It usually starts with someone hovering near your desk. They ask if you’ve got a minute, tell you they’re fine, and then say something that clearly isn’t fine at all. If you’re an EA, PA or Office Manager, this probably happens to you more than it happens to almost anyone else in the building. We are talking about supporting your colleagues’ mental health…
You’re visible, you’re approachable, and you handle confidential things every day without making a drama of it. People notice that, and over time it quietly turns you into the person they come to first, long before they’d think about ringing HR or putting something in their manager’s diary.
Nobody trains you for that part of the job. Here’s how to handle it well, without ending up carrying more than is yours to carry.
Why it tends to land on you
Assistants sit in an unusual position. You’re close enough to the leadership to know what’s really going on, and far enough outside the reporting line to feel like a safe person to talk to. You also see the early signals before anyone else does. PA Life has already looked at how to spot the signs a colleague is struggling, and assistants often clock those signs weeks ahead of the rest of the business, because you see who’s arriving late, who’s cancelling what, and whose diary has quietly stopped making sense.
That makes you genuinely useful, and it also means these conversations find you whether you went looking for them or not.
What to say in the moment
The most useful thing you can do is stay quiet for longer than feels comfortable.
Most people who open up at work have rehearsed roughly one sentence. If you jump in with reassurance, that’s often all you’ll get. Leave the pause and let them fill it.
When you do speak, ask something open rather than something that can be answered with a yes. “How long has it been feeling like this?” gets you further than “are you all right?”, which almost everyone answers with “fine”. Reflect back what you’ve heard in their own words, so they can hear that you were actually listening.
A few things worth swerving. Try not to compare their situation to yours, because it moves the focus onto you. Skip the silver linings such as “At least you’ve still got the job”, as this lands as a full stop, not comfort. Just as important is to resist naming what might be going on, however confident you feel. A label from a colleague sticks in a way that’s hard to shift.
You don’t need the right words, just be someone who didn’t flinch.
Knowing where the line sits with supporting colleagues’ mental health in the workplace
This is the part assistants find hardest, because the instinct that makes you good at the job is the one that gets you into trouble here. You fix things. Someone tells you they’re struggling and every reflex starts looking for the fix.
Being supportive and being responsible are two different things. You can listen well, take someone seriously and help them find the right door without becoming their ongoing source of support. Nobody can do that second job unpaid, alongside a full workload, for a colleague they also have to work with every day.
Confidentiality is where it gets genuinely awkward, particularly when the person confiding in you reports to the executive you support. Be honest about it early on, and indicate that you can promise to be discreet. You can’t promise to keep everything to yourself forever, and saying so at the start is much fairer than deciding later. If you’re ever worried about someone’s immediate safety, that’s the point where discretion stops being the priority. Acas has clear guidance on supporting mental health at work that’s worth reading before you need it, especially the sections on duty of care and reasonable adjustments.
One more boundary that catches people out involves passing something on to your boss because it feels relevant. That’s rarely as harmless as it seems, so if you think something needs to be escalated, tell the person first.
Why encouragement isn’t enough
Here’s the part that surprises most assistants. By the time someone confides in you, they’ve usually already considered getting proper help and talked themselves out of it. They’re not waiting for you to suggest it. They’ve thought of it and dismissed it.
This is where a bit of preparation pays off. It’s worth familiarising yourself with your own employee assistance programme, whether people can ring it themselves, how many sessions it covers, and what the real wait is, so the facts can genuinely be useful when the questions come. Running a good office wellness week reaches people you’ll never have this conversation with, and it’s a different job from sitting with one person who’s struggling in front of you.
The three things people have already told themselves about mental health support
Almost always, people who have considered reaching out and then dismissed it have done so for one of three reasons. Each one comes apart with a single accurate sentence, provided you know the answer.
1. Permission feels required
They believe they need permission whether via a referral, a diagnosis, or a GP appointment they can’t get for three weeks. In England, anyone can refer themselves directly to NHS talking therapies without going through a GP at all, and private services are simply booked, the same as any other appointment. That one fact alone removes the obstacle for a lot of people.
2. It’s seen as a huge commitment
In their head, asking for help means signing up to something open-ended that they’ll have to explain to their manager. In practice most services begin with a short introductory conversation about whether it’s the right fit, and many work with no set number of sessions. Hope Therapy and Counselling Services sets out what anxiety counselling actually involves, first appointment included, which is worth ten minutes of your time simply so you can describe the process accurately instead of vaguely. Being able to say “the first one is really just a chat about whether it suits you” is more persuasive than any amount of encouragement.
3. They picture the wrong thing
It’s very easy to picture the wrong thing entirely, and plenty of people still imagine years of excavating their childhood, when a lot of what’s offered for stress and anxiety is short, structured and focused on the present. Knowing roughly what the different approaches do lets you correct that picture without overselling anything. None of this makes you an expert. It’s the same skill you use when someone asks about the expenses system, and purely involves you knowing enough to give a straight answer.
The part nobody asks about
As an EA or PA you’ve absorbed a lot of other people’s difficult weeks, and you’ve probably never mentioned it to anyone.
That builds up and assistants are especially prone to letting it happen, partly because the role rewards being unflappable, and partly because it can feel self-indulgent to be affected by something that technically wasn’t happening to you. It was happening near you, repeatedly, and that counts.
Give yourself somewhere for it to go. That might be a peer in the same role at another company, a supervision-style catch up with someone in HR, or your own counselling if it’s sitting heavily. Mind has practical advice on coping while supporting someone else that’s aimed squarely at people in exactly this position.
Being the person everyone confides in says something good about how you work. Just make sure someone is asking how you are, too.
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