MENTAL HEALTH IS A CRISIS IN THE TRADES. SOM SMALL EMPLOYERS ARE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Construction kills more workers by suicide than by accident.

That’s not a rhetorical flourish. The suicide rate among construction workers is 75% higher than the national average, and the number of workers who die by suicide each year significantly exceeds those who die from falls, equipment failures and on-site accidents combined.

The industry has spent the better part of two decades getting serious about physical safety — hard hats, fall protection, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance, jobsite protocols that have genuinely saved lives. What it has not done, in any sustained or systematic way, is reckon with what’s happening inside its workers’ heads.

The gap is widening. In 2025, nearly two-thirds of construction workers reported experiencing anxiety or depression in the past 12 months, a 10-point jump from the year before, according to a national survey of more than 2,000 construction workers and executives conducted by Clayco, one of the country’s largest real estate development and construction firms. More than a third of those workers said they had missed work in the past year due to mental health concerns. Physical demands, poor work-life balance and tight project deadlines were the most commonly cited drivers of distress, the basic conditions of construction work, in other words. Not anomalies. The job itself.

What makes this particularly difficult to address is the culture of the industry. Nearly half of construction workers say they would feel ashamed talking about mental health with their coworkers. More than a third of those who did seek professional help reported experiencing workplace discrimination afterward. The people most in need of support are also the most likely to hide it, and the most likely to be penalized if they don’t. The industry knows it has a problem. What it doesn’t have is many models for what to do about it.

In the Lafayette-West Lafayette region alone, the construction sector employs roughly 5,000 workers — a workforce that has seen wages grow faster than nearly any other local sector, and one that remains largely without the mental health infrastructure the research says it needs. Steinberger Construction, a contractor based in Logansport, is trying to change that.

The company recently received a 2026 Gold Bell Seal for Workplace Mental Health from Mental Health America, a Washington-based nonprofit that has spent decades researching the relationship between work and psychological well-being. The Bell Seal, which MHA launched in 2019, is a national certification program for employers. It evaluates organizations across four categories — workplace culture, benefits, compliance and whole-health wellness programming — and awards recognition at bronze, silver, gold and platinum levels based on documented policies and practices, not stated commitments. Of employers that complete MHA’s pre-assessment, only one in four qualify for certification at any level. The application requires evidence, not intention.

The companies that tend to earn it reflect that. The 2026 cohort of 410 certified employers spanned 22 industries and 40 states, but the list skews heavily toward healthcare systems, financial services firms, behavioral health providers and universities — organizations whose professional cultures already treat well-being as a core value and whose employees often arrive with some fluency in the language of mental health. A regional construction contractor earning a Gold Bell Seal is a different kind of achievement. It signals that someone in leadership made a decision to build something the industry doesn’t naturally produce.

What SCI built isn’t novel, but it’s comprehensive. The company trains its supervisors as QPR Gatekeepers. QPR, which is short for question, persuade and refer, is a structured suicide prevention protocol that equips people to recognize warning signs and connect colleagues with professional help before a crisis escalates. It offers wellness time off alongside a company-paid Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with counseling access and a benefits package that covers psychiatry, substance use rehabilitation, telehealth and wellness coaching.

It hosts an annual wellness summit and, critically, leadership talks openly and visibly about mental health as a normal part of working life. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, employees are more likely to speak openly about mental health and access available resources when workplace cultures actively reduce stigma and encourage those conversations.

Access to mental health resources does not necessarily translate into use. Traditional Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) — the counseling and referral services many employers already offer — typically see utilization rates of about 5% in the United States, despite being available to much larger portions of the workforce. Research by All One Health on EAP participation has found that low utilization is often tied to concerns about confidentiality, lack of awareness, mental health stigma and uncertainty about whether seeking help could affect workplace perceptions or career advancement.

Investing in better mental health benefits without addressing the cultural conditions that suppress their use is, as one researcher put it, like installing a door and never telling anyone it’s there. According to social psychologist Daniela D. Franco, workplaces that normalize help-seeking and encourage open mental health discussions consistently show higher utilization of mental health resources, not because the benefits changed, but because the permission to use them did.

SCI also closes the gap that many employers don’t know they have. There is a well-documented disconnect between what employers believe they’re offering and what employees actually experience. Eighty percent of construction executives believe their workers have access to mental health support. Only 61% of workers agree, according to Clayco. That perception gap shows up across industries, and it explains why well-intentioned benefits programs fail to move the needle. SCI addresses it by surveying employees throughout the year and adjusting its programs in response. Most employers don’t do that.

Steinberger Construction is not the only Indiana employer earning this kind of recognition, but the company it keeps is telling. Purdue University, Cummins Behavioral Health Systems and Shepherd Insurance all earned Platinum Bell Seal recognition in 2026, while Cummins Inc. received Gold status.

Those organizations operate in very different sectors, but they share a common belief that employee well-being is not separate from organizational performance. “We know our team members have challenging jobs, and we believe they deserve the same level of care and support they strive to provide for our consumers,” Cummins Behavioral Health Systems said in announcing its fifth consecutive Platinum Bell Seal recognition.

What makes SCI notable is that it arrived at many of the same practices in an industry where conversations about mental health have traditionally been less common. Construction remains one of the nation’s most physically demanding professions, and employers have historically focused more on jobsite safety than psychological well-being.

According to the 2025 Mental Health at Work Report from Mind Share Partners, 90% of U.S. workers reported experiencing at least one mental health challenge in the previous year, the highest percentage recorded since the organization began tracking the issue. The same survey found that 48% of employees have left a job for reasons tied to their mental health, and two-thirds of those departures were voluntary. These are not workers who were let go. They chose to leave.

Smaller employers often feel the impact most acutely. Replacing experienced workers takes time, money and institutional knowledge.

For Mikel Berger, president and CEO of Greater Lafayette Commerce, the region’s primary chamber of commerce and lead economic development organization, SCI’s recognition points to something larger.

“Steinberger Construction is demonstrating that a commitment to workforce well-being is not just the right thing to do, but it’s also a competitive advantage,” Berger said. “Greater Lafayette Commerce is proud to see a regional employer earning national recognition for building the kind of workplace culture that attracts and retains talent. That’s exactly the model we need more of.”

The relationship between employee well-being and business performance is no longer a matter of theory. Research from the World Health Organization estimates that for every $1 invested in treatment for common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, employers can expect a return of about $4 through improved health and productivity.

Small employers often assume that building real mental health infrastructure is financially out of reach. The evidence suggests the fundamentals are more accessible than that assumption implies. Making sure employees actually know what benefits they have — not assuming the onboarding packet covered it — is free.

Training supervisors to recognize distress and respond with something more useful than silence costs time, not necessarily money. Research from the American Psychological Association found that companies connecting their EAPs to broader wellness programs saw a 40% increase in usage, not from spending more, but from integrating what they already had.

SCI is a regional contractor working in one of the most psychologically demanding industries in the country, in a culture that has spent generations telling its workers that struggle is something you manage alone. It built a program rigorous enough to earn a national certification that three out of four applicants don’t receive.

“In our industry, mental health and well-being aren’t always part of the conversation, and we want to keep changing that,” Bauman said. “Our people are our greatest asset, and supporting their whole health is part of how we do business.”