Episode 249 - The Importance of Embracing Mental Health Wellness in the Office
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
Thank you so very much for joining me, Randall, on this edition of around with Randall. I want to delve into a subject that, frankly, I'm not qualified to talk about, at least in detail, but know how important it is and how leadership's got to be more aware of all of this. And this is talking about the demands that are out there in terms of our staffs, in terms of our offices, in terms of what's going on.
We're stretching, you know, employees too thin. This is about the responsibility that organizations have to the best of their ability when it comes to mental wellness. And in some ways, the idea of resiliency, we are seeing more and more pressure placed on nonprofits. And I work with, interestingly, billion dollar health systems down to smaller nonprofits, in social service and kind of everywhere in between.
And the consistency amongst the staffing pressure is kind of amazing that there aren't enough resources. We're asking more and more of people that.
Were demanding a change. In some cases. You're reading about this as some nonprofits, and I would say for profits as well, are asking employees to come back into the office where maybe they got used to being at home more often. It's more stress, more complications that this is leading to burnout, chronic stress, emotional fatigue. It has effects on what we do in terms of the work regarding lower amounts or reduced focus, less productivity, communication breakdowns, which all lead to turnover.
Today is my emphatic plea for organizations to take care of their teams. If you're the leader, I'm talking directly to you. If you're a board member or the CEO, one of the executives, how you handle this is important. Secondarily, if you are one of the staff, how you look for and how you help yourself to try to find resources, to take care of yourself is important.
In the end, I'm hoping that there's enough information here to not only implore organizations and leaders to do more, but also some tactical ways in which organizations leaders can execute a better environment for mental wellness. So, as we tend to do, is we start at the top philosophical. Why is this so important? Well, I think the first thing is just know numbers.
Kind of common sense that the responsibility of a good leader, and certainly I think the responsibility of good organization is to see their people, their staff, their employees, not as assets, but as individuals and collectively as a group, people that not our family, because I think there's a difference, but they're important. They're emotional beings who are trying to do their hopefully their very best every day.
So the first part is just what's best in this world, how we take care of each other. Because at the end of the day, regardless of what happens from a business perspective, it's the right thing to do because the world is small and time is short, and we should all be worried about each other just a little bit more.
If I take off the kind of emotional part, let's get into the business aspects, because there are numbers out there that support why from a financial perspective, this is a critical component. Why mental wellness is something we should strive for in organizations. The first thing to mention is is that losing a good employee is expensive.
It can cost as much as 200% in either long term costs and or lost opportunity. So if it's a gift officer, if we're talking about just fundraising, their relationships, their their revenue streams, anywhere from 50 to 200% annual salary being lost. And that's including things like the recruitment costs, the onboarding, and doesn't include loss of institutional knowledge, because I'm not sure how you quantify that.
If a good employee is investing in the mission in which you serve, in which you lead with the organization represents, we want more of those people. Because I'm not immune to the fact that there are a lot of people out there who aren't dedicated, who may not be as connected. And I think investing in the ones that are going to deliver the best outcomes for the mission which we serve, are the people we need to invest in, if nothing else, because when we lose them, we may not get someone as good and the costs involved are terrible to be dealt with.
So number one is more financial. Number two is recruiting and hiring and time. It takes a minimum of 3 to 6 months to fully fill and train someone into a potential complex role within our organizations. And folks, that's the short time frame. I have a friend who was lucky enough to be asked to apply to a job, and her comment was, this was the longest process she's ever been through for a gift officer job, higher level place, but a fundraiser.
Almost 11 months to go through the process. They're very diligent. Maybe I would argue too diligent, but nevertheless, that's their culture. Now, I'm happy for my friend to get the job and have an opportunity to grow and to probably be a very strong contributor to the organization. But what about the organization's perspective on that time frame? I mean, that was 11 months to get someone in the door that doesn't include how long it'll take for her to figure everything out, as I always kind of just find the bathrooms and parking in the first week.
But obviously there's a lot more important things than that. The larger your organization, the longer this takes, because H.R. Human resources has become more and more risk averse in my opinion. It's not that they're not doing their job. They are it's not that they're doing it wrong, because I don't believe that they are either. But I do believe they're becoming more risk averse, which means the process, the review, all the things that go into it take longer.
And so if you don't take care of your team and someone good loses, takes time to replace them, and you may not get the person you want.
30 what happens internally is a series of processes, or what the organization does every day is, is that there are studies that show that when you lose the wrong employee, 60% capacity is reduced almost immediately from that job. There are other people who may fill in function, but they're going to miss things. Things aren't covered completely. Even if you bring in an interim, you're losing stuff in this impact.
Program delivery. Fundraising. Donor engagement, internal collaboration. It stymies the organization.
And so losing this internal capacity efficiency is critical. And a lot of times not seen by the outside world that's felt by the rest of the staff. The last really important aspect or rationale as to why we need to make sure that we're taking care of our people in the world in which we work and the people responsible for is, is that our donors suffer, particularly when we lose really good gift officers or relationship builders.
