Mental health through shared responsibility (CRRSMAT)

Audio time: 24:27

Valerie Fernandez: [00:00:04] My name is Valerie Fernandez. I'm a senior advisor at Beneva in the workplace health department, in group insurance. On a day-to-day basis, I help organizations put in place support measures and strategies to better support the health of their own employees.

Maude Villeneuve: [00:00:19] I'm Maude Villeneuve. I coordinate the Relief Research Chair on Mental Health, Self-management, and Work. I am just incredibly passionate about making better working lives for everyone, including myself.

Voice-over: [00:00:32] You have questions?

Question: [00:00:34] What action should I do to keep a good mental health?

Question: [00:00:39] How can I take care of my employees’ mental health?

Question: [00:00:42] Should I open up about my personal worries at work?

Voice-over: [00:00:46] We're here to answer them.

Catherine Duranceau: [00:00:49] Hi. Welcome to the Beneva podcast: Ask the Experts. I'm your host, Catherine Duranceau. In today's episode, we'll explore the complex nuances of organizational health and will dive deeper into mental health.

In today's era, the companies must provide a healthy work environment for employee retention and also sustained productivity. But the topic of mental health can be daunting. So how should we manage that? Well, we've got some answers for you. Valerie, Maude, glad to be with you today. Now, let's start with the basics. Tell us why organizational health, with an important focus on mental well-being, has become now one of the most important aspects of an organization.

Valerie: [00:01:32] Mental health and psychological well-being has been on top of mind for all organizations, even before that period of the pandemic that we've been going through since 2020. It enhanced the need to address it. More importantly, it's also a way of creating retention for employees to show that the employer cares about the global well-being of the employees, and that goes through physical health, psychological health, social well-being.

And it's a whole. I think that we have to address it in the same way that we want to address physical health and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders. We talk about it more and more. It's positive that organizations are finding a way to show that they care about their employees, and that's the most important thing.

Catherine: [00:02:20] And that it's not taboo to talk about it.

Maude: [00:02:23] And if I can jump on that, on the other end of things, employees have such different expectations of work now. For decades, people were willing to endure bad working conditions, but not anymore. Younger generations don't want to suffer at work. They want to thrive. They want a job that they care for. They want a job that has meaning. And all that sums up into having good psychological health in the workplace. It's being healthy in a job that is healthy for me, that has meaning, that I have fun doing, that I'm committed to doing, that aligns with my values within a company that's healthy through that, that thrives, that cares about me, that has a good culture. So mental health is just profitable. It's cost effective. It prevents so much trouble down the line.

Catherine: [00:03:13] Oh, interesting. What are the signs that an employee is really struggling with mental health, psychological health?

Maude: [00:03:19] When you see that an employee has checked out, whether it's in person or through a Teams meeting, like with remote work. When people start sharing less and less, being involved less and less. Nonverbal cues, of course; you can see in a person's face when they don't want to be here, when smiling seems to be like a struggle. And to notice those signs, you need to see your employees. You need to meet with them regularly. You cannot intervene on what you don't see. So you need to show up and to have face time with your employees to see, okay, something is wrong, and actually ask the questions. Make time.

Valerie: [00:03:57] And we've heard a lot of organizations come to us at Beneva that have that struggle, because the managers are not used to not seeing their employees on a regular basis. Maybe they have new hired employees during the pandemic that they have never met with them in person, or they don't even know what their regular day-to-day routine is. Do they have children? Do they have parents at home that they're taking care of? They don't know their personal situation. So Maude mentioned to notice how the employee is reacting, but to do that, we have to know our employees. We have to have interaction that maybe is a little bit outside of the tasks that they have to do at work. And so that's a little bit of a challenge for the organizations.

And we hear more and more, like, what is the definition of our hybrid mode? Do we want to allow more and more remote working, or do we want to bring back employees more at the office so that we have that connection?

Catherine: [00:04:50] We need that connection in life, being always at home, like for my kids.

Valerie: [00:04:53] I agree.

Catherine: [00:04:54] It's like I'm talking to my computer. Once the Zoom is closed, I'm alone with my animals.

