Employees’ mental health issues present significant challenges for organizations globally. Despite various support mechanisms, systemic stigmatization of people with mental health challenges endures. I will draw on my research and policy work over the last 8 years which focuses on purposeful employment of people with lived experience of mental health. I will offer a broad overview of this research program which included work carried out both in the mental health sector and in other sectors in Australia, with the hope that the lived experience concept can be understood and adopted more broadly in management research and practice.