September is Suicide Prevention month. Together with our colleague and consultant Brandon, we broach the often-avoided topic of mental health in the workplace and promise to equip you with some real, tangible resources –NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE Dial, #988, for the CRISIS HOTLINE Dial #211, or check out the resources the Department of Labor has to offer at, https://www.dol.gov/general/mental-health-at-work?_ga=
In this episode we explore the importance of mental health benefits such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and why you should explore and familiarize yourself with the resources your organization offers. We touch on proactive listening. There are many resources available, please don't limit yourself to just what we covered in this episode.
Connect with us:
Email the podcast.
Join us on Instagram - we appreciate your support!
Dana Dowdell - Boss Consulting - @bossconsultinghr - @hrfanatic
September is Suicide Prevention month. Together with our colleague and consultant Brandon, we broach the often-avoided topic of mental health in the workplace and promise to equip you with some real, tangible resources –NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE Dial, #988, for the CRISIS HOTLINE Dial #211, or check out the resources the Department of Labor has to offer at, https://www.dol.gov/general/mental-health-at-work?_ga=
In this episode we explore the importance of mental health benefits such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and why you should explore and familiarize yourself with the resources your organization offers. We touch on proactive listening. There are many resources available, please don't limit yourself to just what we covered in this episode.
Connect with us:
Email the podcast.
Join us on Instagram - we appreciate your support!
Dana Dowdell - Boss Consulting - @bossconsultinghr - @hrfanatic
This episode is brought to you by the Essential Skills for Supervisors training offered by Boss Consulting HR. If you're a new supervisor or a green supervisor or you just feel like you need to refine your skills, it's a great training for you. It's offered online and we cover all of the basics of onboarding, performance management, having difficult conversations, interviewing, compliance everything that you need to know to be a better manager. So if you're interested in checking out the training, we have one coming up soon and if you head on over to bossconsultinghrcom forward slash training, you can sign up for our next session.
Dana Dowdell:Welcome back to Quirky HR. I am joined again by Brandon, who is a consultant on the Boss Consulting HR team and has taken over all things Quirky HR, and he came up with a great idea for this week's episode, because we're about to head into Suicide Prevention Month, which is September, and we have had some conversations on the podcast about employee assistance programs, right, which we. I think if you work in HR, you know about EAPs, but we're going to take it a bit further and give you some resources on how to support employees who might be dealing with something significant from a mental health perspective. So, brandon, welcome back to Quirky HR.
Brandon Chance:Can't get enough of it.
Dana Dowdell:I know it's like once you do one podcast, it's like you can't. You just can't stop.
Brandon Chance:I do want to tell the listeners that I will do my best to make sure the resources that we mentioned will be linked in the bio.
Dana Dowdell:Yeah, they'll be in the show, and I think it's also important. You know, you and I are not mental health professionals and suicide is something that I have very little experience, with Little experience or knowledge of, and I think it's important to just say at the beginning, in that some of this conversation might be triggering. So be mindful, you know, if it's, if it's triggering for you, don't don't listen, don't, don't, don't indulge, but also, if you're struggling and you're having thoughts of hurting yourself or hurting someone else, get help that you need. Because you know, brandon and I are not not medical professionals, we're not mental health professionals, we're just HR professionals, and our goal with this episode is to shed some light on resources for leaders and other HR professionals regarding mental health resources.
Brandon Chance:So I agree, and I think, in a weird way, this is one of the reasons why I don't know about you, like was drawn to HR. It's it's the ability to help people in need and provide resources that they might not otherwise know exists. Like you said, we're not health care professionals or anything like that by by any stretch, but the ability to say hey, like if, if you're struggling, maybe check this out, these are some people that can help. I think also a good point of HR, or a good ability in HR, is the ability to know when your abilities and somebody else should take over. And in this instance, yes, once again, we're not, we're not health care professionals, but we can do our best to make sure that you find the appropriate care for your particular situation or somebody you know, maybe.
