Episode 36
Jim Oher - Rethinking EAPs and why we resist them.
For a long time, I have wondered why EAPs or employee assistance programs are so under utilized in organizations.
Today I talk with Jim Oher who has worked as a corporate director, executive consultant, psychoanalyst and group educator. He is also a trained mediator and resiliency hardiness specialist. He is co-author and editor of two books: The Employee Assistance Handbook andThe Employee Assistance Treatment Planner.
If you wonder why we are not using EAPs more to address mental health issues in the workplace, particularly given they are free of cost, this conversation may help you re-think, like it did me, how we could use EAPs in our workplaces to support employees who are struggling to stay plugged in.
As always, I am interested to hear from you. Let me know if you have found ways to make your EAP program more accessible and relevant to employees.
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CONTACT INFO
The Employee Assistance Treatment Planner
SHOW NOTES
[2:12] Why are mental health issues on the rise?
[8:20] Glad to be Unhappy, sung by Frank Sinatra
[9:11] How might EAP programs be utilized effectively in an organization to help address mental health?
[10:11] Behavioral health field and AI
[11:48] Employee who counseled for substance abuse.
[12:48] Parameters of confidentiality
[15:37] What about softer issues where an employee just needs support?
[17:49] Counseling versus EAP
[20:43] Do HR Managers trust EAPs?
[22:56] EAPs are full of complexities and paradoxes
[25:08] EAP protocol and ethical guidelines
[26:22] The two paths and what they look like
[29:56] Managers are still not comfortable with the role of coach
[31:26] More on impact of COVID
[37:49] Why don’t leaders engage EAP for coaching?
Transcript
The reality is if you step back and you look at leaders, managers, and the
Speaker:people they're supposed to lead, it's not a very pretty picture.
Speaker:Most people feel, this is the research based on the Gallup work that I've been
Speaker:reading, most people feel their job description isn't defined well enough.
Speaker:And then even a larger group of people feel that what they do isn't really
Speaker:attributed to adequately or precisely what their job description is.
Speaker:So there's like almost a double disconnect and most people aren't happy
Speaker:with their managers and what they get from their managers.
Speaker:So that's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty bleak picture.
Speaker:If I look back at my career, I'd say I was lucky that I had a couple of good ones,
Speaker:but there are lots that weren't so hot.
Speaker:For a long time, I have wondered why EAP or employee assistance programs are so
Speaker:underutilized in organizations.
Speaker:We know from the research that they produce positive outcomes.
Speaker:So why is it when employees are reporting higher levels of stress and anxiety and
Speaker:lower levels of engagement and work satisfaction, we still resist them?
Speaker:Today, I talk with Jim O'Hare, who has worked as a corporate director at
Speaker:executive consultant, psychoanalyst and group educator.
Speaker:He is also a trained mediator and resiliency hardiness specialist.
Speaker:So he has looked at mental health issues from all angles.
Speaker:He is a co-author and editor of two books, the employee assistance handbook and
Speaker:the employee assistance treatment planner.
Speaker:You can find links to more information about him in the show notes.
Speaker:If you wonder why we are not using EAPs more to address the issues of
Speaker:the workplace, particularly given they are free of cost.
Speaker:This conversation may help you rethink, like it did me, how we could use EAPs in
Speaker:our workplace to support employees who are struggling to stay plugged in.
Speaker:As always, I am interested to hear from you.
Speaker:Let me know if you have found ways to make your EAP program more accessible and
Speaker:relevant to employees.
Speaker:So off we go.
Speaker:Any thoughts about why mental health issues are on the rise?
Speaker:Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker:And just to give you some context over the last six months, I've really gone
Speaker:back to my roots of social work, psychoanalysis and employee.
Speaker:I love the work.
Speaker:My greatest gratification professionally was as an EAP leader.
Speaker:And I want to do more of that.
Speaker:And I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned from the EAP.
Speaker:I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned from the EAP.
Speaker:And I want to do more of that.
Speaker:So that's just a context to, I guess, what you're going to hear from me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I think, I think as mental health challenges are greater than ever, I think
Speaker:since the pandemic, we've all, there's been a universal trauma.
Speaker:There's no question about it that we've all been compromised and we're all
Speaker:living to some degree in post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Speaker:And I think that's a very, very basic and it probably may not
Speaker:fit the criteria of PTSD.
Speaker:However, we've all been through something profound, something scary
Speaker:and something difficult.
Speaker:I think that we can agree upon.
Speaker:Yes, we can.
Speaker:And I want to just stop you there.
Speaker:Does this say that I think a lot of people have not quite digested that?
Speaker:I will be honest with you.
Speaker:I've heard that multiple times and a lot of people say, Oh no, I'm back to normal.
Speaker:But I agree with you.
