【公开学术报告】Managing Subordinates’ Emotions: Experimental Evidence on Supporting Workplace Mental Health

Managing Subordinates’ Emotions: Experimental Evidence on Supporting Workplace Mental Health

Speaker: PEI Yuan (Harvard University)

Date & Time: Tue. 7^th, January 2025, from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM (Beijing Time)

Place: Meeting Room 2101, Tongji Building A.

ABSTRACT

Why do middle managers often struggle to promote their subordinates’ mental wellbeing, despite its impact on job performance? This paper identifies managerial expertise, attention, and beliefs as key barriers in adopting mental health support practices to help employees manage emotional challenges. In a field experiment with 6,000 workers at a Chinese automobile manufacturer, I provide middle managers with mental health support training (enhancing managerial expertise), and a subset also receive top management’s directive (manipulating managerial attention). I find significant improvements in subordinate workers’ mental health and reduction in absenteeism (60 percent decrease), only when managers received both training and directive. In a follow-up survey experiment, presenting these results to a separate group of managers (altering managerial beliefs) leads to an increased participation in mental health initiatives. Taken together, the results provide actionable recommendations for developing organizational policies to improve workplace well-being.