Maude: [00:05:00] And just bouncing off what Valerie said about remote work and whether or not to have people coming back to the office… Hybrid work, it's tricky.

Catherine: [00:05:07] It's trendy.

Maude: [00:05:08] It's trendy, but it's tricky. It can be the best or the worst of both worlds.

Catherine: [00:05:14] Why?

Maude: [00:05:14] It can be the worst if you make people come to the office and you give no added value to being in person. It can be the best if you distribute tasks so that it makes sense. When you're at home, you do deep work, you're focused, you're not interrupted. You do things like reports, analysis, things that you have to put your big brain on. When you're in the office, you work actively on that feeling of connection, on knowing your colleagues, having meetings that have purpose and added value. Brainstorming, resolving issues, getting to know each other. So that is a way to make the best and have the best kind of hybrid work.

Catherine: [00:05:51] So you have to organize the schedule so that the hybrid work makes sense.

Maude: [00:05:56] So many people are like, “I could have done this at home.”

Catherine: [00:05:59] Yeah, I've got that comment a lot. Like, I could do it from home. I'm doing all this traffic to get to work because I decided to buy a house far from the city, or whichever reason.

Maude: [00:06:07] So if you’ve asked people to make the investment of coming back to the office and wasting time on commute and money on their lunches, your job is to make sure that they feel that it's worth it.

Valerie: [00:06:20] We can't underestimate the impact that social support has coming from our colleagues, coworkers, coming from our manager, coming from just the organization, generally speaking. So I think that that's the sense of meaning that we're looking for when going to the office. And I think that that can be only positive to bring that back and to show the importance of social support.

Maude: [00:06:41] The best thing you can have to make your work better, a healthier place, is to have as much social support as you can from your boss, from your colleagues, formal and formal, having access to all kinds of information. And fun. It's important to have fun at the office.

Catherine: [00:06:58] Yes.

Valerie: [00:06:59] Like we're having now.

Maude: [00:07:00] Yeah, we're working, we're having fun. We're chatting.

Catherine: [00:07:08] And tell me, when someone is dealing with psychological health, what are the direct consequences it could have on their work, but also on the work environment?

Valerie: [00:07:13] Just bring it back to your own personal experience. What happens when I didn't get a good night of sleep? What happens when that is going on for a week? How do I feel at work? How do I feel with the children? Am I less patient with my dog? The real key here is to take a step back and look at ourselves. How long has this been going on? That self-conscience that we have to do will help us better understand, and will help us take action into doing better, into getting those tools that we need and maybe just talking about it. Be willing to see ourselves going through those difficult times, to acknowledge them, to talk about it.

Catherine: [00:07:55] Not judging ourselves.

Valerie: [00:07:56] No. Correct. Absolutely. And I think that that's a whole different story.

Catherine: [08:04] I'm sorry. I went there. I judge my own self. Why am I not feeling great today?

Maude: [00:08:05] Oh, we're so hard on ourselves.

Valerie: [00:08:06] Exactly.

Maude: [00:08:08] Yeah. And if you want to see about how to understand, like, the large extent of psychological health in the workplace, we can see it like an onion. First, there's like the core. Of course it's myself. It's my own mental health, especially if I'm in a managing position. Then there are other layers around me. So if I'm stressed out and tired, I'll have less empathy. I'll be shorter with my family, with my colleagues, with my employees, with my staff. And then your staff gets stressed out in your team. Maybe they'll create conflict with other departments and other teams. And in the end, it creates all these little gaps in communication everywhere. A little nothing when people are stressed out can quickly become a mountain that separates people.

Catherine: [00:08:51] So we have to have a red flag and say like, whoa, if something is going wrong, we've got to fix it. And what type of concrete actions can employers take to prioritize their employees and help them out?

Maude: [00:09:01] There are literally hundreds of ways. One thing that is essential to remember is that it's not your big actions that matter; it's little daily actions. It's thanking your employees, knowing their names, having small conversations, being consistent with how you approach them, how you involve yourself, and how you're aware of their work and their lives. It changes so much. With every employee, with every organization, it's not a science. It's not perfect. It will never be perfect. It's an art that you learn through trial and mistake. And that takes a lot of self-compassion and a lot of humility.

