Prioritizing Employee Mental Health: A Business Imperative, Not a Nice-to-Have

Let me ask you something. When you have an employee who is struggling to show up fully to their job, maybe they're disgruntled or just have a bad attitude. Do you rush into disciplining their behavior or their performance? Or do you take your time to seek out what is causing their behavior personally or professionally? Do you know the questions you should be asking to uncover the real cause of their performance versus a surface answer? They're going to give you just so that you go away. And then you accept that answer. Well, I wish I did, because when at the beginning of our careers, a very good friend of mine and coworker took his own life. Your employees are not dealing with just pushing through their exhaustion, stress, or even burnout just to meet your deadlines or hit their targets. They are being pummeled by social, economic, and internal pressures and stressors. Workplace burnout and mental health struggles are at an all-time high. Yet many companies still treat wellbeing as an afterthought, as a nice-to-have. They go right to disciplining the surface behavior and not the underlying issue. And that is the role of leaders, is to meet their employees where they are and give them what they need to be successful. But here's the truth. Ignoring mental health just doesn't hurt the employee. It kills productivity, kills innovation, kills retention, and potentially kills the business if it's not made a business imperative. I'm Bernadette Boas, and on today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch, we're diving into why mental health and wellbeing must be a business imperative and not just a a nice to have. We'll discuss the real challenges leaders face, the cost of neglecting employee wellbeing, and most importantly, how you can build a high-performance culture without burning your people out. Leaders often tell me that they care about the wellbeing of their people. Let's be sure that covers their emotional, mental, and physical state. And here's your chance to prove that out. Take care of your people. And drive results all at the same time. Let's dive in.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode. With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, Bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies, and stories. So if you are ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome, and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

I was considering having this conversation at a later date, specifically May, since May is Mental Health Month. So make a note of that, uh, for yourself. But I thought that with all of the chaos going on in the world and from my own personal experiences over the last several months, which I want to share with you, I thought it's never the wrong time to talk about mental health and wellbeing of yourself and of your people, of your friends and family, just ensuring that we're all paying attention to what other people are experiencing and going through and whether or not they need help and they need support. So a couple of stories that woke me up to the whole idea of mental health and wellbeing is not only the one I mentioned very briefly in regards to a, a dear friend of mine and coworker in my mid-20s who on the outside seemed as if they had everything going for them. You would never have expected that he was dealing with any internal demons personally or professionally. And yet, uh, a couple years into knowing him and working with him, I learned that he was found in his car in a garage with the car running. It woke me up to the idea that the masks that we often wear— I wore one very solidly for years. Is not always our true selves. Obviously not because it's called a mask. And therefore that smile someone's wearing or that laughter or that energetic, enthusiastic personality may be masking a lot of things underneath the covers. And he definitely made me really consider what point they must reach if they make the decision to take their own life. But then I forgot about it. Life goes on. You know, we get back into our grind of our daily routine. And I found myself in a state within my last few years of my corporate career where I was extremely unhappy, extremely unfulfilled, extremely not only stressed out and burned out and exhausted and disgruntled around the work that I was doing, the people that I was doing it with, the people I was hanging out with, and even myself being very, very unhappy with myself, feeding those, those insecurities, those fears, those unhappiness, those holes with overdrinking, overeating, even overworking. And it really didn't wake me up to the fact that I obviously was having my own mental health issues. As a result of that, I was not only projecting this unhappiness, this feeling of un— being unfulfilled, this feeling of insecurity, imposter syndrome. Can you relate to any of that? But then what I was doing is I was medicating it and I was soothing it with overdrinking, overeating, even overworking out and going out. That was my salvation to kind of this miserable state of mind that I had been in. And I can only, you know, thank God, literally, that I had that wake-up call that kind of got me to the point where I just was miserable being miserable. And I said, I have to do something different. I, and I didn't necessarily go and seek help. Which I would recommend to anyone, but I knew I needed to do something different. And fortunately, I found my way out of that and through that. But then I found myself just this past year in a different state. I found myself where I am extremely happy, extremely fulfilled. I feel very valued and, and very cherished. In all the areas of my life, family, friends, work, with my clients, with my community, with my activities, with my social life, whatever the case might be. And yet I found myself early November in the ER and then eventually overnight in the hospital because I was having what they were considering panic attacks because I could not get my heart rate under control. And we discounted every type of procedure that you can imagine, and therefore any physical reasons why my heart was racing other than stress, other than anxiety. And I thought to myself, geez, outwardly I don't feel stressed. But then when I really thought about it, when I sat down