Annual fund could be planned gift to be major gift could be anyone who's stewardship. The hallmark of what we do is trust. And so if we're not building that level of trust by losing people, what we end up with is situations and scenarios where we lose donors or they begin to question us because they don't have that same connection.
I recently had a nonprofit donor who I was doing some feasibility study work with for the organization, who told me, I don't even know who the person is to call anymore. They've been through so many people and it affected directly his thought process on what type of campaign gift he might even consider, let alone do. So we're watching this deterioration of our organizations when we don't take care of the people that are most important, whether it's expensive because of the cost involved, just money or what, we can't go to the recruiting time frame and how long it takes to replace the operational efficiency of just what we do, trying to serve others and then our
funders, our stakeholders, our donors losing connection. Those are four reasons to want to elevate not losing good people because we don't have their mental wellness in place. And I should say, I probably should have said earlier, I'm not here to define mental wellness and I'm not qualified. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not. But what I know is if the organization doesn't provide an environment that is worthy of going to where people feel good, if we're not helping people with the challenges of our world, the stress, the the finances, the the ups and turvy, topsy turvy world, we're dealing with the increased job responsibilities.
These are the outcomes. And what's at stake is that the nonprofit work which people do suffers and that there is a cost to emotional labor and it can be significant. And that by investing in wellness, you actually are reinvesting in retention of your best people, collaborative communicative cultures that are positive and eventually some type of outcome mission impact that you don't want affected or back.
So you want enhanced.
That's the philosophical why? Now we probably can start turning towards and should, which we always try to do here on a round with Randall to the tactical. What is it we should do?
Before I get into some of the specific thoughts, six things that I might recommend kind of thoughts around, I want to start with one very basic. If you try to put if you're a leader yourself in your employee shoes, in the teams you manage and lead, do the little things. It will cover a lot of ground. If we genuinely cared for other people, the people responsible for in our offices, more vibrantly, more authentically.
I think the technical pieces, which we're going to talk about may not be as necessary, because people know people care about them, their leaders, their bosses, their managers, the people around them care for me. And who doesn't want to go to an environment like that? I think about a couple leaders that I have the privilege of working with and watching them work.
And for the most part, their staffs know that they would die for them. There are limitations. This is what they can do because organizations quite large and they have rules, but they do everything in their power to put themselves in their staff shoes so that those staff members feel as if someone cares about them. That doesn't take any money at all.
That just takes a little bit of heart, a little bit of leadership, a little bit of thought. But let's delve into six things that you might be able to do.
Number one is what probably I grew up with, but I think we're doing a better job of and that deals with not stigmatizing mental health. Really, what we want to do is turn that into a positive and say we want to normalize conversations, efforts to create a strong mental health environment.
It's about you don't have to be as the boss or a psychiatrist, but it's encouraging the team or people who are leaders within the organization to part mentally or in, you know, smaller organization, the leadership team around talking about why wellness is a good thing and that it's okay to have conversations with professionals around stress and burnout, and that leadership should have an affirmative responsibility to do appropriate level check ins, wellness team meetings.
How's everybody doing? I try when I meet with clients and others to start every call, every meeting with, how are y'all doing? What's going on? What's going on in Saint Louis, New York, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, where my clients are. Tell me what you're doing. How was your weekend? How's everything at home? I don't do it for the tactical pieces because it's not they're not my employees of burnout and mental up creating mental health, but because I genuinely care.
I want people to take care of themselves. All too long, we thought of mental health as the stigmatizing, of weakness or of not being able to deal with things, and that's just not true. I think the pandemic and the implications thereof elevated this exponentially to where it should be. It's okay to talk about it. So the first thing is, is to create an environment where conversations and the knowledge of mental health, mental, being in a positive frame of mind, being able to deal with the challenges is okay to talk about.
Number two is you can do things on line for almost nothing. If you want to spend some money, you can do it more professionally with creating internal wellness assessments. We do evaluations every year because we know that HR and best practices, that's how we can set metrics for the next year. That's how we view what was done. Did we match up to what the boss wanted versus what the what the staff members are trying to do.
That's institute should be institutionalized for good reason. Why are we doing that on a more regular basis? With anonymous surveys about stress levels and needs and preferences, it doesn't mean the staff gets whatever they want, but people like to be asked what's important to them, and then we can analyze that information to create plans. And bring staff into that conversation.
So it's a co-created sense of a plan or a policy or direction. We don't ask enough, how's everybody doing? We can do that verbally. As I discussed, when I start my calls, more often than not via zoom. But I'm talking about it from an office perspective and asking, how are we doing? How are you doing? And what can we do to make this better that cost nothing.
Basically, but certainly sends a signal you care, and particularly if you put plans together, implement them, execute them, that your staff cares, feel scared for. Third, within parameters creating hybrid flexible workspaces. I always tell the same story and I apologize if you've heard it, but I come to an office every day. I'm not the person who wants or needs remote or hybrid learning or work environments.
In fact, it's to my detriment and to the work I do. I get distracted at home. I'd rather be a dad and a husband. With all due respect to my clients who I love and the people I work with, I love being a dad. I love being a husband, I love being a son. So if I'm in that environment, that's what I'm going to matriculate to.