And speaking of humility, being a good manager in terms of psychological health that works requires you to do a bit of an ego check and to make sure… we spoke about walking the talk. If your employee tells you that, you know what, in order for me to work my best, I need to have half an hour every lunch hour to just go out and walk. Well then, respect this, be consistent with this, and don't impose lunch meetings on their schedule.

Valerie: [00:10:13] Basically, it's a shared responsibility. We have to acknowledge that there is a responsibility that comes from the employee to say, okay, I think I'm not doing well. On the other side, is the organization that says, okay, well, I'm willing to take the time to listen and to act on it and to be able to support you and acknowledging that you're talking about it and you're taking… you’re courage…

Catherine: [00:10:34] Courage, yeah.

Valerie: [00:10:35] To name it; exactly. And to be there to support without judging and without punishing as well.

Catherine: [00:10:43] “That’s why you weren't efficient.”

Valerie: [00:10:44] Exactly.

Catherine: [00:10:45] People don't do that, but kind of in that sense of mind.

Valerie: [00:10:47] Okay. And that goes through the health culture.

Catherine: [00:10:49] Oh, yeah. It’s a matter of shared responsibility that employers have those great initiatives, and we see the difference. But how does the employee have to also take action in their own personal health? I guess that's also very important to make things better.

Maude: [00:11:05] It's an ongoing conversation. So first, employers open the discussion by teaching.

Catherine: [00:11:13] And giving tools.

Maude: [00:11:14] I'm giving you tools. I'm teaching you about psychological health. Here are some better, more precise words to talk about your working conditions, about your stress. And so you can come to me with a very precise issue. This is causing me stress. And then you can have like a large diversity of strategies and tactics and tips that you can try to self-manage as best as you can. And of course, talking to your manager is part of self-management.

Valerie: [00:11:40] We're talking about psychological health. What happens if you strain your ankle? It's a physical pain.

Catherine: [00:11:47] Yeah.

Valerie: [00:11:47] It's a physical limitation. Are you still going to go walk your dog? Are you still going to feel like you can go up and down the stairs in your house? You're going to feel that pain and you're going to act on it, rather than, when we're limited by our psychological health, it takes more time to admit them. It takes more time to see the limitations or to want to act on them. It's more difficult. We have to relate psychological issues to physical issues. How would we treat it if it was a physical issue? And I think that in the workplace, that's where we want to bring it down to. Like we want to be able to talk about my psychological difficulties as much as I'm talking about, “Oh my God, my back this week is killing me. I can't stay on this chair.” Why not?

Maude: [00:12:33] The difference is shame though, because I will never shame someone for spraining their ankle. I will not say that, “You know what? You should have walked better.” But when you're getting stressed out, when you're trying to border on burning out, it's a brain sprain. And sometimes you meant really well.

Catherine: [00:12:53] A brain sprain? I like that term.

Maude: [00:12:54] And sometimes people are just really passionate and really committed to their jobs. And they love their work, especially people in health care, where we see the highest levels of burnout, because they don't love what they do, because they work badly.

Catherine: [00:13:08] They’re absorbed by it.

Maude: [00:13:09] Or because they're badly organized. It's because sometimes, too much is too much. Taking time off or asking for accommodations while you're having a brain sprain, which is the equivalent of asking for crutches if you had sprained your ankle. But what people do is like, oh, you know what? I'm going to tape my brain. I'm going to go on those crutches. And people get really, really injured because they do backflips on their injured… their brain sprain.

Catherine: [00:13:35] And they try to stand up.

Maude: [00:13:37] They try to stand up. A little bit tough.

Catherine: [00:13:38] Yeah. And if I'm not wrong, there are some group coverages that offer employee and management assistance programs that give access to a range of psychological services; am I right?

Valerie: [00:13:48] Yes. The EAP programs and manager assistance programs have evolved throughout the years to the better of us all. It has evolved to giving financial support, legal support, as well as psychological support. And we can even call for our dependants, not necessarily us as an individual, but if my children have difficulty, if I have difficulty finding a place for my elderly mother, those are all services that an Employee Assistance Program can offer.