Speaker:I think that we have a sense of realization that we have collectively
Speaker:some, I don't know, it's grieving, but a sense of recovery is still gone.
Speaker:We're still going.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I think we're in the, we have to address it.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:I took a wonderful course at Columbia in the fall, managing human behavior in
Speaker:the workplace and one of the benefits that treats, we had two CEOs of different
Speaker:New England, very interesting fellows, but they were all older white men
Speaker:and their mantra, get back into the work.
Speaker:What's this hybrid model?
Speaker:What's this servo?
Speaker:It was so interesting, right?
Speaker:Because of course there's some value in being on site.
Speaker:There's no question.
Speaker:And I've heard, I've heard that and I know that's true for many people, but
Speaker:I think they were clearly so reflecting their preference in what they wanted,
Speaker:what they felt comfortable with as opposed to what's going on in the world, both
Speaker:the workforce as well as the realities of post COVID.
Speaker:It doesn't make sense for all people, all time to be in the office.
Speaker:And let's begin, not end of the discussion, let's begin the discussion with that.
Speaker:I don't know what the answers are, but certainly we can't pretend that we
Speaker:haven't been through what we've been through.
Speaker:I wondered then some of the conversations about mental health that we are having.
Speaker:What do we find ourselves talking about when we're together with people we know
Speaker:or we're in the organizations we work with?
Speaker:I understand, I sympathize with those who are coming from sort of old school,
Speaker:which is that you check your problems at the door, you do your work, you go home.
Speaker:And it's, I remember really being coached to put your work in a box.
Speaker:You learn how to navigate these different ways.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Your life.
Speaker:Compartmentalize.
Speaker:Compartmentalize.
Speaker:Don't think that philosophy is holding today.
Speaker:And I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Speaker:But can't again, because of COVID.
Speaker:What's work, what's not work?
Speaker:Your baby's screaming, your dog's barking.
Speaker:I don't think you can really do that anymore.
Speaker:The issue is, can you manage both?
Speaker:And how does one affect the other?
Speaker:And how does one hopefully enhance the other?
Speaker:And when one doesn't enhance the other, when one stresses the other,
Speaker:how do you deal with it?
Speaker:That's the real challenge.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And not that we're learning to be more agile, because we've had to.
Speaker:My client turned out to be very agile.
Speaker:I was surprised at how well they adapted.
Speaker:And in fact, they were less dictatorial, I think, than maybe some private companies.
Speaker:It is a matter of, of coming out the other side and the younger generation is,
Speaker:why would you want to go back to a system where there was no flexibility?
Speaker:They don't think.
Speaker:And they're absolutely right.
Speaker:They're absolutely right.
Speaker:No one wanted to do that ever without flexibility and empowerment.
Speaker:And some sense of autonomy.
Speaker:That's critical in terms of creating a healthy workplace, I think.
Speaker:And lots of people don't do that.
Speaker:And lots of workplaces don't have that.
Speaker:But who would want to work there?
Speaker:Who cares about themselves and feels good about making a contribution to
Speaker:whatever they're doing to the organization, I would think.
Speaker:It does require a greater, what do I want to say, attention to the way you manage.
Speaker:And I feel as if human resources and organization development practitioners
Speaker:have some leg up on this, because for a long time, we have been talking about
Speaker:the way work is organized, the way work is executed.
Speaker:In other words, a person should be in control of their work and the manager
Speaker:needs to be more concerned about whether that work is relevant, purposeful,
Speaker:how, how that work fits into the larger picture.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that you're breaking traditions.
Speaker:You're looking at our, as an outsider, are able to do this, but are people
Speaker:willing to review and analyze and reflect on what's going on in the past?
Speaker:Is it working and is it not working?
Speaker:Those simple questions are critical.
Speaker:If you want to have a progressive, dynamic, creative workforce, I would think.
Speaker:And some people don't want, let's be clear.
Speaker:Some people don't want that.
Speaker:For some people, depending on their, again, now we're going into the whole issue
Speaker:of character structure and what motivates people and how people work.
Speaker:People want to spend their lives and do they want to be challenged?
Speaker:But some people don't want to be challenged.
Speaker:Some people like to complain.
Speaker:Some people, there's a wonderful Lorenzo Hart, Rogers and Hart.
Speaker:There's this great song from Anya Yatovskoy, Glad to Be Unhappy.
Speaker:But some people have that in them.
Speaker:And some people are complainers.
Speaker:There's a wonderful psychoanalyst from the thirties who wrote about injustice collectors.
Speaker:Some people are injustice collectors.
Speaker:There's all types of people out there.
Speaker:People are complicated, wonderful, horrible human beings.
Speaker:And within everybody, there are also characteristics that could be equated and defined as those things.
Speaker:Every person is different.
Speaker:Complexity is hard.
Speaker:It's rich and it can be very rewarding and stimulating, but for some people, it's threatening.
