Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Lorrie Coffey

Mental Health in the Workplace… What Can You Do?
Recently I talked about authenticity during employee hardships. With recent events in the news, including the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, I wanted to dive deeper into how employers can help employees in need.

Mental health is an ever-growing concern in our nation. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness:
- Approximately 1 in 5 adults (43.5 millions) in the U.S. experience mental illness in a given year.
- One in 25 of those Americans suffer a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.
- 9% of adults in the U.S. have had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.
- 1% of adults in the U.S. experienced an anxiety disorder such as PTSD, OCD, or specific phobias.
With mental illness so prevalent in our nation, what can employers do to help employees who suffer from mental illness?
1. Understand, and make sure employees understand, what mental health benefits are covered under your health insurance plan. Going over the benefits coverage annually during open enrollment is a perfect time to educate employees on what is covered. If an employee comes to you, remind them that their insurance includes coverage for mental health services.
2. If you don’t already have one, consider adding an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to your benefits package. Employees can contact the EAP confidentially, receive immediate counseling services for work related or personal issues, and if needed, the EAP will assist the employee with finding a mental health professional in their local area. Employers see an increase in productivity, reduced time off, reduced turnover, reduction in work related injuries, and more. It’s a win-win.
3. Listen. Listen to your employees and take what they say seriously. If you have an employee who comes to you concerned about a co-worker, don’t take their concern lightly. If an employee comes to you to discuss a problem they are having, take the time to sit and really hear what they have to say. Sometimes all that is needed is someone to listen and show compassion. Sometimes more is needed, and that is when #1 and #2 may come in handy.
4. Understand that sometimes it is bigger than you. There may be cases in which you aren’t equipped to help. I once called the local police and had them conduct a welfare check on an employee who showed signs of extreme mental distress and made an insinuative comment to a coworker one day before leaving work about what he’d do if he had a gun. (I had also provided this employee with information on his mental health coverage and the EAP).
There are also many programs and resources that employees can access within their communities, as well as online. These include:
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline- 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- Alabama Department of Mental Health- 1-800-367-0955
- National Alliance on Mental Health- 1-800-950-NAMI
- Project Semicolon- projectsemicolon.com
Remember that mental illness may be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If an employee comes forward with their mental illness and requests accommodations, be sure to follow your organization’s ADA accommodation request procedures. If an employee needs to take leave for a mental illness, be sure to see if they qualify for leave under FMLA.

For more information on mental health in the workplace, check out the Center for Workplace Mental Health.
June 14, 2018
Authenticity During Employee Hardships
I recently read an article written by Amy Morin, a psychotherapist who lost her husband suddenly at age 26. She talked about how her company provided her with the bereavement leave she needed to grieve, but more so about how they handled her return. She spoke of how her manager let her ease back into work by starting on a Friday and not having too much on her plate her first few days in the office. And she talked about how that manager asked her prior to her return how she wanted the topic of her husband’s death to be handled around the office. Did she want employees asking her about how she was doing, or expressing their condolences? While it didn’t ease her pain, it made her return to work so much easier.

As leaders, we often have a difficult time knowing how to handle employee hardships. Leaders have to look at what impact there will be to the company if the employee needs to take leave, while also considering how to be supportive to the employee during a difficult personal experience. And as is human nature, when someone is suffering, we often have a difficult time knowing how to react or what to say.

Here are a few ways leaders can be authentic when handling employee hardships.
- If an employee needs to go out on leave, take the time to provide them with their options and put it in writing so that they can review it later. Chances are they’re not fully able to focus on the information you have provided them verbally. Follow up with them after a few days to see if they have any questions.
- Reach out to them shortly before their return and discuss when and how they will return to work. Will they start back at the end of the week or part-time for a couple weeks to slowly ease back into the swing of things? Do they want to just jump right back in? Do they want co-workers approaching them about the situation or would they rather it not be addressed?
- Be empathetic and be patient. Let the employee know through your actions that while you may not understand what they are going through, you understand it is a difficult time for them. Don’t expect them to be back to full capacity on day one of their return, whether their leave was due to a death, a health issue, or another type of hardship, they may take some time to get back up to speed.
Too often leaders view an employee’s need for leave as an inconvenience, failing to be empathetic to what the employee is going through. This lack of empathy and accommodation will eventually have a negative impact on how employees view the culture of the organization.

Is your organization’s culture supportive and empathetic to employees during personal hardships?

To read Amy’s article, click here.
May 31, 2018
Sexual Harassment: A Cultural Change
Sexual harassment is not pervasive due to a need to change the law, but instead the need to change cultural values within an organization. This was the message I heard recently at an HR conference. In all the years that I have conducted sexual harassment training and helped organizations to implement policies, procedures, and conduct investigations, I’d never thought about it that way. But it makes sense.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made sexual discrimination, including sexual harassment, illegal. So why over fifty years later is sexual harassment making waves in the headlines? We’ve all heard the stories of Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Bill Cosby, and the list goes on. How were they allowed to conduct themselves in such a manner for so long without repercussion?