and considered what was really triggering me, what was really causing me to get irritated or agitated. It had nothing to do with my family, friends, and work and my social life. It had to do with more social, you know, economic type of political type of, of scenarios. And I thought to myself, now that's ridiculous that I would find myself in a hospital as a result of this. My point being, is twofold. One is we as individuals need to be focused on ourselves when it comes to what is going on within ourselves, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, in order to ensure that we aren't damaging ourselves unintentionally or intentionally. But as leaders, and what it is that we wanted to talk about today, We also need to ensure that we are focused on what our people are also dealing with and going through. Because I always say, if you listen to the program, uh, you will have heard, we are humans, we are not robots. So when your people show up to work remotely or in the office, they are bringing everything to that job, everything to that interaction, everything to that teaming. And that could be the good, the bad, the ugly that is going on in their world. And so as leaders, we have to pay attention to whether or not our team members are healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally. And the way we do that is by paying attention and knowing signs and, and acknowledging the signs that may be indicating that someone's struggling. They are coming disgruntled. They are coming with a bad attitude. They are coming tired. They are coming stressed out. They are coming agitated. They are coming without really showing up like they typically do on a day-in, day-out basis. And we need to pay attention to that and then be intentional about wanting to engage and try to help to figure out. How we can be supporting them, or even the company can be supporting them. The statistics around mental health and wellbeing will wake up anyone. Nearly half, 45% of the United States employees experience burnout. The World Health Organization reports that depression and anxiety results in 12 billion lost workdays annually. Which costs the global economy $1 trillion each year. Now, employees with poor mental health report approximately 4 times more unplanned absences, nearly 12 days annually compared to those with good mental health, costing the US economy an estimated $47 billion in lost productivity every year. But let's kind of call this down. And say, okay, so what, what if we did pay attention? What if we did have programs? What if we did address mental health? Well, for every dollar invested in mental health programs, there is a return of $4 in improved health and productivity. So think about that. If we just become a little bit more conscious, a little bit more aware, a little bit more attentive to, you know, how our people are showing up each and every day. That fall outside the norm of their typical behavior, then we could not only be saving the number of days that they're out sick as a result of that anxiety, that stress, that burnout, that exhaustion, that mental fatigue, but at the same time, we could be, um, also saving and increasing tremendously the productivity and the health of our team members, which only Uh, puts more money in our pockets, both at a corporate level, but also at an individual level based on being able to have a healthy team and a high-functioning team that can pursue and achieve the business goals. Make sense? So we really want to understand what the challenges are that contribute to one's poor health, because we can't just simply say, well, there's a lot of chaos going on around our people, around ourselves, and it's all external. Well, if you really look at it and you really talk to your people, a good amount of the stress and exhaustion and burnout and anxiety that's being created is actually happening internally within the company, but more specifically within your team. So let's outline a few of the, of the triggers that might cause someone to be stressed, burned out, exhausted. And the first thing that's going to come to people's mind is, well, it's so busy. The workload is so crazy, is so high, is so broad that yes, you know, everybody's weighed down. Well, I want you to be careful when you dismiss heavy workloads so easily. The reason being is you may be able to handle an extreme stressful long list of a workload while others don't have that capacity. They, they would, would be weighed down. They would be stressed. They would be disgruntled over the exhaustion of that same workload. And so as leaders, we really need to pay attention to ensure that we're really optimizing the ability of our team members to where we're not blindly giving them a workload that is just going to cause them more pain than gain. At the same time, leaders, this is when it really becomes critical that you get laser-focused on helping them and working with them to prioritize what that workload looks like. Now, you might have to give them a laundry list of tasks to do, but not every one of those tasks are critical. Not every one of those tasks are important. Not every one of those tasks are, must be done today, within the next 3 days, let alone a week. And so you could actually be helping your team members and yourself by working with them to get very laser focused on the priorities, the deadlines, and the must-haves or nice-to-haves to where they can then feel there's room to breathe and there's room for them to take care of themselves. Now, besides the workload, you also have the number one complaint of employees to their managers, and that is micromanaging. That is once you assign them a task, you don't let it go and let them handle that task for completion. You're standing over them. You're questioning them. You're pressuring them. You're pushing them. You're making them feel as if there's this additional weight on them completing a task than just the deadline and the priority that you gave it. What's going to weigh them down even more is when someone assigns someone a task, but then they latch on and they don't let go and they don't allow their team member to work on that until it's completed and/or until they hit a wall and they need to come in, you know, ask questions, whatever the case might be. But that's going to just create a sense of distrust. You don't