Google is tackling mental health challenges by providing ‘resilience training’ videos for employees.  Pre-COVID-19 strategies and programs to support employee health weren’t meeting the daily needs of employees navigating the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, while increasing social unrest and racial tensions in the United States continued to build – adding further tension.

So what?

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how employers support employee health, with the most notable shift being on mental health and resilience. People have always dealt with competing priorities and work/life pressures. The extreme pressures faced due to health, isolation, discrimination and racial violence all led employers to realize focusing on supporting their employee’s mental health and resilience was not only good for their employees, but better for company to support their employees to learn ways to manage their stressors and create a practice of resilience ongoing.

What might it mean that one of the world’s largest companies identified existing mental health support as insufficient during the pandemic? Will others, if not doing so already, follow?  And, could this type of training and focus on ‘resilience’ continue indefinitely?