Doctor Sally Spencer Thomas
Clinical psychologist,
mental health advocate researcher.
Welcome on the business.
So glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Your doctor's salad.
More companies are taking steps
to move past traditional employee
assistance programs towards mental
health programs for their employees.
Tell us more about what you're
seeing and why it's needed. Now.
Yeah, you know. I think for a long
time a lot of companies were like
we have a mental health program.
We have an employee assistance program.
Check the box done and then they
went and looked at it and they
found that it wasn't being used.
And when they dug a little deeper they
found that most of them were subpar.
So I think especially after the pandemic.
Head matter health issues kind of rose
to the top for pretty much everyone.
Whether it was burnt out.
Concerned about your kids,
your parents, your partner yourself,
it was top of mind for a lot of people.
And so people started peeling the
layers away and realized there
was a lot of work to do.
So what other trends are you seeing
across industries that you know?
I guess both excite you, or perhaps
you know you have some concern.
Well, I think the first thing is
they are now looking beyond the AP,
and even if they had a really good one,
it often wasn't being used.
So they realized like there's a gap here
between what's needed and what we're able
to provide or what's what's happening.
So it's the biggest trend that
I see is really for the first
time in a significant way,
employers are raising their hands
and saying we need training.
We need help.
And prior to that they were always like.
This is not our lane.
This is a medical issue.
We create widgets or we do this.
Service this is not our lane,
and now they're saying this is our lane.
It's just like a CPR training or a
basic sexual harassment training
or a diversity equity inclusion
training like this is important for
our business to function well and so
all kinds of trainings are emerging
and this is your business.
So tell us a little bit more about
how you are helping companies with
respect to supporting their their
mental health journey for their
employees and their overall companies.
Companies they usually fall
into one of three buckets.
Either they're in the awareness
bucket like they've never really
considered this an issue before.
They don't really know too much about it.
They feel out in left field,
and so they just need to raise some awareness
of some basic mental health literacy.
How to support people through tough times.
Just some really basic ideas and
about how to access resources and
what to expect once they've gotten
awareness that maybe we have an
issue here that we need to address,
the next bucket is training
and building skills.
We have to start building skills.
In our managers,
to address these issues in our peers,
when the issues are small,
peers are often the first to notice.
How can they be helpful liaisons into
the resources and then the third bucket,
which is really more the advanced bucket.
Although I'd always love for people to start.
Here is the strategy building.
Taking a deep dive and listening
to people about what's driving
to stress and despair.
What are the barriers to help
seeking and how can people build on
the opportunities and strengths of
a company to build a very robust,
comprehensive and sustainable
mental health program?
So employee health and safety includes
mental health and psychologically
safe working environment.
It's about taking care of your
organization's most valuable assets.
Human capital, your people.
In other words,
good mental health practices for
your employees is good for them,
and it's also good for the business.
How do you see the business
imperative of having sound mental
health support programs for
organizations and their workforce?
There's really 2 main ways that this is
really an important business imperative.
Probably the first one of the
reason I got into it. You know,
I'm a clinical psychologist by training,
but I also lost my brother to suicide and
that put me on a trajectory to figure out
what are we missing and what we're missing.
Is more people helping you know?
We just delegated it to the
mental health professionals and
everybody washed their hands of it,
so we need to prepare workplaces
for mental health emergencies.
They're not prepared,
and often when they happen,
whether it is a suicide.
Risk or an addiction trauma an overdose.
They're reeling.
They're on their heels reeling and reacting.
And that is very disruptive to any business.
So how do we prepare for
mental health emergencies?
Just like we prepare for other types
of emergencies or health issues
and have a really solid plan in
place to meet people with dignity
and support on their darkest days?
Not with fear,
but with a plan.
And then the other business imperative
that I see increasingly over over time.
Is that workplaces really need to start
differentiating themselves as a holistic
workplace that cares about the entire person,
not just their productivity,
not just their intelligence,
but their whole being, their families.
They care about what
they do and who they are.
I think with the emerging talent coming in,
they demand it,
and if they don't find it,
they they vote with their feet.
So a workplace that says yes,
your well being is a priority to us.
You're our most valuable asset.
Here's how we demonstrate that.
Here's how we're going to
prevent burnout from happening.
That's the differentiator that's going
to bring in and keep the the talent
that says so sought after these days.
Absolutely. And you know,
I think you're really hammered something
that I think is relevant. You know,
as a business and entrepreneur myself,
business owner and entrepreneur myself.
You know this. This holistic,
you know, as I think you termed it,
you know approach to to people.
And really, you know,
as a business imperative.
Really looking at the best ways
to not only attract talent,
but to keep that talent by supporting
them more holistically and ensuring that.
You know a lot more of their needs,
whether it be in work or outside of work,
are are ultimately helped or supported
or cared for by their employers.
I think that's so critical and
it is important to the business,
especially today,
more than ever,
as we look at ways to find talented
people and keep talented people which
we know has huge implications for the
costs associated with the business.
In terms of attrition and turnover
and the ability to service customers
and and products and and ultimately,
you know,
keep the business moving forward and.
Profitable,
so I I think that not always does
do people see that the relationship
and it certainly isn't, you know,
just all about the numbers.
It's about people.
It's about caring for people.
But there is a business side
to making the right decisions
and taking care of people.
So I just love that about the
holistic view that you shared.
So so this is a big issue.
It's a very important.
It's a priority.
Doctor Sally and I think you
you know that better than most.
What advice might you give
though to employees of companies
about access to mental health?
Support through their employers.
There's a couple of things I
would recommend to employees.
Number one is you can be an
advocate in your company a lot of
times the the top level leadership
doesn't know what they don't know.
They don't know what your
stresses and strains are.
You know, I remember working
with one employer and we started.
You know, doing these listening sessions
and he said Sally, I had no idea.
I had no idea how how stressed our
parents were about their teenage kids.
You know, I had no idea how broken our
entire employee assistance program was,
and so you can be an advocate.
And I always tell especially emerging talent.
That has been fluent in mental
health issues since preschool,
you know,
learning about social and emotional learning.
I said, you got you going to have
to manage up on this one.
You're going to have to gently but
firmly tell people this is a priority
for your workplace and an advocate
for better mental health resources.
Advocate for training.
I've seen a lot of companies start to
form employee resource groups around
mental health so that people can find
each other and support each other.
If you or someone who needs
direct support yourself,
there are often resources
that you're not aware of.
And so to go to the benefits person and say,
you know,
I need some kind of mental health support,
here are my you know,
barriers and limitations.
Do you have something for me?
There's been a lot of creativity that
came through the pandemic of how we
provide mental health support for employees,
and some of it's now telemental
health where people can access
support via the phone or Internet.
Sometimes there's apps that can be
helpful for people and not everything
is going to work for everybody.
So the important thing is to persist
until you find something that works.
For you.
Here's my advice and employers
out there called Doctor Sally.
So Doctor Sally,
Doctor Sally Spencer Thomas.
Thank you so much for joining us on
this is this is great. Thank you for
making this a priority for your day.