trust them to do the work. You don't trust that they have the skill. You don't trust that they are the expert. You don't trust that they can solve their own problems. And therefore the micromanaging is also creating this weight, this burden of distrust. And that is even uglier than the laundry list of to-dos that they have to get through before the end of the day. So you really need to work on yourself when it comes to, from the workload perspective, time management, productivity, prioritization, delegation. When it comes to the micromanaging, trust, giving them the responsibility because that's why they're there and allowing them to complete it, even if they screw up. And then the two of you can work together to ensure that it's done to the, to the way it needs to get done. You don't need things like distrust burdening your team members who are already overburdened. And that leads to the lack of autonomy, the lack of trusting your people in whatever work environment, in whatever work process, in whatever workflow, in whatever structure they want, they feel that they can accomplish that goal. It, the minute you start creating a box for them that they have to exist in, they have to work in, and that box goes against everything that they are about that makes them productive, that makes them efficient, that makes them high performing. That in itself will also just start diminishing their productivity, their attentiveness. Their energy, their excitement, their enthusiasm, everything. And it'll start beating them down to where they just don't want to do anything. And so you need to not only, as we discussed, help to prioritize and delegate the workload, then you need to give it to them and trust that they're going to take care of it and not micromanage them. And then you need to also take that trust one step further. And set them up for success in the mode of operation, the workflow, the process, the structure, the work environment, remote, at home, in a cube, in an open workspace, whatever the case might be, that makes them the best producer possible. Because what you need to be focused on is the result, not how they got there. And so I challenge you to ask yourself, if the result's the same, do you care how they got there? Because you caring and not really considering what works best for them is causing this mental health, this anxiety, this stress, this pressure that your people are feeling. And you might be feeling it from your, from your own experience and with your own circle of influencers that are also directing your, your workload and your way of getting the work done. Don't practice what's happening to you. You need to, you know, decide what type of leader you want to be to get the best out of your people. And you get the best out of your people, that's going to bring the best out of you, and mental health and well-being will not even be in question. All right. This may lead you to asking yourself, why is it that many leaders don't prioritize mental health and wellbeing? Well, there's a number of reasons. One is the fact that they haven't created the safe environment for their people to come to them when they are struggling, when they need support. And maybe it's because you don't feel safe and comfortable going to your managers and your powers to be to talk about what it is that you might be dealing with. And realize there's a big difference between an employee coming to you saying, I don't feel physically well and I need to take some time off, or I'm, I have a family situation that I'm dealing with that I need a day or two off, than them coming to you and saying, I am really fit personally, emotionally, spiritually, mentally struggling, and I don't know how to get out of this hole, or let alone, I have found myself self-medicating and I need help and I need support. So it's in incredibly imperative that start with yourself as a leader, let alone the organization, to create a safe space for your employees to come to you when they are dealing with some mental health and wellbeing type of issues. And you can start with working on the fact that Many of your employees don't even feel comfortable to raise up issues and critical feedback, and that should indicate to you that there is a degree or a lack, I should say, a lack of psychological safety amongst your team. So you could start there and then work your way into creating that space where they can come and they can knock on your door or pick up the phone. And say, I need some help. I need some support. I wonder if we have resources for this. And of course, many employees hesitate to do that and hesitate to come to you because they don't want to appear weak or appear less than or appear uncommitted or appear as if they're a, a problem child. And raise the HR red flag. Just think of it yourself. Why wouldn't you go to your boss, right? And, and the higher level you are, the more of a threat it feels that if you were to disclose anything really personal, that that could jeopardize your career trajectory. And that type of attitude, that type of existence is not healthy for anyone. And so you can create that safe space, make it comfortable for people to come to you for support and for help, and you can work it your way into then finding the resources for them. At the same time, you can help them to not be afraid or not to believe that they'll appear weak or uncommitted. Or a problem child. The other big one too is many management teams are not well equipped. They're not trained to really support the whole conversation around mental health and wellbeing. They don't know the resources. They don't know the support systems. They might not even know what the organization already provides. And a lot of times managers will be like, well, why don't you just call Joe over in HR and ask him? Well, there's a reason why they didn't go to HR directly. There, there, and there's a reason why they're coming to you. And so your job as a leader is to know what's available to your team members to support all aspects of their being, not just them getting the job done. So they know the resources for any applications or software or pens that they need. But also what are the other programs available to them to really get the training and the support and the wellbeing, uh, that they need. Now, one that often concerns me when I hear it is, and I