Speaker:This may be part of some of the mental health concerns that we see.
Speaker:But since you have a background with EAP and are particularly interested in that area,
Speaker:do you have some thoughts about how EAP programs might be utilized effectively in an organization
Speaker:to help address mental health?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:They could be the sort of quality of life siren about what mental health can offer people.
Speaker:Again, what is mental health? What is health?
Speaker:How do people want to live their life?
Speaker:How do they feel about themselves?
Speaker:And how do they feel about the people in their life who they care about?
Speaker:What is EAP's, hopefully their mandate is to foster education awareness about a variety of issues
Speaker:that affect people's feeling about themselves.
Speaker:This gets back to some really wonderful mental health research about asking people how they feel about themselves.
Speaker:Again, when I look back at JCPenney where I ran the programs, personally I worked with the communications department,
Speaker:with writers, not so much researchers.
Speaker:We would come up with topics. I would do seminars and I would talk to managers all around the country and I loved it.
Speaker:But my real concern about EAP is going forward, and again, I'm finding the marketplace for mental health.
Speaker:I don't know how much you know about this whole new field, this whole new behavioral health field now
Speaker:that is just exploding with venture capital money and they're covering hundreds of thousands of lives.
Speaker:And it's all generated by AI and some of it sounds really good, but I have no sense of their outcomes.
Speaker:And it's a real maze to try to understand what is actually going on.
Speaker:And we're talking about large, huge companies that are signing onto these contracts.
Speaker:Are they replacing EAPs in certain instances? Yes. Are they supplementing them in certain instances?
Speaker:Yeah, that seems to be the case. But anyway, it's a huge versioning field.
Speaker:I don't know how it's going to shake out. And equally important, I don't know how the person in need is really interacting
Speaker:and getting assistance in the way it could traditionally.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a whole new topic and whether EAP will be outsourced to some extent.
Speaker:That's right. That's right. Yeah, we know that the EAP, again, we know that the numbers are down in terms of membership,
Speaker:in terms of people who go to conferences, but I don't know what all that means yet.
Speaker:I'm going to find out. The nice thing about being so old is that I've been around and I know a lot of people.
Speaker:Again, I'm learning so much more just talking to people.
Speaker:I think one of the questions I wanted to ask you is that if you are given somebody that needs some counseling
Speaker:before they come back to work, you can give me better examples, I think.
Speaker:But I can think of examples of substance abuse. Do they come back to the workplace? Do they not participate in EAP program?
Speaker:And then you can come back. But I'm assuming that at some point you have to give feedback.
Speaker:You have to say this person, is it they did or did not come to the EAP appointments?
Speaker:Or do you have to give some more thorough analysis of whether you think they're ready to come back?
Speaker:It depends. There are certain protocols that were established. I was involved with this for many years.
Speaker:It has to be follow up and there has to be continuation of care documented and thought through.
Speaker:But it's really tricky. And the EAP is really bound by all sorts of confidentiality guidelines and measures.
Speaker:So they shouldn't necessarily talk to the manager or even HR, I would say, what the employee is or isn't complying with.
Speaker:What is important, though, is that the EAP has these records and documentation because the issue for the employee is the performance on the job.
Speaker:And if there and again, going back to the return to work, there should be a return to work conference.
Speaker:Again, this is the good old classical EAP days. Right.
Speaker:There's a return to work conference between the EAP counselor, the manager and the employee and talking about expectations.
Speaker:OK, welcome back. We're delighted to see you.
Speaker:And we also know that it may take you a while to get back up to speed to where you were before.
Speaker:And we know that you may be going to continue treatment and that may take time.
Speaker:And therefore, this is the expectation and this is the plan.
Speaker:And this is the plan for this month or could be for this two weeks.
Speaker:And after two weeks, after four weeks, after six weeks, we're going to expect X.
Speaker:What do you think about that? Does that make sense to you?
Speaker:And again, it makes sense to you, employee. Does it make sense to you?
Speaker:Treatment counselor. Does it make sense to you, EAP?
Speaker:Does it make sense to you, manager? Do they all buy in and collaborate on this?
Speaker:And that's critical. So those are protections and that's new process and that's all good.
Speaker:But the EAP has a relationship with the employee and the treatment center and with the manager.
Speaker:But the EAP is not bound at all to share with the HR manager, with the line manager.
Speaker:What's going on with the treatment?
Speaker:They really have to respect the dignity of that employee and it's nobody's business but the employee.
Speaker:And it's the employee's business and obligation to do the job.
Speaker:And if the expectation is written down, OK, this is what I'm, I agree,
Speaker:I'm going to try to do this within two weeks, four weeks, six weeks. Fine.
Speaker:And it also should be stated in the return to work conference or whatever.
