Latest / Groove with Portia / Why Peer Support Matters More Than Ever in Today’s Workforce

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Why Peer Support Matters More Than Ever in Today’s Workforce · Groove with Portia

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Group Porsche, the podcast that uncovers the hidden
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: treasures within grief. I'm your host, Porsche the Producer, and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to join me on a transformative journey
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  Speaker 1: where we were exchange laughter, of course the best medicine
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  Speaker 1: that the little boy grabbed my hand instead of his
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: mother's at the amusement park yikes, And of course, discover
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: gratitude while navigating one of life's hardest challenges lost. So
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: get ready to grow with me, Porsche the Producer. Let's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: dive in. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Groul Porsche.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Porsche Booker, and as always, please like, share,
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  Speaker 1: guest on the show, joh you can email me at
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: porschethe Producer at gmail dot com. Once again, that's Porsche
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Theproducer at gmail dot com. Those of you who have
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: kept up with my journey know that I run grief
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: groups locally and one of the things that I often
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: find with the participants that I work with is the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: magnificent changes that happen to them over the course of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the ten weeks. And I always stress that there needs
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  Speaker 1: to be more peer led initiatives in the workplace as
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  Speaker 1: we're still coming out of the post COVID wave. So today, everybody,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I have the honor of having the vice president of
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  Speaker 1: Innovation and Operations of a digital platform called peer on Call,
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  Speaker 1: which is based on what I mentioned, having that peer
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  Speaker 1: led initiative to really bridge that gap between the mental
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  Speaker 1: wellness obstacles that happen in the workplace and also creating
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a more holistic workforce. So welcome, Maggie and rig to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Groule Porsche. How are you today? Great?
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks Porsche, really excited to be here. Thanks for having
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: me Maggie.
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  Speaker 1: When I saw this come through my email, I was like, Yes,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I have to have them on to talk about this
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  Speaker 1: because I think sometimes in the world when we talk
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: about mental health, especially in corporate spaces, there's this notion
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  Speaker 1: of eh it eugh. So before we dive into the conversation, Maggie,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: one of the things I always love to start off
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: with is gratitude. What are you grateful for today? Oh?
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  Speaker 2: Gosh. Today I'm feeling pretty grateful for my health, physical health,
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  Speaker 2: also mental well being. Today I believe it.
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  Speaker 1: You know what me, I am grateful for life. A
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, I almost actually died in a
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: car accident almost a couple of weeks ago when I
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: was on vacation. So I'm grateful to be here. I'm
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: grateful for the obstacles I've had. As we were talking
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: before our conversation kicked off, this year was three years
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  Speaker 1: that my mom made her transition, and it was a
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: hard week for me. At the same same time, I
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: still show up like that grief that I have of
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  Speaker 1: both my parents, primarily than my mom making her transition.
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  Speaker 1: I'm grateful for it because it has taught me so much.
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  Speaker 1: Like I think grief can be our greatest teacher. But
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  Speaker 1: that's for a whole other day. I'm not gonna go
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  Speaker 1: down that rabbit hole.
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  Speaker 2: You know. One of my one of my favorite quotes
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  Speaker 2: about grief is we grief because we.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Love, yes one hundred percent, and that love is so abundant. Like,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think we realize the amount you're gonna make
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  Speaker 1: me cry. I don't think we realize the amount of
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  Speaker 1: love that we have for our person, for me, my mom,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and my dad, and once they make that transition, it's like,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: where does this love go? Like I want to tell
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  Speaker 1: you and show you all the amazing things that I'm
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: doing in the world, and you're not physically here. So
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: this love energy that I have literally has nowhere to go.
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  Speaker 1: I have to learn how to read channel in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: redirected channel it the whole nine yards. And Maggie, like
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I brought up when we think about mental health in
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  Speaker 1: the workplace, and I remember when I worked in corporate
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  Speaker 1: there was a lot of stigma around mental health care
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  Speaker 1: and even you know, peer led if you want to
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  Speaker 1: call it initiatives, right, And one of the things that
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  Speaker 1: I really loved about reading about peer on Call is
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  Speaker 1: that it brings that human connection back because in the
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  Speaker 1: world of AI, you know, there's so much you know,
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  Speaker 1: automated things, and where's that human to human connection? Right? So, Maggie,
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  Speaker 1: would you mind sharing with us the story of how
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  Speaker 1: and why this platform came about?
