Houston expert shares 3 ways to stay on top of employee mental health

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Companies that intentionally focus on their employees’ mental well-being will reap the benefits of a happier, healthier workforce. Photo via Getty Images

Conversations surrounding mental health have come to the forefront of business and is an imperative aspect that cannot be ignored by business leaders.

Approximately 20 percent of Americans, which is 50 million people (about twice the population of Texas), are experiencing a mental illness, 15 percent of Americans had a substance use disorder in the past year and nearly 5 percent, over 12.1 million adults, reported serious thoughts of suicide (Mental Health America). Notably, certain professions, such as construction, exhibit higher suicide rates, (CDC). With these staggering numbers, the foundation of workplace safety extends beyond physical well-being to encompass psychological health.

The landscape has undergone a transformation, stemming from the pandemic, and the stigma of mental health concerns and seeking help has loosened. Recognizing that September is Suicide Prevention Month, below are three ways businesses of every size can actively support the mental well-being of their employees.

Be Open

Long hours, physical strain and financial pressures can take a toll on employees. Many people are apprehensive to talk about mental health issues and feel it may show a sign of weakness.

Helping employees move mental health topics into everyday conversation begins with open communication. When leadership and managers listen to employees, they create an outlet for them to freely discuss their experiences and act if needed. Leadership sets the tone, and when leaders openly discuss mental health, it creates a ripple effect that encourages employees to feel more comfortable sharing their own experiences. By taking the lead in breaking the silence, leaders play a crucial role in dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health issues, fostering a workplace culture where open conversations and support are not just welcomed but embraced.

At Skanska in Houston and North Texas, we have gone as far as providing mental health first aid courses, which we call our “green sticker” program. Those who are willing to go through the training on how to talk with colleagues who may need to discuss challenges are given a green sticker to wear on their hard hat. This signifies to everyone on a job site that they are trained to discuss mental health issues and life’s challenges. In turn, these first aiders can direct them to the right resources for more in-depth assistance. Doing a simple thing like this helps break the silence and promotes mental well-being on the job site and in the workplace.

Provide Support

Shifting the workplace culture to include more open discussions has an incredible impact on employees. There are also policies companies can establish to make mental health and well-being more actionable. Employers can offer rotating mental health days or offer flexibility, which makes it easier for workers to ask for time off for a doctor’s visit or therapy session.

Also providing benefits like an employee assistance program (EAP), which is an anonymous way employees can seek mental health services or other resources for the root of the problem, such as financial and legal counseling, shows support. Employer-sponsored health screenings promote overall employee wellness, but it is another avenue where employees can address their own mental health and wellbeing in a private setting.

Stay Focused

Mental health and wellbeing concerns are much harder to spot than physical ailments, but they can have dire consequences if they are not addressed. Once the conversations start and the support is in place, it is not a time to become complacent. Leadership and managers need to continue to have regular conversations with their staff, which can help pinpoint when someone is struggling. Regular training for staff, even if they are not a mental health first aider, will help everyone stay vigilant in taking care of their own and watching out for their colleagues’ mental health.

There are numerous stressors in the workplace and when they are coupled with personal stressors, workers can be stretched thin. Companies that intentionally focus on their employees’ mental well-being will reap the benefits of a happier, healthier workforce.

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Dennis Yung is executive vice president and general manager at Skanska, one of the world's leading project development and construction groups, where he oversees building operations for Houston and North Texas.

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In a world of driver-less cars and artificial intelligence, companies have an increased need to focus on safety in the workplace. Getty Images

How to mitigate increasing tech-related risks in the workplace, according to this Houston expert

Play it safe

New technologies — driverless vehicles, delivery drones, and AI — are making an accelerated push into operational excellence across industries, and are generating a lot of attention. Hype notwithstanding, we need to also think also about safety and risk and how to prevent safety incidents before they occur so that safety operates in partnership with new technologies and innovation.

Today, safety as process that is wrapped into ones' organizational culture requiring companies to look beyond intended performance and innovation breakthroughs, to their own assumptions about safety. And how it works and does not work, despite best efforts, financial investments and operations programs that are intended to create a culture that is incident free in the workplace.

When firmly in place, an effective safety culture instills an environment where employees differentiate between events which, while detrimental to performance, have low probability of generating an incident, and those with seemingly minimal impact on performance, yet high probability of escalation into full-blown safety incidents, accidents and sometimes deaths.