Speaker:If you have trouble, if you feel that you can't do what you had agreed to,
Speaker:this is what you do. You go to your manager and you call your treatment provider
Speaker:and you call the EAP and we'll have another conference and we'll renegotiate.
Speaker:We'll see what we can do. But those, there's some wonderful tried and true technology out there
Speaker:in terms of EAP intervention that really reflect the dignity of the employee,
Speaker:the respectfulness of their situation and protections and guidelines are built into the process.
Speaker:What if it's a softer issue? Maybe I'm not doing my work because I am just depressed.
Speaker:I can't work. So maybe I'm going to take leave, but I'm going to take family medical leave
Speaker:and I'm going to ask for some help through the employee, the EAP program.
Speaker:Now, my boss probably should not ask me a lot of questions.
Speaker:How sophisticated and how thoughtful and how progressive is the manager?
Speaker:I think the managers are all wondering that themselves. They don't know.
Speaker:They probably are thinking that this is a person that I'm comfortable talking with.
Speaker:I'd like to know whether he or she has supported home. I'd like to know.
Speaker:I'm sorry, but even before that, of course, great. But even before that,
Speaker:I would say, do you feel comfortable talking to me about this?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Very personal thing. I appreciate your sharing this with me.
Speaker:It may not have been easy for you, but let's talk about this.
Speaker:And you certainly can take family leave and sick leave. That's certainly within your right.
Speaker:But let's talk about some options.
Speaker:I would suggest you go to the EAP to talk about the resources that are available,
Speaker:the treatments available, and the alternatives to just leaving, taking full-time leave.
Speaker:Would you consider doing that?
Speaker:And if the employee says yes, great. And then a good manager, as I see it,
Speaker:their job is done for now, except saying, if you feel comfortable, come back and tell me what happened.
Speaker:Or you don't even have to tell me, just come back to walk. I'd like to know, but it's not my job.
Speaker:I'm here. If you want to tell me what your dialogue was with the EAP, fine, but you don't have to.
Speaker:Let me know if you want me to take it further and you want me to have a meeting with HR and we'll talk more about it.
Speaker:But hopefully the EAP has done their job well and some more dialogue has happened, more facts have been gathered.
Speaker:And hopefully a situation, a good plan has come out of that. Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And there's going to be difference in employees that have some experience with counseling
Speaker:and others who have no experience with counseling. So I think there's a lot of different sides to this.
Speaker:And the EAP is not necessarily to whip people into shape so they can come back and work. It's there for a broader support.
Speaker:Just think about it. There's a subset, the people who go to the EAP, people know there are mental health professionals
Speaker:and you can go to the yellow pages. No, you can't do that anymore. You can Google, you can talk to your family physician
Speaker:and you can find a psychotherapist if you choose to do it. Right. So it's a very interesting subset of people who come to the EAP for help.
Speaker:Maybe the reason is as simple as, it's convenient. They're down the hall or it's a toll free number as opposed to trying to call my physician,
Speaker:which may take hours to get a response to. So you've got to think about again, why now?
Speaker:Why is this person contacting the EAP? Or conversely, maybe it isn't the EAP.
Speaker:Maybe, as you said, maybe it's the manager calling the EAP on behalf of the employee.
Speaker:But there are all sorts of things to consider and it's helpful to tease out who is contacting for what.
Speaker:And again, it's so interesting because when you look at these new behavioral health care firms that are covering these hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker:I've said, they're complaining that traditional EAPs have gotten such low utilization. Not many people have used them.
Speaker:So that and their spiel as well. We're much easier. We're just a click on the phone or we're just a touch on the computer.
Speaker:You don't have to worry about waiting a day or two to see a counselor in person.
Speaker:So it's just all it's just very interesting, both retrospectively to look back at EAPs.
Speaker:OK, what have they been delivering? Have they been effective? How many people have using them in what environments?
Speaker:As well as looking forward, OK, what's being offered? What? Where are they filling the gaps?
Speaker:Are they doing better for employees and their dependents and retirees than what was retrospectively in place?
Speaker:So there's all these interesting issues that are out there.
Speaker:Ideally, my job at JCPenney, which again, as I told you, I just love, I dealt with managers, district store managers, district managers,
Speaker:regional managers and the executives in New York City about all management challenges.
Speaker:And I've done telephonically. We were ahead of the time.
Speaker:Yank.
Speaker:Van and Ahead are number.
Speaker:I think that little has changed since I went into the workplace.
Speaker:I would never have called EAP for one. I would be 100 percent sure they'd be telling my boss that I did that.
Speaker:That's a huge. I did some survey research and HR managers.
Speaker:It's so interesting you say that because HR managers didn't trust the EAP vis-a-vis confidentiality.
Speaker:And I bet that still goes on.
Speaker:And you also have HR. I had an earlier conversation today with the whole HR is evil with the idea that HR is in bed with the company
Speaker:in the sense that they're not actually protecting or advocating for the employee, although they are.