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  Speaker 2: For sure, I'm excited to share the background around Pure
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  Speaker 2: on Call, and I definitely feel the excitement around peer
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  Speaker 2: led initiatives in the workplace, which we're fully supportive of
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  Speaker 2: and behind. So I'm fortunate to work at SEP Care Solutions,
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  Speaker 2: which is a not for profit based in Canada, but
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  Speaker 2: we work internationally and our mission as well being everywhere,
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  Speaker 2: work from a model that's called the Stepcare two point
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  Speaker 2: zero model, which looks at a continuum of care and
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  Speaker 2: a range of services, so not just the conventional services
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  Speaker 2: that you see in a lot of workplaces like employee
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  Speaker 2: assistance programs and traditional counseling, which have a role and
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  Speaker 2: are really important and we support, but we really work
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  Speaker 2: towards a continuum that provides people with options and choice.
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  Speaker 2: And one of those huge options in choice that we
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  Speaker 2: support is peer light initiatives in peer support programs in
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  Speaker 2: the workplace and outside of the workplace as well, peer
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  Speaker 2: support everywhere. And so we were fortunate last year to
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  Speaker 2: be able to partner with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
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  Speaker 2: and they had led a research initiative around peer on Call.
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  Speaker 2: So it was co designed and developed and funded initially
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  Speaker 2: out of research to work with public safety personnel and
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  Speaker 2: that Canadian sector given the particular work workplace demands for
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: public safety personnel, and so they spent years designing engaging people,
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  Speaker 2: hearing what are the unique needs within that sector across
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  Speaker 2: a number of different workplaces. So over forty organizations were
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  Speaker 2: involved and a number of research partners too many to
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  Speaker 2: even list, but have some great funders and great great
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: research partners. So obviously a collective that came together that
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  Speaker 2: felt really passionate about this and heard from so many
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  Speaker 2: people about the potential value of peer support for public
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  Speaker 2: safety officers, and so they co designed an app, Peer
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  Speaker 2: on Call, and over the last year we've worked with
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  Speaker 2: them on a sustainability model to be able to deliver
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  Speaker 2: continue delivering the app and making it available, knowing that
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  Speaker 2: research initiatives often are time limited, so we're fortunate now
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  Speaker 2: to continue continue the partnership with McMaster and all the
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  Speaker 2: great folks who were involved, but be able to make
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: the app available across any workplace. So we've taken all
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  Speaker 2: those lessons learned from public Safety and continue to buy
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  Speaker 2: the app. And the app offers anonymous access to peer
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  Speaker 2: support within workplaces, so any workplace can embark on this project.
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  Speaker 2: This initiative expand the offerings that they offer to employees
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  Speaker 2: to be able to have trained peer support within a workplace.
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  Speaker 2: And I think you know. To your point, it's the
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  Speaker 2: value of peer support is that it's people who know
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  Speaker 2: the unique stressors you have in the workplace that might
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  Speaker 2: be really specific, Right, I might might be a lawyer
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  Speaker 2: struggling with stress at work, and I want someone who
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  Speaker 2: knows what that day to day is, Like I might
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  Speaker 2: be a police officer who you know, I don't want
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  Speaker 2: to go to a general counselor who hasn't walked in
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  Speaker 2: my shoes and hasn't hasn't worked with my workplace stressors.
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  Speaker 2: So it's really about an option and a choice outside
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  Speaker 2: of traditional counseling, where where people might find and be
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  Speaker 2: able to choose a peer support peer who has some
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  Speaker 2: shared lived experience.
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  Speaker 1: And Maggie, you know, I want to jump back on
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  Speaker 1: what you mentioned about how this was designed for public safety.
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  Speaker 1: They kind of did like a trial with McMaster on this, right.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm curious, out of all of the different companies
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  Speaker 1: that you've probably interacted with, do you find that there's
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  Speaker 1: a trend with public safety or healthcare? Do you find
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  Speaker 1: that there's certain entities that are gravitating more towards peer
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  Speaker 1: led initiatives like peer on call, or do you find
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  Speaker 1: that there's you know, depending on obviously the need and
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  Speaker 1: demand of the organization.
