A Nontraditional Approach: How Companies Can Support Their Employees’ Wellbeing With This One Tool
As medical case managers and nurse practitioners, we’ve sat at the intersection of work and health for nearly twenty years. Because of this, we often get asked: What’s your advice for better taking care of employees? What do you see other companies doing to support the health and wellness of their workers?
First, we always recommend having a plan in place to address any injuries that take place on the job quickly. We also recommend having a team of medical case managers either on-staff or outsourced to help navigate the complex world of workers’ compensation when employees inevitably do get injured (that’s us!).
Beyond that, we’ve seen companies promote employee wellness through a number of initiatives, including step count challenges, unlimited PTO, better maternity and paternity policies, personal and professional development training, speakers series and lunchtime yoga classes.
These initiatives provide employees with opportunities to connect with one another, reduce stress levels and hit pause for a few minutes before returning to their day. But we sometimes feel our collective approach to employee wellness (we’re learning alongside the companies we support, after all!) is just a drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming numbers on post-COVID employee burnout and stress, which all point to the same thing: Our struggle with mental health.
As therapist and season two guest Dr. Darcy Sterling shared, “We are, indisputably, in a global mental health crisis right now. The pandemic threw everybody into crisis mode.” In fact, in a recent study conducted by the American Psychological Association, 71% of participants said they felt tense or stressed throughout the workday, with nearly 50 million Americans currently struggling with mental health.
In our interview with international opera singer and voice teacher Zachary Nelson, a nontraditional solution appeared: What if companies funneled their resources away from yoga lunchtime sessions and leadership seminars and paid for a set number of therapy sessions for each employee, instead?
As Zachary shared, “You work for some companies and they're just kind of like, Oh, sorry, you're not feeling so well. But I'm working right now at the Santa Fe Opera, and this year they are offering six free therapy sessions to anyone at the company that asks for it.”
He goes on to explain, “You can talk about anything. You don't have to actually be there to talk about work. And that's incredibly rare. It's the first time I've actually ever heard of a company offering these services.”
For companies with the resources, this appears to be an incredibly effective and direct way to support employees’ mental health. For smaller companies with fewer resources, paying for an initial one-two sessions or an annual mental health check can still be enormously effective.
As Darcy shared in our interview, “It’s very easy and emotionally convenient for many of us to not be plugged into how we’re feeling. But that one moment of reflection can sometimes be a turning point in helping somebody take care of themselves longer-term.”
As our CEO Joan Viscardi added, “We're human beings. We have to have quality of life, and that starts in the workplace.”
To hear the full interviews, check out Season Two of VISTV here.
Note: Some of the quotes included in this article were edited for clarity.