Speaker:I think in broad terms, that's still the professional code of ethics.
Speaker:But there is always that concern that behind the scenes that person might not be right for that position.
Speaker:I can't say why. Might be right for leadership.
Speaker:Those kinds of concerns are, I think, why people resist.
Speaker:Whether there could be some guarantee of confidentiality, they might use a service more.
Speaker:But it would take some time for people to really believe.
Speaker:It would take years. Once it's broken, once there's a breach, and clearly in this company, this is a huge financial institution.
Speaker:But once there's a breach, I don't know how you would prepare that.
Speaker:Just Nancy said something.
Speaker:We talked about the scenario with that person, maybe had that alcohol problem, who was coming back to work.
Speaker:Remember, I was very clear about what the HR would know and not know.
Speaker:And I was advocating for them to know very little.
Speaker:Only the EAP would know how they're doing in treatment.
Speaker:And the HR would know how they're doing in the workplace.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:On the guidelines on the return to work contract that was mapped out, that's all.
Speaker:That's what they do. But I think that doesn't happen a lot.
Speaker:And I think you heard it too.
Speaker:I've been doing a lot of thinking, reading, talked to a wonderful guy, colleague of mine, who's an AP researcher and scholar.
Speaker:Another colleague of mine referred me to this Gallup research about well-being.
Speaker:I've been marinated.
Speaker:Share with me some of the thoughts that you've gleaned from your conversations with them.
Speaker:What may seem obvious to you is not so obvious.
Speaker:What I was thinking about globally about EAP, they're full of complexities and paradoxes.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is on the one hand, EAPs have to be confidential.
Speaker:People have to go and there's no record of it per se and there's no copay.
Speaker:And employees and their dependents should feel comfortable that it's a reliable resource.
Speaker:However, on the flip side of that, many workplaces use EAPs to do critical stress debriefings, to do educational seminars, to do management consultations.
Speaker:So they are known within a workweek for a work organization.
Speaker:So again, the bottom line would be you really need a reliable, mature resource for an EAP.
Speaker:And then also the AP can't do it all.
Speaker:The AP, yes, ideally they should be able to assess issues, but the issues aren't usually severe mental health issues.
Speaker:They often have to do just with aging parents, with finance, all sorts of work life issues.
Speaker:So again, one can't expect one person or one company to have all the answers or all the resources,
Speaker:but the EAP has to almost be the broker and be knowing where to get resources and to be the QA person for the resources.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:And I think we did this, but I'm going to do this again with you right now.
Speaker:I am an employee and I have mentioned to my boss that this is an example.
Speaker:I perhaps mentioned to my boss that there's a lot of things going on in my life right now, and perhaps I'm getting distracted.
Speaker:I'm having a difficult time with work.
Speaker:And that's maybe the reasons why some of my performance setbacks.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And my boss says, OK, we have an EAP program and here's a counselor.
Speaker:I really recommend you talk to them.
Speaker:Now, I, as an employee, am wondering, is this going to be a completely confidential program?
Speaker:And I'm too bashful or I don't know, reluctant to ask my boss this question directly.
Speaker:I may ask the counselor, but I don't know the counselor.
Speaker:Can I trust the counselor?
Speaker:Can you give me concrete EAP protocol or ethical guidelines?
Speaker:Is it the same as if I were seeing a counselor that's not associated with my workplace?
Speaker:Yes, it is, but it's even more demanding ethically, I think, of an EAP professional.
Speaker:And most EAP professionals, by the way, are seasoned and are mature.
Speaker:That's, of course, changing.
Speaker:But the point being is they really should understand workplace policies, procedures, dynamics, where a mental health counselor wouldn't necessarily know any of that.
Speaker:So you've got that person who should really know about workplace issues, traumas.
Speaker:They know about the workplace culture.
Speaker:They know perhaps about the workplace transitions that are planning to happen.
Speaker:How do they know about this?
Speaker:Is this because of their ongoing relationship?
Speaker:Because maybe they've talked to other employees and maybe they've had conversations with the managers, but not necessarily because their specific situation has been addressed.
Speaker:Am I pretty assured that they don't know about me specifically?
Speaker:Or is it possible they've heard, well, we have an employee that's really been falling down on the job and I'm going to recommend her.
Speaker:There are two roads.
Speaker:There are two paths to EAP.
Speaker:There's something called a manager resettlement.
Speaker:And what that is that if there's a pattern, and this goes way back to EAPs in the 1960s when they really were first being developed, if there's a pattern of deteriorating performance, the manager has to go through a series of steps, as you would say, protocols.
Speaker:With that employee, they have to have a discussion with the employee.
Speaker:I said, listen, I've seen ABC and this is a pattern and I'm concerned about it.
Speaker:I want you to know about it.
