As the working world has continually adapted and shifted to meet the demands of a post-COVID world, the workforce has had to adapt and shift right along with it. For many, the days of self-managed, remote work and long commutes, as well as mandated office time, are now once again the norm.
All of this change has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the mental health of many tech professionals who have been affected substantially, but to what degree? Is the Salesforce ecosystem or the wider tech space currently facing a mental health problem?
Mental Health in the Workplace: The Tech Field
Mental health in the workplace has been studied for a considerable amount of time, and is an effort supported by several organizations, including the mental health charity Mind and the workplace advocacy organization Acas. It is also something often explored on a more granular level by individual employees, researchers, and wellness professionals.
According to a 2025 study conducted by Vantage Fit for tech workers, the impacts of their work on their mental health were pretty considerable, with 56% of tech workers surveyed saying they were unable to relax once the workday was over. In conjunction with this, more than half (52%) of people who work in tech experience depression or anxiety.
Depression and anxiety, especially when linked to the workplace, can be caused by several factors, but burnout is often cited as a leading cause.
According to Psychology Today, burnout refers to a “state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress”, most often “caused by problems at work”. In fact, according to the Burnout Index, 42% of tech workers at high risk of burnout considered quitting their jobs within six months.
This should come as no surprise – even The World Economic Forum has reported that work is indeed getting harder as “employees drown in digital overload”, and the job market remains difficult to enter and under pressure from an ever-present skills gap.
Other general life factors, such as a possible looming recession, stormy political environment, and cost-of-living concerns, also play a considerable part.
Is AI Impacting This?
Although the rise of artificial intelligence is a thrilling trend that many tech professionals are excited about and actively embracing, it is also one that has presented an underlying threat ever since it became clear just how powerful it can be.
In the context of jobs and the workplace, AI has been cited as both an accelerator for work and a replacement, especially in the Salesforce ecosystem. In fact, it was Copado’s CEO, Ted Elliot, who said earlier this year: “either get on with it [AI] and participate, or start digging your own grave.”
The World Economic Forum recently reported that 41% of companies around the world plan to reduce their workforces by 2030 because of AI, and it goes without saying, but the impact this will have on jobs and the hierarchy of workforces is monumental.
We’re also already watching part of this play out: the “quiet erosion” of entry-level jobs, as coined by industry analyst Vernon Keenan.
If you needed any more evidence that this is happening right now, then you would just need to turn to Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, who recently warned the US government that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years.
What’s Happening in the Salesforce Ecosystem?
For Salesforce professionals in particular, most are likely to be facing many of the aforementioned impacts, alongside the fact that the job market is very much saturated, and that the platform seems to be speedily shifting away from expanding many of its core offerings in favor of going full steam ahead with AI.
In 2022, Salesforce Consultant Safiyyah Gareeboo conducted research into mental well-being across the Salesforce ecosystem. Among professionals working in consulting, just 27% said their work had a positive impact on their mental health, while 36% reported a negative impact. Additionally, one in three professionals reported “feeling out of their depth” at work – a figure that is most likely to have increased since then due to the changes in the market.
Spotlight on Salesforce Admins
Earlier this year, we released our latest Salesforce Admin survey results here at Salesforce Ben, and our findings painted the clearest picture of admins’ well-being that we’ve seen in years.
Interestingly, one of the most notable findings highlighted the often unseen parts of the community and their own unique experience with mental health. Just over one in ten (12%) of respondents of the survey admitted to having a disability, and 83% of respondents with a disability reported to suffer from mental or cognitive health conditions.
The reporting and diagnosis of mental health issues have been on the rise over the last couple of decades, and according to Dr Lade Smith CBE, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, this rise is being directly attributed to “real societal challenges and lack of available treatment”.
“This crisis is having a substantial impact on people’s lives, the health service and the economy,” she said.
In the workplace, this truly highlights the rising importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, and in turn, how detrimental the dismantling of them is and will be on the workforce. This has already affected companies like Salesforce, which has dropped its diversity hiring targets, and if the measures continue, this problem will only worsen exponentially.
Final Thoughts
There is evidently a present and growing mental health problem in both the Salesforce ecosystem and the wider tech space, likely accelerated by changing work conditions, life struggles, and an unsatisfactory level of support.
As these issues continue to evolve, and other issues such as the unpredictability of AI’s growth continue to present an interesting work dynamic, employers and organizations should be thinking about their employees’ mental health in the same regard as their physical – just like a virus, mental health issues can run rampant if left untreated.
We are all much closer to the work we do than ever before, and we, too, should be advocating for the support and conditions we need to thrive in the workplace. Employers – listen to your employees, support them, and uplift their voices. Employees – make sure that you are heard, you are catered for, and that you are treated not just as a number.
Solving a mental health crisis isn’t a task to be performed overnight, but the first step is getting the word out, which I hope, after reading this, you have the motivation to do.