Dana Dowdell:Absolutely. Yeah, I mean I, you know, luckily have not experienced a suicide at any of our clients or in my professional career with employees, but I have had to do wellness checks on employees and that's kind of nerve wracking and scary. And so you know, I think if you've been working in an HR capacity for a bit, it might be something that you've you've experienced or had to experience, and you know, I think we're heading into a seasonal shift and so it's a really good time to start having this conversation.
Brandon Chance:I agree, as we were talking about before we started recording, it's pumpkin spice season and for a lot of people that's super exciting, means the holidays are coming, all is coming. For many people it's a great time of year, but I also think for many other people it it's okay. Well, summer is over. Now the darkness is going to set in, the weather changes, the leaves are falling, daylight changes. Once again, the holidays.
Brandon Chance:There could be any number of reasons why somebody might not be doing well around the holidays and school. School is a big thing as well, and it's it could be a parent with a child in school. It could be. If you have young employees, if you have part-time workers that are working for you after school, what kind of stresses are they under? Are they working for you, staying up till three o'clock in the morning so they can get specific grades, and then doing practice at six o'clock in the morning for the sport that they do and perform on weekends, and what is their expectation for a college student? There's any number of reasons, but I do think this time of year it kind of the pendulum shifts a little bit.
Dana Dowdell:Yeah, it's a. It's a, I think, for a lot of people it's high pressure, there's a lot of things that are happening and you know it can it can bleed into work. So you did a ton of research for this episode, and so why don't you start by telling the listeners a bit about some of the resources that you found?
Brandon Chance:Well, the first thing I came across was the number 988, which you can dial, and that's the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. I actually called it myself. I wouldn't necessarily encourage everybody to call it. I called it for this episode, just to see what they have to offer. I'm a firm believer in if I'm going to recommend something, I kind of want to know what it's about. So I can tell you in that experience I called. It was an automation to begin with, which I was kind of surprised about, but not. They do have a Spanish option.
Brandon Chance:And actually when I did end up speaking to somebody, they said that they also have translators available. So no matter what language you speak, they can provide help for you. The hotline is completely confidential. You can call it, no matter if you're trying to do something at the moment or if you've just had a thought because things aren't going too well. What they do is they try and do their best to identify and de-escalate the situation.
Brandon Chance:One thing that I found interesting was they also work on safety plans. So hypothetically say and this was the example that was given to me on the phone was if you're in a room with some medication that can potentially be harmful, that you're thinking about taking, then they would try and work with you to figure out a plan to say, okay, well, is there somebody else around you that you can give the medication to you to take away that extra step? Can you put it in a different room and just try and separate it and different plans to try and create more of a separation between a thought and perhaps an ability or something readily available and just take a step back. I thought the safety plan thing was really interesting and how they described it. They also asked you about your support system. They will stay on the phone with you for absolutely as long as you need they will.
Brandon Chance:Also, I asked if there was the ability, if you were speaking to one person, whether or not you could be reconnected with that person in the future, which typically is not the case. But if, say, hypothetically, I were to have a two or three-hour plus just blah session with a particular counselor, that counselor, who I was speaking to, would follow up just to make sure that everything was hopefully shifting in the right direction. I think the follow-up is really important, especially from what I would call a call center like that, and it does have the connection where you are going to, for the most part, speak with who you were speaking with before. However, if you call again, you're not going to be connected to the person that you were connected to in the first place.
Dana Dowdell:It's just a random assignment. It sounds like.
Brandon Chance:Yeah, because, similar to us, they're not necessarily healthcare professionals. They're there to provide resources and somebody to talk to. Something else that I was informed about from them was they also have a number, 211 crisis hotline, which is a little bit less than, but they still have the same abilities. So if you just need to talk and say, oh, my boyfriend left me I'm not thinking bad thoughts, I'm not thinking about harming myself or anybody else, but I'm going through something right now and I just need to talk and I don't have anybody to talk to, or I'm afraid that the people that I do have available may judge me, or I just have something to get off my chest, then you can call the 211 crisis hotline and if you find yourself in a long conversation with somebody on that, then perhaps say you know what? Now we've built this rapport, I can tell you that I've thought about hurting myself or somebody else or something along those lines, then they're also equipped to deal with that escalation from that hotline. Because that was a question that I had whether or not, if somebody called that hotline, whether or not they would have to transfer to the suicide hotline if things escalated. But they all have the same training, thank you.