Speaker:And I expect some change because based on your behavior, I can no longer say that your performance is acceptable.
Speaker:Therefore, I'd like it to change.
Speaker:There is an EAP.
Speaker:You're perfectly welcome to use it.
Speaker:I'm not making a mandatory referral at this time.
Speaker:However, if your performance doesn't get any better, doesn't improve, I very well might make a management referral.
Speaker:Now, the point is, even if you make a management referral, the employee doesn't want to go.
Speaker:They don't have to go, but that might be germinated.
Speaker:The wonderful thing about the EAP technology is that if indeed the employee says, okay, I'll go, the image again, it's so interesting.
Speaker:The image was the time clock stops in terms of the employee relations and employment law, as it were, between the employee and the company.
Speaker:So therefore, during the treatment period, whatever that is determined, again, these are intricate steps, but that person has an opportunity to get treatment and to improve their performance.
Speaker:And they won't be evaluated with the same criteria during that time.
Speaker:I see. Yeah, I think that makes that helpful.
Speaker:And it's like, I see that I just need to know that I'm that time clock.
Speaker:I want it to stop a little bit because I need to know for the next four weeks while I'm going through this period where I need some support.
Speaker:And also I'm dealing with something very difficult at home that that's understood, but I'm getting support.
Speaker:So the employer would say that's a good thing because we want you to come out the other side.
Speaker:That's the idea. Yeah.
Speaker:And then there's sometimes a return to work contract where the employee, the manager, maybe even the treatment provider, the HR manager comes together for a meeting and they even write a document.
Speaker:Okay, this is my expectations. And I understand you're coming back and I can't expect you day one to perform the way I'm going to expect you to perform in three or four or five weeks from now.
Speaker:So this is what my expectations are vis-a-vis your reentry into the workplace.
Speaker:What do you think? You think that makes sense? You employee, what do you think? Treatment center. Do you think that makes sense? Et cetera.
Speaker:So it's really, again, discussion, clarification, identification of expectations.
Speaker:Yeah. And when I hear you speaking, it's difficult to talk out of context about this because I am sure there are big differences in the way EAP is presented to employees and to the extent to which it's embedded in the culture.
Speaker:For instance, and you've had an opportunity to work with large organizations, you maybe have something to say about the difference.
Speaker:I see cultures where we just don't have much encouragement to talk about the difficulties and transitions through our lives. Do you see differences in that regard?
Speaker:Sure. Some managers are still aren't really good coaches or leaders and managers really shouldn't be motivators and inspirational figures for their employees.
Speaker:Quite frankly, I know it sounds somewhat idealistic, but I think it's really true.
Speaker:And it really depends on them to make the employee feel that they want to get better. They want their problem resolved. They want to do better or what? They want to enjoy contributing to the workforce.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's the manager. It's also the other employees too. That's a bigger issue in terms of well-being in mental health. And that goes back to our first, I think our first part of our discussion.
Speaker:What is mental health at work? What is health? What is being with other people in a context of trying to get some work done?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to maybe put it in the context of the old idea of compartmentalizing that you leave your home life problems there and then you come to work.
Speaker:I think that there is a growing acceptance. I see this happening, interestingly, with some of the newer managers in local government.
Speaker:Some are coming up through social services sector and they have a much different philosophy.
Speaker:I just went to a conference where the keynote was around mental health. That was huge in my mind.
Speaker:And they were acknowledging that the work has gotten very stressful. So even at the leadership level, they're talking about a very stressful world.
Speaker:So I think those are signs of changing times.
Speaker:I think COVID has put a death nail in this idea that there's really a separation between work and non-work. People spend an enormous amount of their living life at work.
Speaker:And work is very important. It's the fulcrum almost, their sense of self and well-being. And that's the challenge.
Speaker:You said something that really struck me. I never heard it said quite like that. That there has been a universal trauma.
Speaker:That this is unusual and that we've all been through it, more or less. We went through it together.
Speaker:And that has a different impact because of the collective experience.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:If you want to just say more about that, like how you think about that.
Speaker:We all experienced it in one sense. Yes, the external reality was all the same, but it really wasn't.
Speaker:We all responded differently based on our own levels of paranoia and health and hygiene.
Speaker:It all rekindled the last couple of days for me. Wednesday to me was the trauma. I worked very hard in my office from before eight.
Speaker:And then around 12, I got to get out of here from my work at the league.
Speaker:So I rushed out of my house as I do most days during the week. And I felt stifled. It was warm.
Speaker:The smell of smoke, heavy smoke, was dark. It was foggy. And it was really a terrifying experience.
Speaker:It really was dystopic. I had never experienced that before. It was very difficult for lots of reasons for lots of people.
Speaker:It wasn't the same trauma as COVID, but it was different. People were going on with their lives.