don't hear it a lot, but is leaders will feel that if they start putting an emphasis on mental health or wellbeing, that it discounts any type of accountability. It makes accountability look weaker because of someone struggling, because of someone's issues. And so there's this conflict between, well, this person's dealing with stuff, and yet I do have performance issues I need them to be addressing. And again, I will say that that is a lack of training, is a lack of skill, is a lack of understanding of how to balance those two or how to even find a blend of those two, because you still need productivity. You still need efficiency. You still need effectiveness from your team members. And so don't allow yourself or the organization to use the excuse of a lack of accountability if they all of a sudden introduce programs that are going to make your people a lot more efficient, optimized, effective, productive. And high potential to where you don't even have an accountability issue if they are well taken care of and they are optimized in their performance, right? So just be aware of that though, just in case it's a, you know, undisclosed or unconscious bias of your own is if we have these programs, it'll discount being able to, you know, hold someone accountable. And then of course, uh, just like the lack of training and the lack of programs, companies aren't really very structured to have those type of initiatives, those type of programs, uh, those types of incentives. I remember when I was in corporate, and this is going to go back to like early 2000s, and we were given incentives to take part in certain health programs. Certain wellbeing programs. At the time, it was more like fitness programs, um, and taking care of ourselves, quitting smoking, for instance. So there's a lot of different ways that you can be structured with wellbeing and mental health programs without feeling as if you're jeopardizing the overall performance of your team. I would rather have you focused on the benefits and the impact and the return on investment that you gain as a result of taking care of your people that you say you care for their wellbeing. Well, then ensuring that they know what the resources are, they know what the support systems are, they have a safe environment to bring up any type of issues that they're having and struggles that they need support on. And they know where to go, including you as the leader. That is where I would prefer you to be really focused on. Now let's talk about what you can do. What can you do to ensure that you're putting attention and focus on the mental health and wellbeing of yourself as well as your people? First one would be share your experiences, share the struggles that you have had or that you might be dealing with to let others know that they're not alone. Not in that same situation, but just the fact that you, even as a leader, struggle. You have, you know, mental, physical, emotional stresses, strains, pains at times. And therefore, they should not feel as if they're on an island by themselves because everyone has pains as well as joys in their life. So share your experiences. If you show your vulnerability, if you show your trust in being able to disclose very personal aspects of your life, others will as well. And that's a great way to start building that psychological safety and trust within your team, let alone the organization. To where mental health and wellbeing is not an afterthought or a nice to have, but more of a business imperative. At the same time, model it. Model healthy behavior, model taking care of yourself, model taking breaks, model setting boundaries, model making sure you are taking your vacations and you have a life outside the workplace and that there's wellbeing programs that you're taking part in. Again, you model that, others will want to mirror that or copy that and therefore do it for themselves. And ensure that you're normalizing these type of sensitive, intimate conversations. You could be doing check-ins with people. Now, remember I mentioned at the very beginning, you don't want to just check in to where they're like, oh, you know, I'm okay. And you accept that and dismiss the fact that they're saying that when they're looking down and not even paying attention to you, or they, they're saying that as their mouth is trembling with emotion. They're saying that with a little bit of anger or agitation in their voice, or their posture is, is showing some aggravation. Ensure that you're asking open-ended questions to get some feedback from them, true feedback as far as how they're doing and if there's anything that you could be doing for them, or is there any direction you can point them in to get the support that they need? Don't accept one or two word answers. I'm fine. All's good. Make sure that you're really paying attention and even training yourself and your people to recognize the signs of burnout, stress, anxiety. That your team members are having, because if you're experiencing any of it, you're going to want someone else to notice it too, and potentially reach a hand out for you to help you and hold you up. So do the same for your people. Now, addressing the workload, you really need to reassess the depth of workload and the expectations that you have. Of course, if it's a lack of resource issue, uh, all of the workload activities are imperative. They're not going away. They may not need to be done tomorrow, but eventually they all need to be done. That is fine. That's life. However, what you really need to ensure that you're doing for yourself and your people is, is the list of tasks all number one priorities? I'm going to challenge you and say no. There's not no such thing as two number one priorities, because eventually that would have to be broken, that tie, by saying, all right, so we have these two number one things that have to get done. I'm only one person. Which one's most important? And eventually some decision maker's going to say this one over that one, or they're going to say, or you need to challenge them to say, well, both of these need to be done at the same time. With the same deadline, then who are you going to assign this other task to? Because this individual can't do both. You have to be an advocate for your team members, but team members, you have to advocate for yourself. You need to