Brandon Chance:So, depending on your stance as an employer, if you're trying to gauge somebody's willingness to call, I think that might be a better option, in that it doesn't say suicide in the name. So it might create a situation where somebody is a little more willing to call, maybe a little bit more trusting on the information that they might get from the other side. I believe if you're going to call the suicide hotline, then somebody might be a little bit more apprehensive, saying okay. Well, with that connotation, what kind of action are they going to take based on my situation right now? Are the police going to show up at my door If I say that I'm thinking about taking this drug and it's an illegal drug? Am I going to be reported? So I think perhaps leaning toward the crisis hotline in certain situations might be a better option.
Dana Dowdell:Well, I know too, with EAPs. I swear by EAPs. I think they're a fantastic resource and I know we're going to touch on them in a little bit, but it's always the employee's concern, as how confidential is it? And so, as a practitioner, an HR or a leader, anyone that has employees, or just people you care about, having an alternative for them to reach out to or an alternative resource is a great thing to have.
Brandon Chance:I agree. I will say they were very keyed into their confidentiality, but they didn't necessarily say or skirt away from the fact that there sometimes is a duty to report and, from an HR perspective, if you are and likely are in HR as a listener, you can understand that If there is an immediate potential for harm or if somebody already has harmed themselves and they're going to need an ambulance, then there is a duty to report.
Dana Dowdell:Yeah, it also sounds like they have some other resources, like specific resources or specific support for certain groups Like veterans, LGBTQ individuals, correct?
Brandon Chance:Yes, actually I thought that was extremely interesting when I called that. Part of that prompt is if you're a veteran, press one. If you're part of the LGBT community, press two, so that way they can connect you with somebody that might better be able to connect with you on a personal level. I can only imagine being in that situation would take either of those groups and say, okay, well, how can you relate to my situation if you're not LGBT, if you're not part of the community.
Dana Dowdell:How can you If you've never experienced it?
Brandon Chance:How can you relate what I'm going through if you personally have never been in combat, for instance? So I was very surprised about that. I was also, as I said, extremely surprised that they can accommodate just about any different language.
Dana Dowdell:Which is fantastic, because mental health struggles are, they don't discriminate. They can impact anyone and everyone. So Department of Labor actually just released some resources for employers on supporting mental health, and I know you looked a little bit into that. So what did you find?
Brandon Chance:I did. They have tons of posters that you can put up in your organization, which I think is kind of fantastic. If you are going to choose to put those up, I might choose to put them up in places other than where you put the labor law stuff, because I don't know how much, like how they would grab the eye of the average employee if that's where they go, because you know all that stuff is in the break room. But, in all honesty, who's really reading it? Not to say that it isn't valuable. I believe, just like with DEI training or sexual harassment training, like even if you hear the same thing over and over and over again, there's a muscle memory to it. So I think there's a value in that, where you're able to identify things easier, even if you don't necessarily realize that you're learning. So, depending on where you put up the posters, I think they can be very valuable.
Brandon Chance:I was surprised. I also thought some of the poster content was interesting, because it didn't necessarily just direct information toward the employees. It directed the information toward all levels of the organization, which I think is very important as well, because I think it works well for the culture. I also believe that putting up posters like this creates a culture of inclusion and understanding, saying hey, we understand mental health as a thing, like here are some resources, so maybe it'll get somebody to reach out to HR or reach out to the 211 or, excuse me, the 988 hotline. Anything else I enjoyed about looking at the Department of Labor site is they have different webinars and things like that that you can go to. It actually made me think from an HR standpoint if we do have sexual harassment training and we do have DEI training, how come we don't have mental health training? They do have some resources that you could provide both yourself, management and employees as well.
Brandon Chance:So I would probably recommend doing that.
Dana Dowdell:Do you think it's because it's often stigmatized the idea of talking about mental health? I think I look at some of the challenges that employees experience outside of work and they often don't bring them up at work because they're in fear of being treated differently, being discriminated against, whether it's a disability, whether it's a mental health thing, whether it's a financial struggle, whatever. Do you think that's part of why we don't focus on it as much as maybe we should in the workplace?