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  Speaker 2: Great question, Portia. Yeah, and so the forty two and
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  Speaker 2: the work with peer and Call was specific to public safety.
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  Speaker 2: McMaster also did a separate research project with healthcare organizations,
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  Speaker 2: a project helpyon Silence, and we've we've taken the lessons
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  Speaker 2: learned from both of those, you know, I think there's
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  Speaker 2: lived experience in research that suggests that high stress workplaces
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  Speaker 2: really benefit from peer support. Although we are organizations also
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  Speaker 2: done peer support for everyone across Canada throughout COVID, so
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  Speaker 2: not just workplace specific, but role and remote communities. Every
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  Speaker 2: province and territory had access to peer support, virtual peer support,
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  Speaker 2: and so it's not just high stress workplaces that benefit
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  Speaker 2: from peer sport, it's really anybody. Where we see a
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  Speaker 2: trend with workplaces are those who are looking at options
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  Speaker 2: and choice, so looking beyond just the typical access that
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  Speaker 2: people have had to things like employe assistance programs or
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  Speaker 2: one off mental wellness or mental health initiatives, and are
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  Speaker 2: really thinking about building out, working with employees to build
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  Speaker 2: out what people want access to. And I think that's
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  Speaker 2: the trend that we're really trying to support. CODE design, engagement,
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  Speaker 2: getting feedback from employees and from workforces what are you
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  Speaker 2: looking for? Because it's not a one size fits all situation.
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  Speaker 2: People want different things for different reasons or different things
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  Speaker 2: at different times. There might be times in my life
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  Speaker 2: there's been times in my life where peer support feels
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  Speaker 2: like a really good fit in time where you know what,
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  Speaker 2: I just want to access a self help resource, or
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  Speaker 2: times where a professional counselor was really helpful. So having
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  Speaker 2: a range of options is really really helpful and crucial,
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  Speaker 2: but also hearing from people what are they looking for?
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  Speaker 2: You know, I think there's so many reasons why people
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  Speaker 2: gravitate towards peer support, and sometimes that's for a common
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  Speaker 2: cultural experience, a common a spiritual experience, common lived experience,
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  Speaker 2: whether that's substance use health, whether that's mental health, grief.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I think that people have such a wide
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  Speaker 2: range of experiences, and different workplaces offer different space to
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  Speaker 2: either bring that forward or not. And so the experience
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  Speaker 2: of peer support can be really helpful to contextualize an
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  Speaker 2: experience within whatever you're experiencing.
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  Speaker 1: And I love Maggie how you reinforce that notion of
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  Speaker 1: not everything is going to fit everybody right, Sometimes peer
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  Speaker 1: support may not work for me when I'm grieving. I
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  Speaker 1: may want to just go to a general therapist. Or
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  Speaker 1: if the stress of me being a new journalist, right,
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  Speaker 1: maybe peer support of a veteran who's been in the
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  Speaker 1: industry can really pour into me and help me to
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  Speaker 1: reframe and reshape the way that I'm seeing the stress
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  Speaker 1: that's before me. So I'm glad that you really highlighted
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  Speaker 1: that because I think I remember when I was in
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the first time I was in my jay school career,
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  Speaker 1: and I remember the very first day I covered a
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  Speaker 1: homicide and I recall and of course they had you know,
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  Speaker 1: employee assistance things, but I felt like a peer would
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: have been better for me in that instance instead of,
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  Speaker 1: you know, just going to a general therapist who can
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: maybe work with me through whatever trauma things. But the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: fact that there's veterans who do this every day, right,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: they show up, put on their girl underwear and they're like, okay,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: we're ready live and three. You know, I think.
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  Speaker 2: You know the key the point you made about in
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: that instance, right, And it's really about what do you
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  Speaker 2: need in any given moment, And that moment could be
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  Speaker 2: this hour, could be today, could be this season of life.