A former co-worker recently shared a story with me about a manager where she worked making unwanted advances towards a younger seasonal employee. While the employee did not report this behavior to management, she did complain to another employee who was compelled to report it. The result? She was terminated and told that because the position was seasonal, she just wasn’t needed any longer. An investigation into the complaint was never conducted.

The company in question has a sexual harassment policy in place, they have a very detailed investigation process. But in this case, those tools were useless because the company’s cultural values didn’t match what their policy stated. Many of the women whose stories we’ve heard in the headlines had similar experiences. They tried to report the behavior and were told it was no big deal or to just let it go.

So how do we change the cultural values toward sexual harassment in the workplace?

Changing the company culture includes:
- Taking each and every complaint seriously, conducting a thorough investigation, and taking action to cease the behavior. If employees understand that such behavior won’t be tolerated, they’re much less likely to act in such a manner in the workplace.
- Providing sexual harassment training to all employees within your organization, creating an open-door culture where employees feel safe bringing forth such complaints, and where they know that their complaints will be taken seriously. If employees know that they will be taken seriously, they are more likely to file a report. If your organization gets a reputation for ignoring complaints, employees won’t speak up and many will eventually leave the organization.
- Training leadership on how to respond to such complaints, how to conduct investigations, and how to help move the company culture in the right direction by modeling the appropriate behaviors. Many managers admit that they don’t know how to respond to such complaints and receiving such complaints makes them uncomfortable, so instead of addressing it, they ignore it.
- Reviewing company policies on workplace relationships and determining what is appropriate for your organization. Where does your organization draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate workplace relationships?
By taking complaints of sexual harassment seriously, utilizing the tools your organization already has in place, and providing training to your staff, you can begin to move your organization’s cultural values in the right direction.

To read more about sexual harassment in the workplace, check out these posts:

#MeToo and the Onslaught of Sexual Harassment Training Requests

3 Ways to Make your Workplace Harassment Training Successful
May 17, 2018
Increase the Value of your Organization’s Biggest Asset
“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Sir Richard Branson

As another school year comes to a close, my boys have already started getting that end of year fever. To them the end of the school year means a break from learning. To me it means a summer filled with opportunities to teach them things they can’t experience in a classroom. With that comes the opportunity to encourage them to challenge themselves and set personal goals for what they want to accomplish during the summer (besides sleeping in).

Performance reviews are a great opportunity for leadership to sit down with employees and not only review their past performance, but to also help employee set personal learning goals for their future as well. While employees are an organization’s best asset, those assets are only worth what an organization puts into them. The more an organization encourages employees to seek out continuous learning opportunities and the more resources an organization provides for employees to do so, the more valuable the employees become to the organization.

There are countless ways for an organization to provide continuous learning opportunities. Regardless of the size of your organization, there are ways to help your employees grow in their careers. Some options include:
- Tuition Reimbursement Programs
- In-House Training Programs
- Webinars & Conferences
- Lunch and Learn Sessions
- Vendor Presentations (these are often provided for free)
- Mentor/Shadowing Programs
- Monthly Informative Newsletters
Providing training opportunities to employees not only helps them to increase their knowledge, it helps them feel more connected to the organization. Leaders can encourage employees in their efforts through continuous feedback and review of the goals set during the performance review process.

Are you increasing the value of your organization’s biggest asset through continuous learning?
May 10, 2018
Top 10 Quotes on Authentic Leadership

As we continue to explore authenticity, I think it’s important to focus on how to actually be an authentic leader. One of the best ways to learn is to pay close attention to the authentic leaders you know in real life and those who are doing the work publicly and sharing their experiences. We always look for research and subject matter experts to inform our work, so here are ten authentic leadership quotes we often reference:

10) “Authentic Leaders are not afraid to show emotion and vulnerability as they share in the challenges with their team. Developing a solid foundation of trust with open and honest communication is critical to authentic leadership.” – Farshad Asl, The “No Excuses” Mindset: A Life of Purpose, Passion, and Clarity

9) “Authentic leadership is the full expression of “me” for the benefit of “we”.” – Henna Inam, Wired for Authenticity: Seven Practices to Inspire, Adapt, & Lead

8) “Authentic leadership is revealed in the alignment of what you think, what you say, and what you do.” –Michael Holland, Founder & President, Bishop House

7) “Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet — thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing — consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.” – Lance Secretan, The Secretan Center, Inc.

6) “Authenticity and knowing who you are is fundamental to being an effective and long-standing leader.” -Ann Fudge

5) “Without trust we don’t truly collaborate; we merely coordinate or, at best, cooperate. It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team.” – Stephen Covey

4) “It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.” –Zig Ziglar

3) “Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.” – Andy Stanley

2) “A genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

1) “A true leader is one who is humble enough to admit their mistakes.” – John C. Maxwell

To read more about Authentic Leadership, visit my blog post Authenticity and Authentic Leadership.

May 3, 2018