Catherine: [00:14:12] Because it could take a lot of effort, a lot of energy.

Valerie: [00:14:15] Exactly.

Maude: [00:14:16] But you need to know about them. A lot of the times, companies only talk about their EAPs through onboarding, when people are already really overwhelmed because they're starting a new job and trying to master all kinds of new things.

Catherine: [00:14:30] And you remember one thing out of ten.

Maude: [00:14:32] Yeah, you're not stressed out yet. So more often than not, you forget about your EAP. And most EAPs are actually pretty amazing. You have access to a lot of services. So you need to refresh people's minds quite often.

Catherine: [00:14:45] So it's actually the managing team that should maybe every three, four months…

Maude: [00:14:49] Three, four months. And remember, you don't you don't have to refresh everything. A lot of people ask, “How can I make my organization evolve? I want us to be more open. I want the culture to change. What can we do?” It starts with you. Actions speak louder than words. Your example is the most powerful practice that you can use to change, make your culture evolve. Sharing your own struggles. Everyone has had a stressed-out episode. We've all had times where we were overwhelmed through.

Catherine: [00:15:20] It’s not showing weakness, sharing that little moment at home where it's chaos or…

Maude: [00:15:24] It's being human. But if your employees see you show that openness, then they will feel more comfortable talking about it, too. You have to walk the talk.

Catherine: [00:15:34] Absolutely. Is it important to always adapt your message depending on the generation you're talking to, different cultural backgrounds? I love how Valerie's face is like, of course.

Valerie: [00:15:45] Of course. And that's funny because we had a client where they had different work shifts and they had many, many immigrant workers that came on different seasonal working that they had within the organization. And when we talked about psychological health, we had to adapt our message. First, it's because they couldn't even understand why we were talking about it. Their first language is not French, first of all. And then second, within their culture, they're not used to talking about how they're doing. They're there for work. They have a shift to complete. That's not even a part of their conversation that they have at work. So if you're asking me if we have to adapt, of course. Even just generations, culture, language. So for sure that we're reaching out to an individual, we want to be able to feel that we're reaching out in their own language and in their own sense of what they need and understanding.

Catherine: [00:16:41] You could connect because you know what they need.

Valerie: [00:16:43] I like that.

Maude: [00:16:43] You can have like the most beautifully crafted message, the most complete policy, and it doesn't matter if the message that you're saying cannot be understood on the other end. And that goes for language. It goes for just different kinds of industries and cultures. I've worked recently with a forest organization in forestry, and they are very forward in their mental health programs. But I was like, “How do you start this conversation?” They have to drive for hours to get to their different sites.

Catherine: [00:17:14] Oh, wow!

Maude: [00:17:14] So they have truck conversations. Well, you know, you're not looking at each other in the eyes, so it's less threatening. And you're driving. You're there anyway and you're literally stuck in the car. So, “How's it going? What's new?” Is there something going on?” And then people are more relaxed because, you know, they're driving. There's music. It's less threatening than if you're in the office with your boss, with a light in your face and like, “How's it going?”

Catherine: [00:17:39] Conference room.

Maude: [00:17:39] The conference room call. Like, people are well-meaning like, and oh, my employee is not doing well, so I'll ask them for a meeting but not tell them why. Like, an employee that's stressed or anxious or depressed…

Catherine: [00:17:52] Yeah.

Maude: [00:17:52] I'm gonna get fired. That's it.

Catherine: [00:17:54] So to engage the conversation, you have to really understand their way of communicating?

Maude: [00:17:59] Of course, and their perspective. And ideally, as best as you can, try to understand their frame of mind. Like, someone that's already stressed, adapt and reassure, like, “Hey, I want to meet you just to check in about your current workload,” just so people feel relaxed and not on the defensive.

Catherine: [00:18:16] Absolutely. And feel comfortable. We were talking a little bit about shared responsibility and the aspects of self-management. Can you share some tips of self-management to help someone that wants to help themselves?