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  Speaker 2: And I think sometimes when we talk about what supports
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: are helpful from a mental health perspective, we kind of
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  Speaker 2: paint it with a long time frame, and it's much
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: more fluid than that for a lot of folks. And
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  Speaker 2: so it's really about what's going to be most helpful
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  Speaker 2: to you at this time and having some autonomy over that,
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  Speaker 2: having a range of options and choice. And also, I
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: mean sometimes it comes down to logistics. I want to
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  Speaker 2: be able to schedule something that fits into my schedule
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  Speaker 2: and not be dictated by who's available on the other end,
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  Speaker 2: or you know, the schedule of a counselor let's say
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  Speaker 2: maybe my peer support program at my workplace runs day
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to day and I know I can talk to somebody
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: today and that's going to be most helpful because it's available. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I think to your point, Maggie, that that's the
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  Speaker 1: peace with mental wellness that continues to me to get
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: so blurred, because it really does boil down to what
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: do I really need right now? Do I just need
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a hug or somebody to talk to in this moment?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe I just need to take a walk out of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: nature and hug a treat for five minutes to get
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: myself back to a state of I'm safe. Right, So
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: really again keeping those options open. And Maggie, one of
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the things that comes to my mind is when we
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: talked about the human connection, right and really bridging that
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  Speaker 1: gap right in the mental wellness space. You know, Pierre
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: on Call really does that by connecting employees with trained peers,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: as we brought up right. So for people who are
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a little like, eh, this sounds not up my alley,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: or I'm a little skeptical, what makes this model different
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  Speaker 1: from traditional mental health care services?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, great question, because I think you know, we're all
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a bit trepidacious. When we haven't experienced something or it's new,
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  Speaker 2: it's natural to want to check something out. And so,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: you know, workplaces that engage and subscribe to Peer on
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  Speaker 2: Call and set it up for their organization, there's a
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: bit of you know, an onboarding process, and we work
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: with organizations to tailor it. The nice thing is the
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: additional features of Peer on Call include videos, and some
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: of them are peer wisdom videos, so it's peers who've
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: recorded a clip, might be a two or three minute
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: clip about their experience around a particular topic stress, mental
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: health substance use, health, a workplace stressor or hey, here's
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: what it's like to engage with peer supports. You can
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: kind of toeip and just get some information if you're
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: not sure, or sometimes that's just how people want to engage.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: They actually don't want to directly speak to a peuron
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: on one, but they want information that might be helpful
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in the moment. There's also a range of resources and
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: information available outside of the videos, as well as a
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: check in feature too, so you know, tracking your mood,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: doing a bit of a log and so again back
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: to kind of how our model works and what we
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: subscribe to, and that's why we felt there was great
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: alignment with Pure on Call and all the work that
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: McMaster had done with public safety personnel is it's building
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: out a continuum, even within one program, and so you
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: can log in and within that there's still options and choice.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: There's still things that are available at your fingertips. You
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: can try accessing one on one peer session and if
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: it works, great continuing and if not, there's no there's
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: no commitment or requirement to follow up. Maybe you get
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: what you need from quick text message back and forth
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: and a quick check in. Maybe you have ongoing video calls,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: and so it's really tailored to what the individual finds helpful,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and you can try a range of different things with
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: no risk.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Really, Meg, I love that you brought up that there's
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: different interactivities within the app. Right. Let's say, if I
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: want to meet with a peer and I want to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: at least get a feel of their personality, right, what's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: their vibe like? And there's this video of them saying, Hey,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm Jason and I'm here to you know,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: walk you through whatever you're going through. My background is
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: in construction, maybe at one time accidally got a nail
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: stuck through my hand type of thing, you know. So,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: but you have that interrelativity with this person right from
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: instead of you call what sometimes the crisis line and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you don't know who you're getting, right versus you get
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a feel of somebody through video and getting to interact
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: with their energy that way.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, And I think whether it's crisis or counseling
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: or other services, sometimes you call and you you get
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: whoever's available next. Sometimes that's needed, that's necessary, Sometimes that's
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: a great fit. Sometimes people end up trying different experiences
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: to find the right fit. So one of the things
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: that we're proud of, and I think was really thoughtful
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: code design with the group that developed the app, was
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: having even some biographies and information, and so you can
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: log in and see all of the different peer supporters
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: within your organization and then schedule based on your preference
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: and choice of when they're available. But maybe there's a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: particular experience that you want to connect around. So let's
