Firms can do better in providing mental health services | Opinion

South Florida, often called the “Recovery Capital of the World,” is known for treatment centers, clinical expertise, and forward-thinking recovery communities. Yet inside many local workplaces, the response to mental health and substance-use struggles remains strikingly predictable. Tolerate it until it becomes untenable, then terminate. This isn’t strategy. It’s default, and it is far more expensive than most companies realize.

Replacing an employee can cost anywhere from half to twice that person’s annual salary. But far fewer account for the quieter, compounding costs that come first, such as the missed deadlines, the preventable errors, the strain on teams, the safety risks. Those costs rarely appear as a single line item. They accumulate in the background until they surface all at once in an incident, a claim, or a resignation. By then, the damage is already done.

There is another layer local businesses are even less comfortable confronting ― the connection between untreated behavioral health and workplace risk. A meaningful share of workplace accidents involve drugs or alcohol as a contributing factor. Yet, most companies still treat safety and behavioral health as separate issues, addressed only after something goes wrong. The pattern is familiar. An incident occurs. A claim is filed. Policies are reviewed. Perhaps training is updated. But, the underlying issue remains unaddressed: the employee was struggling long before the incident. And so the cycle repeats. When I speak with local business leaders, the hesitation is consistent.

There is a another option, and it is far less complicated than many assume. This includes structured Employee Assistance Programs, clear referral pathways to trusted treatment providers, and alignment with existing workers’ compensation and safety protocols. The goal is not to diagnose employees, but to stop treating performance, safety, and behavioral health as unrelated problems.

There is also a harder truth. Many employees struggling with substance use do not believe they have a problem. Waiting for self-identification is not a strategy. It is avoidance. Workplaces already set expectations around attendance, performance, and safety. Extending that framework to include access to support is not intrusive, it is consistent. It protects the individual, but just as importantly, it protects the business and the people around them.

The companies that are beginning to address this are not doing so because it is fashionable. They are doing it because it works. They retain employees they would otherwise lose. They reduce avoidable claims and disruptions. They build more stable, reliable teams.

In a labor market where experience is difficult to replace, that is not a soft benefit. It is a competitive advantage. South Florida has something most regions do not – an established recovery infrastructure that people travel across the country to access.

That expertise remains largely disconnected from the workplaces that need it most. If we are serious about South Florida being the “Recovery Capital of the World,” that identity cannot stop at the doors of treatment centers. It must extend into the workplace – into the policies, partnerships, and decisions that businesses make every day.

Right now, too many companies are making expensive decisions under the assumption that termination is the only option.

It isn’t, and the businesses that recognize that clearly, early, and decisively will not just spend less. They will run stronger, safer, and more resilient companies.

Dr. Rachel Docekal is CEO of the Hanley Foundation, which is located in West Palm Beach and is the largest provider of addiction prevention services in Florida.