Maude: [00:18:29] There are so many ways to care of yourself. Of course, there's the… not the basic because they're so hard – to work out more, to walk more, to move your body, to eat better, to sleep better. Those are the big three basic things: move, sleep, eat better. But it can be like we talked about social support. Social support is a self-management strategy. Taking time with friends, with family, volunteering, taking care of your dog. My dog is a great psychological health strategy. It's just pure love. In the workplace, it's going to…

Catherine: [00:19:03] To reflect?

Maude: [00:19:04] It's going to reflect. But you can self-manage your mental health in the workplace. You can organize your schedule. Like, I like to batch all my meetings in a chunk and then I have time to focus. But some people need to have recovery breaks or spread them out during the day. So how do you take control of your schedule, of your time? How do you respect your own boundaries? Saying no. Just because it's self-management doesn't mean you have to do it on your own. If you want to walk…

Catherine: [00:19:31] It sounds yourself. “Self-management.”

Maude: [00:19:33] But no, you can use your friends, your partner, again, social support, volunteering, your colleagues, your boss, your organization. Make it social. Make yourself accountable by being visible.

Catherine: [00:19:58] Valerie, you have something you really want to share.

Valerie: [00:20:01] Absolutely. At Beneva, we give manager training on how to prevent and support employees that go on disability leave. And beyond our expectations, during the period where we're talking about maintaining contact during a disability leave with the employee that's on the leave, a manager stood up and shared his own story and said, “I've been with the company for over 20 years and I feel like it's important to share my story. I was on disability leave two times in my career. The first time, I went on a leave of absence for a surgery that I had to get in my back. It was a physical injury. We knew that the date was coming for my surgery. Everybody contacted me to say, how did it go? How's your recovery? When are you coming back? We're excited for you to be back. I felt there was a sense of belonging and that they were interested in my condition. Eight years later, I went on a second disability leave, unfortunately, and this time it was for psychological issues. I went on depression and I was away for five months, and nobody called me.”

Catherine: [00:21:08] Oh wow.

Valerie: [00:21:08] “Not one colleague, not my manager, nobody called me. I still have that in my mind. I felt that I was not important to my organization. And keep in mind that I've been in the organization for over 20 years. For me, the sense of belonging is so important.”

And that person shared their own personal story in front of his colleagues, managers. It was so revealing, so important to address the impact of social support that we mentioned earlier today and the impact of the sense of belonging, the lack of sense of belonging, that could negatively impact the psychological health of an individual. And the difference between a physical and a psychological injury or disability shouldn't be that big. The human being behind needs that social support, whether it's physical or psychological.

Catherine: [00:22:07] But is it because people don't know what to say sometimes?

Valerie: [00:22:10] Absolutely. And that goes through communication and eliminating stigma and giving the tools to managers to have those conversations. And when we address that in the training, we say, just give them a call to see how they're doing. Your role is not to know about their medical condition. It's just to keep that connection and to keep that communication open.

Catherine: [00:22:32] And the sense that you care.

Valerie: [00:22:33] Exactly, to maintain that sense of belonging.

Catherine: [00:22:46] Valerie, this conversation enlightened me a lot about prioritizing organizational health. Can you sum up what we should remember the most?

Valerie: [00:22:53] To know your people, to know your organization, and to adapt your health culture; that's something that evolves throughout time that you may want to change throughout time. And that's fine. We talk about retention of employees, we talk about wanting to be there to support them throughout their difficult challenges of life. So I think that through the health culture, that will resonate.

I feel that all measures can work. You have to define what they are for you and your organization. If it's an EAP program, if it's a different kind of spending account, a health spending account; doesn't matter what they are, just to have a global strategy that's well known within the organization, and communicate that through your different levels of employees and make that live within your organization.

Catherine: [00:23:41] Valerie, Maude, thank you for providing us with so many tools to cultivate mental health through shared responsibility. Thank you all for listening. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate and contact us at [email protected]. If you would like to have more information about this topic and discover other episodes, we invite you to go on Beneva’s website in the podcast section.

Stay tuned for another conversation that will guide you for future insurance and business needs. Until next time.

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