Brandon Chance:I think there's a massive stigma and a substantial rift between, let's say, the lower level employees and upper, I would suppose also and management and ownership, because, especially growing up in blue collar work, it's like to admit that there's something not right is to admit that you're not right, which is implied as a weakness, not necessarily an issue. If you have a flat tire, you fix the tire. It doesn't necessarily mean you need to get rid of the car.
Dana Dowdell:It doesn't mean your car is totaled.
Brandon Chance:Exactly yeah.
Brandon Chance:It's a really good way to look at it. It's an idea that you're always going to be looked at less than it's also, I believe, from anybody's standpoint. If you have a broken arm, it's visible To admit to mental health or, I guess, more in-depth, like the reasons why you're having issues. That puts you in a very vulnerable spot because you live in your head. You go everywhere and you live in your head. That's your own reality. To open up to somebody else allows them a window into what that reality is. I believe many people separate their personal life and their work life. That's a third form of separation. You live in your own reality, in your personal life. To tell the people around you personally, that's a jump. To then go ahead and tell your employer, that's another jump. I think that's very difficult. I do think we are working toward reducing that stigma.
Dana Dowdell:You also wanted to maybe highlight some benefits that employers could offer that support mental health support.
Brandon Chance:I do. You had mentioned the EAP Also a big fan of those. I don't think they're typically advertised enough within an organization. I don't think people realize that all the connectedness for mental health. For instance, if you're struggling financially, if you're insecure, then your mental health is in danger. That insecurity can be financial. Are your investments not doing well? Are you just not making enough money at your current job? Did your spouse just get laid?
Dana Dowdell:off. There's so many different factors that can influence that.
Brandon Chance:Daycare, all kinds of stuff Sorry, A health issue. Also, there's security. What kind of access to proper nutrition do you have? How secure are you in your ability to sleep to the night instead of having to work two jobs? I think there's more than one aspect of security. That's something that employers can look into as well to see okay, what can we do? I am getting a little off-topic. I did want to mention as far as the EAP. I think it's important for especially those of you in human resources and, I would say, managers, ownership as well, to actually go on your EAP site, see what they have to offer, see how user-friendly it is. I went on a client recently and I was surprised about some of the things I found.
Brandon Chance:For instance, having the ability in a good way.
Brandon Chance:I wouldn't have thought that having potentially a 30-minute legal counsel would be available.
Brandon Chance:When I talked to somebody who represented that particular EAP, they said, yeah, anything, If you have a parking ticket that's stressing you out and you're not sure if you should go to court, take the day off and fight it, because that's a financial burden as well. Or if you want to just pay it, be done with it. If you have a will that you're not sure how to divvy up, or if you're just not sure whether or not you should invest in GameStop stock, I think that's important and I appreciated their candor in the fact that and I say GameStop stock obviously to be a little bit funny but also, at the same time, what's important to you and what's important to me isn't necessarily what's important to the employees that might be accessing this. I also think it's important to remember that and to listen and to do your best not to impose your preconceived notions about what your definition of secure is and your definition of health is, and what you think is or isn't worth a phone call.
Dana Dowdell:Or minimize what their experience is.
Brandon Chance:Absolutely.
Dana Dowdell:Yeah, one of my favorite phrases is an employee's perception is their reality. So if their perception is that their world is falling apart, that's what their experience is right now. Maybe you would experience the same thing and handle it differently or process it differently, or maybe you have better resources or different resources or a different sense of resiliency, but for that employee that's struggling, that is their perception, that is their world view. Right now it's not the time to be little.
Brandon Chance:Sometimes you just need help. It wasn't mental help with me not too long ago, but, as you know, my back was really bothering me. I thought I could take care of it, I could exercise it away, I'd be able to do stretches, this, that and the other thing, but it continued to bother me and continued to bother me. It got worse and worse and worse and then I needed to seek professional help and maybe one or two sessions with physical therapy and it unlocked it and I got it to a point where it was manageable 100% right now. But it's not. I don't think it's a whole lot different in the fact that it's like an injury, like treat it like an injury, like okay, well, maybe I need to see somebody to like physical therapy, except perhaps mental therapy, to just unlock this thing and then it becomes manageable and then you can start moving forward.