Speaker:But it felt the fantasy was end of the world scenarios. Look at climate change is here.
Speaker:It's hard to breathe. The earth is going to burn. And we may not survive.
Speaker:Those were the fantasies that I had, certainly.
Speaker:I would just like to further this conversation because I woke up this morning and I listened to The Daily, which is the podcast, Father in Earth Times.
Speaker:They did a really good job of scaring me. They did a really good job of saying this isn't going to end.
Speaker:This is a consequence of climate change. They went on to describe the wildfires as being pervasive.
Speaker:And you can see in the curvature of the smoke, the way it traveled, and they brought up other instances where smoke like that traveled from Australia across all the way over to the Atlantic.
Speaker:It was really like now. I have to really think about this. This wasn't just an incident that happened this week.
Speaker:And what am I to do about it? Am I to imagine that there's going to be prolonged periods of these contaminate days where the air quality is really poor
Speaker:because we have such an increase in wildfires? And I just bring this up because we think about what causes mental health.
Speaker:And there are people who joke and I'm one of these people who will say I just pretty much ignore the news. That's my mental health strategy.
Speaker:When it comes to most news, that's the wise one. I do, too. I don't watch it unless I'm totally exhausted.
Speaker:And sometimes I do watch it, but I primarily avoid it because it's just not helpful.
Speaker:I think this is in some ways an important thing to think about for leaders.
Speaker:When you have a workforce and you know that a certain segment of this workforce, just by nature, a certain segment of people get hooked into the news and that can feed into their mental health,
Speaker:which can impact their performance and their well-being, that there might be, and I think you hit this in your notes,
Speaker:that there has to be at some level empathy and an ability for a leader to address.
Speaker:Maybe we could talk a little bit about that because I think leaders would be quick to say, oh, no, that's not my job.
Speaker:But it's not their job, but it is a part of leadership, I think, what you're hinting at.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. Yeah. If the reality is, if you step back and you look at leaders, managers, and the people they're supposed to lead, it's not a very pretty picture.
Speaker:Most people feel, this is the research based on the Gallup work that I've been reading, most people feel their job description isn't defined well enough.
Speaker:And then even a larger group of people feel that their job, that what they do isn't really attributed to adequately or precisely to what their job description is.
Speaker:So there's like almost a double disconnect. And most people aren't happy with their managers and what they get from their managers.
Speaker:So that's it's a pretty, it's a pretty bleak picture. If I look back at my career, I'd say I was lucky that I had a couple of good ones, but there are lots that weren't so hot.
Speaker:You said here managers should be developmental coaches. I think most people will say when they're engaged with purposeful work, they are less likely to feel depressed or to be preoccupied or ruminating on some of the other things going on.
Speaker:And I heard that from managers who never completely locked down the workplace. They never stopped coming into work.
Speaker:And I don't think there's been enough studies or attention to the differences in mental health for those who were able to maintain their regular work as opposed to those that went into complete lockdown.
Speaker:You can't say what is true for everyone, but I think it's important to look at what it is that does keep your employees engaged.
Speaker:But I'd even go a little deeper. What development is needed? If a good manager, a good coach would say, okay, let's look at that development. What is it specifically?
Speaker:Where do you need to grow and develop and how can I help you or where are the resources and can a colleague help you and you need an offline or out of organization training or not, et cetera.
Speaker:The reality is, I think the more that the manager, leader, coach helps a specific employee by understanding them, mobilizing their strengths, the better the employee will see on them, the more they'll contribute to the organization.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And that could look a lot of different ways. I think that's the challenge right now is that we have to engage.
Speaker:We also talked about the importance of reflection and I suppose then that leads to leaders. Do they go through an EAP program or do you recommend they get some counseling or leadership coaching outside of the EAP program?
Speaker:I think it's telling when leaders are not able to maintain healthy lifestyles and it's showing in their faces, it's showing in their bodies. So taking care of ourselves. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Speaker:Why wouldn't they use the EAP if it's good? The great thing about EAP, it's easily accessible. There's seasoned professionals who can assess problems quickly and hopefully make a determination co-jointly with the client that, okay, let's talk for three or four sessions and let's see how you feel after that.
Speaker:If they feel there's a need for a referral to an actual mental health professional, they can do that too. And then maybe even everyone has to use their mental health benefits, their benefits plan. If an EAP is good, they should use it.
Speaker:Yes. And the EAP then would not cost them. That's correct.
Speaker:That's not the only thing about it.
Speaker:I've never heard leaders talk about that. I think that idea needs to be put out there. I would like to hear some experiences if that was something that was successful.
Speaker:I went around this conversation up today and I'll leave it open if there's anything else you want to talk about. But I think that if I were to have one takeaway personally from our conversations, it would be that the EAP is a really readily available accessible program if you have it to provide support on these conversations, which is
Speaker:I am getting the sense that this is not a good fit here. How do you feel about this? I don't know. Would you be willing to go through some EAP sessions to talk about whether this is right for you? Because, and maybe the observations I've had, I don't like the fact that I can't flex my time.