Six safety principles

Creating safety in the workplace requires a new and different mindset which incorporates six sustainable safety behaviors:

Leadership consistently practice positive regard and good intent to articulate, demonstrate and reinforce employee behaviors that exemplify a commitment to safety.
Leadership clearly communicate safety objectives and provide employees information to enable and empower employees to make value-based decisions and set priorities consistent with their levels of accountability and roles in the organization.
Leadership supports employees identifying real and perceived barriers to a safe environment in compliance with policies, regulations and risks.
Leadership practice positive employee regard to encourage, and assume good intent to accept, constructive challenges to policies and practices that have little or no value.
Leadership support and create an environment in which commitment to identify risks during the course of one's work activities and take action, when first seen, creates a mindset that will genuinely transform the organization.
Leaders are visible and consistently viewed by employees as champions of safety every day.

Safety mindset threats

Many current safety efforts occur after the incident takes place. In other words, after an injury happens — someone falls off a lift, for example — actions are taken to prevent similar injuries in the future. This is known as reactive safety and is not an ideal solution. If we can determine the why of an accident, safety can become proactive.

An effective safety program trains everyone, and encourages safety precautions, as well as strives to understand and reduce risk, rather than waiting for an accident to occur.

With an effective safety program in place your focus is always on preventing injuries before they occur and targeting 80 to 90 percent of the risk. Through utilization of this kind of process worker-controlled program, precautions can prevent injuries, reinforces these behaviors, identifies and removes systems, conditions and obstacles that make it difficult or impossible to take the right precautions.

In addition, employees may be practicing vicious compliance, in contrast to authentic commitment to process safety, in which they follow management's policies, procedures and other mandates "to the letter", even in situations where other choices would make more sense.

The workforce may act unilaterally based on their own assumptions, for example:

"They talk a good game about process safety, but I know it's really about getting the work done. I'll operate to get the desired production rate, even if this pushes the equipment to its limit." Indeed, the oft-ignored employee assumption and resulting belief is that production trumps process safety.

Employees' reliance upon personal experience to evaluate risk of low-frequency events: "As an employee, my experience teaches me that I've worn my personal protective equipment 100 times and there has never been an incident. So, if I don't wear it this one time, especially since I am so busy, it seems to me that the associated risk of an incident is quite low. So, why does management constantly 'get on me' about wearing it? Aren't there more important issues facing us?"

Routine behavior often includes silence or compliance, but with little challenge of issues or conversation about what could or might happen. As a result, management may perceive that all is well when in fact employees have significant concerns and issues.

To avoid major safety incidents, both known and unknown, an organization can take process safety to the next level by:

Exploring and challenging deeply-held beliefs, values, and assumptions by examining the underlying antecedents of process safety behaviors and utilizing new technology systems that shut down operation when a safety situation is first detected before an incident occurs.
Achieving the desired operational discipline, including paperless documentation, setting expectations, defining critical cyber secure procedures, and linking executive bonuses to achieving safety goals.
Focus on practicing a leveraged safety program that delivers results in the most effective and efficient mean possible by frequently focusing on decreasing threats, risks and increasing attention and communications to prevention, detection and correction.

The ultimate effective safety process and program relies upon effective use of new technologies in the workplace self- and organizational awareness, and the constant, never-ending focus on safety everyday and minute that we spend in the workplace.

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Mark Hordes is principal at Houston-based Mark Hordes Management Consultants LLC, an organizational consulting advisory.

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Houston claims 19% of Texas’ new live-work-play growth

by the numbers

In Texas, Houston is a big player in the live-work-play real estate movement.

A new 21-city analysis from coworking marketplace CoworkingCafe shows the Houston area added five live-work-play projects—mixed-use developments with residential, office and recreational components—over the past decade.

From 2016 to 2025, Houston accounted for 19 percent of Texas’ new live-work-play inventory, the analysis shows. Among the new local developments were Arrive Upper Kirby, St. Andrie, and The Laura:

Arrive Upper Kirby, which was sold in 2021 for $182 million, offers more than 61,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space adjacent to apartments and offices. The 13-story, 265,000-square-foot project was completed in 2017.
St. Andrie, a 32-acre, mixed-use community, was completed in 2019. The apartment-anchored development includes an H-E-B grocery store and 37,000 square feet of office space.
The Laura, spanning 110,000 square feet, was completed in 2023. Among the apartment complex’s amenities is a coworking space.