So I leave every morning, take my daughter to school, drop her off and come to an office by 830 or so because I need to concentrate. But that's me. How can you create an environment where people have options the best they can? Now we are in a position based upon the last five years or so, where there was a lot more allowance to get people out.
We're bringing people back. How do you balance that? I'm not saying every organization is the same. The second thing is, is that in the same kind of areas, we can focus more on outcomes rather than hours. I've told the story of one of my best gift officers that I ever was privileged enough to lead, where Judy was a like a machine.
As a fundraiser, she was great, and it was all based on relationships and the right things. And when I asked her, what do you want? She goes, well, we live a long ways out because of her husband's job. Can I just come in at nine instead of eight? My answer was, you can come in anytime you want. And there were some people in the office who said, wait, why does she get that?
I'm like, she's earned that right? You do what she does. You can have that right. I'm okay with that. I'm not interested in treating everybody the same. I'm treating. I want to treat everybody the way they need to be treated to be successful. Now that's fair and it's appropriate. But not everybody's the same. Not everybody needs the same things.
So how do you balance that outcome based rather than whatever might be done from an office perspective in terms of time? And I love the idea of in this idea of flexibility, being less flexible with PTO, meaning make people take it, make them get out. Everybody's replaceable. I'm the world's worst at this. I've said this on many a podcast and many times in person, and I need to be better because I'm better at it.
When I get back.
Even if you're the boss, hold off on sending an email. I love the outlook opportunity to say, hey, it's after hours. Do you want to send us in the morning? We'll automatically send it for you. Things to think about and providing flexibility if possible. Number four. So we leap into some things that are can be a little more cost prohibitive.
Is finding mental health resources for people who need it. There are in most communities, some low cost or pro bono provided services that might provide staffing or therapy or some type of therapy coaching something of that nature. You can institutionalize some type of ERP or employment or employee assistance programs, but that gets more expensive workshops bringing in expert experts on mindfulness, resiliency, self-care.
And maybe there was trauma inflicted work taking care of those who were at the front lines. These things begin to cost a little more money, but the investment is against the things we started with. Was the cost involved? When we lose somebody good? So you might think about investing some money. Number five is creating recognition. And what might be classified is psychological safety, i.e. how do you create opportunities to recognize and be okay with when somebody needs a break or share something without a sense of not even retaliation, but shame?
Like being open enough when somebody has a concern. Everybody's breaking point is different and for different reasons. And sometimes the toughest looking are the ones who need the most amount of opportunity and openness to talk formally with someone, as we mentioned, kind of those resources that are mental health or wellness, being driven or informally, just as a as a boss, even if I can't answer your questions just to listen and know that I care, how do we create that environment where that's possible?
The last does require a little bit of training, but not overly expensive is helping our leaders, managers, supervisors. However you want to put it, lead with empathy, coaching skills, giving employees the ability to feel like there's they're not only a part of the of the work, but a part of the solutions that that there's opportunity for them to grow, that there's an opportunity for them to mirror the things that are of value to them.
Then when they come to the office, providing in the with those managers scripting or scenarios where they can learn how to kind of deal with some of these issues, creating a sense of resiliency, training and strategies, peer support, giving our leadership in particular, if you're a large organization where you don't have a direct impact because there's too many people, too many managers, too many departments giving them and empowering them as leaders in their departments to do some of these similar things.
These are just six different high level things that we can invest in. I am not the world's expert. Far from it on the details of them, but I can feel comfortable talking about them as six options that if you're not thinking about one, 2 or 3 of them at a minimum. What is your office environment? What are you saying to your employees?
What are you saying? The people that matter the most, are they just workers in a widget factory? They may be the widget makers, or are they people who make the missions that we believe in, that we lead possible good investment from a financial perspective, but more importantly, from a leadership perspective, your responsibility in doing the right thing and uplifting your teams.
Those are the leaders people like to work for. Don't forget to check out the blogs at hal@philanthropy.com two per week on a variety of subjects. And of course, if you'd like to reach out to me, it's podcast. It house Halcyon 3.com. Today is about the responsibility we own, about creating an environment that's a positive one for all of us to thrive in.
And that's important today because there's a lot of moving pieces in our world and people coming to the work environment with different levels of pressure. Home friends has nothing to do with work, but they come into the office. How do we help them? Because at the end of the day, this is where nonprofits serve. I always talk about it.
That's the gap between government, which doesn't do things all that well or efficiently a lot of times, and for profit, free enterprise because it's not profitable in the middle. Those things, if that's where our staffs, our missions are, our boards us serve. And to conclude, brings us to my favorite all time saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen.
Those. Then there are those who wondered what happened. Were the people both internally and externally, hopefully, that are making things happen? For those who are wondering what happened, both in the community in that gap, but also for the people in our office.
Who may have something on the back of their mind, in the bottom of their heart, in the pit of their stomach, providing them an environment where they can hopefully deal with it a little better so they can do great work for this thing to be done to fulfill our missions. That's being someone who makes things happen. I'll look forward to seeing in the next time, right back here on the next edition of around with Randall.
Don't forget. Make it a great day.