are the bottlenecks (too many meetings, Multitasking, cognitive overload, absence of breaks)?
- Intervention trajectories with different plans: for leadership, for teams and for employees with specific needs.
- Integration with culture: change work policies, environment, communication, in order to make “mental recovery” an asset.
C) How to approach
- Break the stigma: data from 2025 reveal that, for example in the USA, 42% of workers feared a negative impact on their careers if they spoke about mental health.
- To speak truly: “Yes, you have a load. Yes, your brain feels it. Yes, we need to redesign this.”
- Transform into management practice: Mental health is not “an HR initiative”, it's a strategic commitment.
- Create psychological safety: without this, employees don't reveal, don't participate, don't get involved. And without involvement, programs like those on MindPartner aren't successful.
It is essential to look at mental health as a strategic asset and not as “what you do when it gives”. And so, to conclude, I leave here questions to ask yourself (possibly some of them uncomfortable):
Did you think that the biggest risk for your company was a competitor or inflation? How about now considering that the greatest risk may lie inside: in the brain of your team that you are working on Multitasking, without breaks, without defined tasks and attending 30 meetings a day?
How many days of work did you lose because your employee was physically present but cognitively disengaged?
And how much does the turnover of people who can't stand the pressure cost you?
What if we told you that the way you are managing your company's cognitive and emotional load is directly affecting your line of results?