According to Northspyre, a software provider for real estate developers, live-work-play projects enable people to meet their needs, such as housing, workplaces, stores, restaurants, and recreation facilities, in a single place.

A total of 542 live-work-play developments opened between 2016 and 2025 in the 21 cities, with another 69 in the pipeline for 2026, CoworkingCafe says. Among major markets, New York City made up the largest share (119) of new live-work-play developments from 2016 to 2025.

The Houston area’s five projects were built in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024, and 2025, CoworkingCafe data indicates, with another project scheduled for completion next year. The Greater Houston Partnership recently highlighted four mixed-use projects taking shape in the region, but only one of them is scheduled to be finished in 2027. It can take two to five years or more to complete a mixed-use development.

Of the five Houston developments finished in the past decade, 56 percent of the space went toward multifamily units, 29 percent toward offices, and 16 percent toward retail, CoworkingCafe says.

As noted by the Houston-Galveston Area Council, economic development in the 21st century “is about cultivating quality live-work-play environments that attract, retain, and grow a diverse and skilled population. Employers and businesses are increasingly choosing to make long-term investments in places that connect and engage people to strengthen economic competitiveness and promote innovation.”

With eight completed projects, Austin led construction of live-work-play developments in Texas from 2016 to 2025, according to CoworkingCafe. Dallas, which welcomed five live-work-play developments during that period, tied with Houston. San Antonio data wasn’t available.

Rice Business Plan Competition awards $1.4M to 2026 student teams

winner, winners

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the total amount of investment and cash prizes awarded at the RBPC and with additional information from Rice.

Another team from the Great Lakes State took home top honors and investments at this year's Rice Business Plan Competition.

BRCĒ, a material-tech startup from Michigan State University, took home the top-place finish and the largest investment total at the annual Houston event. It has developed Lattice-Grip technology to create utility-based polymers that can replace traditional fabric. The materials are stronger, fire-resistant and more stable than traditional textiles, according to the company. Last year, the University of Michigan's Intero Biosystems won first-place finish and the largest investment total of $902,000.

In total, the RBPC doled out more than $1.4 million in investment and cash prizes, according to Rice. Over the three-day event, held April 9-11, the 42 competing startups presented their business plans to 300 angel, venture capital and corporate investors. Seven finalists were selected.

Three Texas teams, including one from Houston, were named among the finalists. Here's who won big this year, with their investment totals and some of their awards listed below.

BRCĒ, Michigan State University — $611,500

The recent Shark Tank alum finished in first place for its utility-based polymers technology.

$200,000 Goose Capital Investment Grand Prize
$100,000 The OWL Investment Prize
$100,000 Houston Angel Network Investment Prize
$75,000 The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Texas Angels Investment Prize
$50,000 nCourage Investment Network’s Courageous Women Entrepreneur Investment Prize
$25,000 New Climate Ventures Sustainable Investment Prize
$20,000 Aramco Innovator Cash Prize
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prize
$500 Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition Prize – Consumer Hard Tech

Legion Platforms, Arizona State University — $535,500

The startup won second place for its multiplayer gaming platform that can be accessed with slow internet speeds.

$100,000 Anderson Family Fund & Finger Interests Second Place Investment Prize
$200,000 Goose Capital Investment Prize
$100,000 The OWL Investment Prize
$25,000 Pearland EDC Spirit of Entrepreneurship Cash Prize
$500 Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition Prize – Consumer

Imagine Devices, University of Texas at Austin — $111,000

The pediatric medical device company won third place for its multifunction neonatal feeding tube, known as Trinity Tube

$50,000 Anderson Family Fund & Finger Interests Third Place Investment Prize
$25,000 Pearland EDC Spirit of Entrepreneurship Cash Prize
$25,000 The Eagle Investors Investment Prize
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prize

Altaris MedTech, University of Arkansas – $16,000

The startup won fourth place for its pain-free strep test.

$5,000 Norton Rose Fulbright Fourth Place Prize
$1,000 Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition Prize — Overall Winner

Routora, University of Notre Dame & University of Texas at Austin – $15,500

The team won fifth place for its route optimization app that works to reduce fuel costs, travel time and carbon emissions

$5,000 Chevron Fifth Place Prize
$500 Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition Prizes — Digital

DialySafe, Rice University — $15,500

The startup won sixth place for its technology that aims to make at-home peritoneal dialysis simpler and safer.