Dana Dowdell:Yeah, yeah, I mean, and there's a lot of resources here. I love the idea of providing training on it. Providing resources I'm a big fan of bringing things right to the employee, like don't wait for them to seek it out, make it visible to them, remind them that it's available to them, develop a communication campaign on notifying them of these things that are available to them.
Brandon Chance:And, from an employer standpoint, there isn't a whole lot of responsibility when it comes to mental health.
Brandon Chance:You do need to be aware that, yes, somebody can do FMLA for mental health reasons, but beyond that, there's really not a whole lot. So, just because you're not required to do something doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't, because I think all these things are what employees are looking for now, especially as the stigma of mental health is being eroded that, yeah, people do want access not only to physical healthcare, but mental health healthcare as well, and I think this is a good way to work on your total compensation package. Sure, it's a way that you can separate yourself from a different employer to be able to get that top tier candidate that you want, because I also think there's well you can look at it this way where COVID just fast forwarded everything and we ran into a situation where lots of people were leaving their job. I wonder how that would have been different if many of those jobs provided support, where the people leaving those jobs leaving for jobs that had support. Then ask yourself, as an employer, what are you doing to support your employees?
Dana Dowdell:Yeah, it all ties back into that idea of the employer value proposition. What do you offer to your employees outside of a paycheck? It doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be expensive, but mental health should definitely be a part of that value proposition.
Brandon Chance:I did an exit interview today. One of the generic questions was hey, great, how you like the job, favorite thing, least favorite thing. And then it was compensation. The employee immediately went to their paycheck. I asked them try and think about it in a broader scope. What do you think about all this company had to offer you while you were here? Then they took a minute and reflected and they're like you're right, there is a lot more.
Brandon Chance:I had flexibility. If I needed to take a mental health day, I knew that the people were going to cover for me and I wasn't going to have to do twice as much work. Yes, please keep that in mind for mental health days. For those of you that offer them, make sure it is a mental health day and try not to take all that work that that person would have done and pile that and the next day's work on the next day, because then is it really a mental health day or is it just an anxiety inducing day? Sure, but yeah, in reflecting on this employee, they mentioned the EAP and they said that that was something that they valued specifically.
Brandon Chance:I don't know if this employee ever used the EAP, but to know that it's there, I think that there provides security. Also, a lot of EAPs provide help to family members as well.
Dana Dowdell:That's very true.
Brandon Chance:That's also something to consider. Yes, I strongly encourage, if you have one, look at what you have to offer and market it that way to your employees, because you also have to figure when your employees are healthy, when your employees are happy, then they're going to be productive, then they're going to be at work.
Dana Dowdell:Exactly.
Brandon Chance:Less mental health days.
Dana Dowdell:All good things, all good outcomes, hopefully. Brandon, this was great. Any final thoughts on this topic or any final resources that you came upon?
Brandon Chance:I think my final thought was I was doing a Charity 5K race the other day and there was a gentleman that collapsed out of exhaustion at the finish line. I was thinking to myself how easy it is for us to identify when somebody is physically struggling and how difficult it is to identify when somebody is struggling mentally. I would just encourage you to listen. I would encourage everybody to listen, because I think that's going to be how you find out. Just listen. Sometimes all somebody needs is a good listener to be able to speak their mind and say what's going on.
Dana Dowdell:I love it. Brandon, thank you for doing your research on this topic. As Brandon mentioned at the beginning of the episode, we'll make sure that all of these resources the Department of Labor stuff, the crisis hotline are all in the show notes. Fill your toolbox as an HR professional and learn about this stuff, because it's better to know about it ahead of time, when somebody needs it, than to be really ruffling through papers and trying to find the right resources to help your employees. Thank you again for tuning in to another episode of Quirky HR. Brandon, thank you for your insight.
Brandon Chance:Absolutely Always a pleasure.
Dana Dowdell:Likewise, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Quirky.