ensure you're putting together the business case or the argument as far as why you're not going to be able to accomplish the goal that they have for you because of X, Y, and Z. Really be sure that the workload, the prioritization that you're giving your team members is realistic. And then ensure that the expectations that you're giving them are very clear, are very well understood, and are realistic. If a project that is typically takes 4 weeks and you're asking it to be done in 2 weeks or even 3 weeks, is that really fair? Is that going to set your team member up for success? I would argue no, but at the same time, you could be having those discussions with your people to ensure that you're both in alignment and agreement to whatever workload, goals, and expectations are set. And then there is the investing in wellbeing programs, mental health programs, and you could advocate to have a program just for your team if you're not able to or willing to advocate it for the whole organization. There's nothing to stop a leader from saying, well, I have a training budget, and therefore I'm going to allocate some monies to get some support, get some resources, get some training for my people. So really ensure that you are considering and being strategic in thinking about What type of programs can you be providing your people beyond leadership training or skill training to really address the mental health and wellbeing of your individuals? Now, at the same time, and this is a touchy subject for many, but at the same time, you as a leader also need to consider the work environment that your people are working in and what works best for individuals, if not groups of individuals, meaning that if, if you're focused on the end state, the result versus how they get there, then you could be having flexible work hours. You could be having flexible work environments, remote, in the office, hybrid. You could be open to the workflows that they use. It doesn't have to be your workflow. Doesn't have to be your process. If they can get to the end goal by the expectations set, do you really care how they got there as long as the result is what you're expecting? And so that in itself, and that doesn't cost any money. It just costs pride and it costs letting go of your ego and letting go of the control, um, to really meet your people where they are and give them the flexibility to do the job. At their peak performance in the mode that works best for them. And then we come full circle in that you definitely want to be touching base and assessing the wellbeing of your people. It goes beyond the check-ins that we talked about. It goes beyond the one-on-ones that we talked about. Now it's— this should be a, a consistent, persistent process to where you're regularly assessing the health and wellbeing of your people, that they have what they need, that they are happy with how they're able to perform their job. They're, they find that the leadership you're providing is effective. They're satisfied with the company. You know, you call them focus groups, call them engagement surveys, call them whatever you want. But you definitely want to be checking in on a regular basis and assessing and measuring and tracking how employee satisfaction, employee effectiveness is over time. And then you could be using that information to either build a business case for mental health and wellbeing programs, or you could be adjusting policies and procedures and programs based on what the current information is telling you. You can get a full picture of just how healthy your teams and organization is by consistently touching base and assessing that wellbeing and mental health of the teams. There's a couple of key takeaways I want you to walk away with, and that is mental health and wellbeing is not a nice to have. It is a must-have. It is a business imperative. It is a business priority. And as I mentioned at the very beginning, for every dollar invested in those programs, you get $4 in return through improved productivity and improved health. And the value of those two things is then you're not having the degree of absentees, the degree of internal conflicts, the degree of dissatisfied employees. You're gaining so much more by simply implementing non-financial programs, such as what we talked about in regards to one-on-ones and check-ins and having flexible work arrangements. That doesn't cost anything to you to address those immediately. And then more of the investment aspect where you are advocating for your team or the organization to have programs, have resources, support systems, individuals available to team members to get the help that they need to be productive in their workplace and productive in their home place. Lastly, I do wanna mention I'm not personally affiliated with them, but I wanted to ensure to provide some go-tos, resources, but you can check out resources like betterhelp.com, which provides online therapy. It's almost like an on-demand therapy app that you could be using as well as Calm. It's also an app where it provides opportunities to just reflect, meditate, prayer, so forth and so on to where you can get really centered and grounded and release any stress or anxiety or exhaustion that you might be feeling. And then of course, you could be reaching out to your HR department to ensure you are aware of the programs, the policies, the procedures to handle that for yourself and for your team members. So they are well aware of just what's available to them and/or what isn't available within the organization, but maybe they too have resources that they can point you to. Okay. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your team members and others. So they can learn what it really takes to ensure you are having a very healthy culture and a very well cared for team. And be sure to follow us. You can go to ballofirecoaching.com/podcast and subscribe on any one of your favorite podcast streaming services and or watch us on YouTube on our Shedding the Corporate Bitch TV channel. Until next time, I look forward to having you right back here for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Bye!

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Every journey taken together is another step towards unleashing the powerhouse leader within you. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.