$5,000 ExxonMobil Sixth Place Prize
$500 Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition Prizes — Life Science

Arrow Analytics, Texas A&M University – $16,000

The startup won seventh place for its AI-powered sizing system for carry-on baggage.

$5,000 Shell Ventures Seventh Place Prize
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prizes

Other significant prizes included:

BiliRoo, University of Michigan – $26,000

$25,000 Southwest National Pediatric Device Consortium Pediatric Device Cash Prize
$1,000 Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prizes

BeamFeed, City University of New York – $25,000

$25,000 Amentum and WRX Companies Rising Stars Space Technology and Commercial Aerospace Cash Prize

Grapheon, University of Pittsburgh — $20,000

$20,000 Aramco Innovator Cash Prize

A total of $75,000 in in-kind legal services was awarded to all finalists. The grand prize winner, BRCĒ, also received a chief financial officer consulting prize worth $40,000. Each competing startup received at least $950 in prizes for placement in the competition.

“The Rice Business Plan Competition has grown into far more than a competition—it’s a proving ground for founders and a catalyst for real company formation, as well as a catalyst for building the Houston entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Brad Burke, associate vice president of Rice Innovation and executive director of Rice Alliance, said in a news release. This year's event was Burke’s final RBPC after nearly 25 years of leadership.

Last year, the Rice Business Plan Competition facilitated over $2 million in investment and cash prizes. According to Rice, more than 910 startups have raised more than $6.9 billion in capital through the competition over the last 25 years.

See a full list of this year's winners and stream rounds from the competition here.

Here's the income it takes to live comfortably in Houston in 2026

Money Talk

2026 report analyzing how much it costs to live "in sustainable comfort" in the biggest U.S. cities has found Houston residents have the 11th lowest salary requirement to live a comfortable life in 2026.

SmartAsset's annual report found single adult residents in Houston need to make $89,981 a year to qualify as "financially stable." Compared to last year, single Houstonians needed to make $83 more to live comfortably in the city.

Families with two working parents and two children need to make a household income of $204,672 to have a financially stable life in Houston, the report found. That's almost $2,000 less than what families needed to make last year.

To determine the rankings, SmartAsset's analysts examined 100 of the largest U.S. cities and used the latest cost of living data – such as the costs for housing, food, transportation, and income taxes where applicable – from the MIT Living Wage Calculator for childless individuals and for two working adults with two children.

For the purpose of the study, the 50/30/20 budgeting strategy was used to determine "comfortable lifestyle" costs for both individuals and families: 50 percent of income to cover needs and living expenses, 30 percent for "wants," and 20 percent for savings or paying down debt.

Here's breakdown of a Houston resident's comfortable lifestyle based on SmartAsset's findings:

$44,991 dedicated to needs and living expenses
$26,994 dedicated to wants
$17,996 dedicated to savings or debt repayment

This is SmartAsset's interpretation of a comfortable lifestyle for families of four:

$102,336 dedicated to needs and living expenses
$61,402 dedicated to wants
$40,934 dedicated to savings or debt repayment

SmartAsset said single individuals and families should compare the fluctuating local cost of living and their long-term goals to fully "understand the context" of their respective household incomes. But it's worth pointing out that a financially stable life in Houston isn't quite attainable for many residents: The city had a median household income of $64,361 in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Comfortable salaries in other Texas cities

Elsewhere in Texas, the report found that families in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs Frisco and McKinney "are closest to a comfortable salary."

"In Frisco, the median household earns $145,444 – substantially higher than the national median of $83,730," the report's author wrote. "This figure also accounts for 63.1 percent of the $230,464 income a family of four in Frisco needs to live comfortably. In McKinney, TX, the $124,177 median household income accounts for 53.9 percent of the $230,464 needed."

Both cities also tied with Plano for the 29th highest salary needed nationally to live comfortably in 2026. Single adults living in these cities need to make $109,242 a year to live a financially stable life this year.

On the opposite end, San Antonio has the lowest salaries needed to live comfortably in the U.S. Single adults only need to make $83,242 a year, and $192,608 for families of four.

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