Kindness: The Risk Management, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Strategy We’ve Been Ignoring

By COLLEEN SARINGER, PhD

At the age of 13, construction taught me a lesson: work/workplace can quietly unravel a life.

The Day Construction Taught Me A Lesson

One evening my mother walked into our home after a long day at the sheet metal business she and my dad had been building. She wasn’t just carrying her own work belongings – she had my dad’s briefcase, his uneaten lunch and jacket. After she set everything down, she looked at me and said, “Your dad planned to take his life today. But instead, he drove himself to the hospital. He had a nervous breakdown.”

For years, I believed his “nervous breakdown” (a mental health crisis) was the reason he wanted to take his life. Later I learned it was the result of high job demand, low control, poor support and the relentless stress and anxiety from the business. His exact words were, “I was in over my head and didn’t see a way out.”

I’ve been that overwhelmed. My gut tells me countless others have been, too.

It’s been almost 40 years since that “lesson,” yet few workplaces discuss it. While resources like EAPs and awareness campaigns matter, they often imply that the burden of getting better falls entirely on the individual. But the fact of the matter is this: there are risk factors inside our workplaces that contribute to – and worsen – anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and suicides. The research is there to prove it.

The Risk Factors We Overlook & The Low-Cost Solution We Ignore 

Many construction owners, leaders and employees have experienced, or unintentionally contributed to, workplace conditions that increase mental and physical risk:

• High job demand
• Low job control
• Lack of support
• Incivility and bullying
• Poor environmental conditions (heat)
• Poor workplace relationships

And here’s the reality: a lot of what makes construction difficult isn’t going away. The work is demanding. Summers are unforgiving. Projects pull people away from their families. Fatigue is part of the job.

And while we can’t change the nature of construction, we have the control – regardless of title, tenure or trade – to change how we treat the people doing the work.

It’s where kindness comes in. A tool we all have access to, costs nothing and can reduce risk from injury, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and suicide. Here’s why I believe in it:

• According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the average person delays getting treatment for 11 years.
• One or more of your employees may be silently living inside this 11-year gap, showing up to work anxious, depressed or carrying suicidal thoughts.
• And when someone is struggling, the stories on repeat in his or her mind are often: “I don’t matter. I don’t belong.”

What kindness does is create a “moment of interruption,” a brief mental break powerful enough to disrupt the isolation and hopelessness someone might be silently battling. A genuine “hello,” “good morning” or “thank you” becomes a small but meaningful message of “You matter. You belong. I see you.”

These tiny moments of human connection can even lower the body’s stress response and strengthen a person’s sense of belonging, protective factors for mental health. In addition to the research, suicide survivors have said it has changed the course of their day.

It Works – It’s My Husband’s Most Valuable Business Tool

My husband, a small construction business owner, grew up in environments where bullying, aggression and disrespect were normalized. These behaviors didn’t just increase his stress and anxiety; they contributed to turnover, risky decision-making and low trust among crews.

So, when he opened his industrial roofing company, he made a choice: He would lead with respect and kindness, every day and with every person.

He holds himself accountable to that standard and expects the same from his employees, vendors and customers. His kindness tactics include:

• Working alongside employees to understand their strengths and style
• Using respectful language (“sir” or “ma’am”)
• Beginning every interaction with a greeting
• Incorporating employee feedback into decisions
• And when necessary, firing customers who treat his business and people poorly

The result is far from weak or ineffective. In fact, over the past 17 years he’s had:

• Zero reportable accidents
• 81 EMR (Experience Modification Rate)
• Strong retention
• Consistent profitability
• No employee suicides

My Call to Action to You

Far too often, we assume that solutions for injuries, mental health and suicide prevention must be complex, clinical or expensive. But we haven’t mastered the basics, the simplest form of human protection. Will kindness eliminate the physical demands of construction work or lower the summer heat? Nope. But it will lower risk. It will protect people. And it will shift the culture.

So let’s course-correct. Instead of normalizing bullying, burnout or pushing people past their limits to meet unrealistic deadlines, let’s normalize kindness.

Information to support the facts in this article came from:

1. The National Alliance on Mental Illness: www.nami.org
2. Howard MC, Follmer KB, Smith MB, Tucker RP, Van Zandt EC. Work and suicide: an interdisciplinary systematic literature review. J Organ Behav. 2021; 43(2): 260-285.
3. Alexander, R., et al. The Neuroscience of Positive Emotions and Affect: Implications for Cultivating Happiness and Wellbeing. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 121 (2021): 220-249.

Colleen Saringer, PhD, is the founder of Dr. Colleen Saringer Speaks and has 40 years’ experience inside two family-owned construction businesses. To connect with Colleen, contact her at [email protected] or (216) 469-3403.