Speaker:I don't like the fact that I have to be on call. I don't like the fact that you added this to my job, which wasn't on my original job description. All of these things can signal to me as a manager that we could perhaps change the work, but perhaps this is not the right fit.
Speaker:Do I want to go through a long process with this employee if I'm getting the sense that there isn't a good fit with the organization? But I don't know what to do. I can't push them out the door.
Speaker:Yeah, but you said a very interesting thing. It was almost just one way, the way you described it. I don't know if you did that intentionally, but I didn't hear any dialogue between the employee and the manager. And that's critically missing from lots of workplaces.
Speaker:There's no dialogue. What do you think? Does this make sense to you? This is what I'm seeing and what I'm feeling. What are you sensing? What's your experience of my experience of you? That's risky stuff.
Speaker:But unless you do that, you're going to get very far. If you refer a person out too quickly, you've damaged the relationship that Diane between the manager and the employee. And it might be even irreversible. So that's why the manager has to be developed.
Speaker:The reason I say this is that oftentimes you have a manager who may have, I don't know, 30, 60, 200 at a small to mid-size local government. But the manager and maybe the HR person or maybe one of the other managers will have some very sort of high level people skills.
Speaker:But oftentimes at the supervisor or even the department manager level, they may not be good at having these conversations. And it's very difficult for a manager to have ongoing relationships with employees.
Speaker:So I feel like by the time the manager sees the employee, there's already been an attempt to say, no, this is not working out and the employee is unhappy. So rather than say, let's part ways, I think going back to your earlier conversation, there's a couple of different paths there.
Speaker:And if I say, I'm not ready to let you go, but I want to make sure you want to be here. And that's if there is, I would assume, let's just assume, I would assume that there would be some productive conversation leading up to that.
Speaker:I hope so. If you don't invest in your employees and have those difficult conversations and have productive conversations, you're going to have some trouble. And it's hard to work. But what are you going to do? People are complex beings, but some other needs are basic.
Speaker:You have to put yourself in the shoes of a manager who is a consummate problem solver. So you can have very generous, sympathetic managers who are already working like 60 more hours a week.
Speaker:So I think there are some strains here. There's some need to say, if HR has talked to you, your supervisors talk to you, and I cannot grant you a four-day week. And I cannot grant you, because the department managers told me that we cannot flex the schedule the way you need that schedule flexed.
Speaker:And I cannot, I can, I can maybe as the top manager say, all right, we'll give you these accommodations. And definitely that's true of a manager. But if the list goes on, there's a point at which the manager, I just think from a practical standpoint, is going to say, I need you to think about whether you want to be here.
Speaker:Because I think those conversations are important for the employee to hear both strengths. That's what I see. I love your expertise. I love that you've been able to give us XYZ. But I also see that you are constantly getting in fights with the administrative staff in this department because you're not happy with the way they do things. These kinds of issues that is what usually it's pretty bad by the time it ends up in a manager's office.
Speaker:And getting into fights is never good. And quite frankly, that's a huge red flag. Because that's going to come right then and there. Look at all the potential harassment, the lawsuits.
Speaker:Yeah, managers have to do things that other people don't want to do. And then that's where I think the courage and the vulnerability, which is why I've been in your place before. I've been a young professional. This may not be the best fit for you. I don't want to lose you, but here are the things I can do or I can't do. And if you want to go to the EAP program, maybe you can reflect on whether this is where you want to be. This is the work you want.
Speaker:Yeah, but again, that's absolutely correct. But I would only use that not as a last resort, but certainly after lots of dialogue that said, there's nothing else I can do in terms of what has an essential lead on your part. As much as I'd like to and feel for you, I can't do it. So therefore, maybe the EAP might be a great place to talk.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah, but I think it's right that you would come at this leaning into the importance of having the dialogue. And I think that's really the skill that a lot of manager leaders are looking for, how to have that, how to have those conversations in the workplace.
Speaker:Maybe I'll just say one last thing about the hierarchy of importance of mental health in the workplace. And I think it is something that really needs to emanate from senior leadership and values of what good relations look like and feel like and the commitment to an employee and their growth and development.
Speaker:And that's critical. Everything has to cascade down from that. If you don't have that at the top level, I think it may be hard to get what you want with your managers and leaders who aren't at that senior level.
Speaker:You're right. And there is a mirror in the organization that what you project out is something that what you're going to get reflected back.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So, well, thank you so much.
Speaker:I enjoyed it, Nancy.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:It was fun.
Speaker:It's good to talk to you, Jim.
Speaker:Yeah, you too.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:You have a good weekend.
Speaker:Get some rest.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