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: say it's grief, and you're looking for a biography of
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: someone who's trained peer support in your organization, they've gone
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: through grief themselves. Then you can select that that's the
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: person you're going to start with and see if there's
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: a connection.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And that's you know, there's something about having more information
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that gives you that sense of ease and releases that
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: skeptical Hey this looks questionable to me, Tarzan.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Informed decision making. Yeah, we all we all want you know,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: enough information to say I understand this and I'm willing
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: to go to the next step. So that's something that
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: our organization really is strongly in that we should we
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: should have enough information to feel confident in moving forward.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: You know, Maggie, one thing I'm wondering, how here on
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Call is really showing different organizations. Maybe there's a gap somewhere.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Can you maybe share with us some real time feedback
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: or insights from companies that have used the application that
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: have shown different if you want to call it gaps
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: or areas that they could tighten up as far as
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: employee wellness and morale.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, great question.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I think you know.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: One of the nice things about the apposites anonymous, and
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: so you can choose to reveal your information or not.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: You can you can go with alias and login, especially
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: in workplaces where maybe you don't want your peers knowing
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: that you're accessing the support, or maybe don't want to
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: be connected back to particular issues in the workplace. However,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: we can roll up some of the themes and so
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: workplaces get a sense of things that are happening across
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: their workplace. So again, let's say you know a high
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: percentage of employees are struggling with stress and burnout or
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: sick leaves. You know that that's an issue, and you
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: can monitor it or maybe get a sense of that's
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: higher than what we would expect or higher than what
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: other organizations are, and we need to do something even
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: more above Peer on call about that issue. So it
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: really helps give organizations ones direct support to employees, but
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: two pulse on what's happening across the organization and where
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the range of employee supports and mental health resources are
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: maybe meeting the mark or not.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like that because then it really helps
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you as the organization, really be able to tailor maybe
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: a get together of some sort to help bridge that gap. Right. Sorry, guys,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: my dog is barking in the background, so don't worry.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: He has his own agenda. He gets a little jealous
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: when mom is working, but that's okay. Back to regular
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: schedule programming. But like I said, though, Meggie, like, I
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: think having something like this, especially since it's trendy, right
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: because a lot of people are utilizing whether it's Facebook, TikTok,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Instagram to connect, Right, I've seen more people open up
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: about their mental health journeys, their grief journeys, right, and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: why not essentially meet people where they.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Are totally And I think you know, you mentioned the
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: human connection aspect, and again, people want to connect in
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: different ways. People want mental health support in different ways,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: information different ways, so lots are steering towards chat and
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: that's great. If that works in the moment and you're
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: getting what you need and you're getting the information. But
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: some people, Yeah, that face to face one on one
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: with a person is really important, and so we still
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: need to make that available and support people in doing that.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And you know the fact that the peer support providers
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: have training and support themselves really enables them and equips
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: them to be able to support their own peers as well.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, what a beautiful way to really
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: continue to open up people to share how they're really feeling, right,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to really start to create a holistic workforce because I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: still think that we're recovering from COVID still and giving
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: people that opportunity to express really is a hidden, i
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: want to say, healing piece that is often overlooked because
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the focus is based on what the business's agenda is,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and not all the time we talk about,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you know, the those pieces of Hey, we need to
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: hear the people who are the face or the ones
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that are in the trenches of the work themselves. Maggie.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: For all audience who's tuning in, maybe someone wants to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: bring this conversation to their employer, right, maybe this could
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: be an option for them. Maybe can you share with
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: us what steps they can take. How can they, you know,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: maybe bring a demo call of peuron call to their organization.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: What steps can somebody take today to make that connection.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a great question. We have a
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: number of resources across our website, including an overview downloadable
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: resource about pere on Call. You can book a demo
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: directly on there. There's lots of the background on search
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: and evidence to why and how peer on Call was developed.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: So that's all available either on the website or available
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: for download. We're happy to meet with any organization. I think,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: you know, there's every workplace is different, and so the
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: employee is going to know best how to kind of
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: start the conversation within the organization with that. That's a
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: wellness committee, whether that's HR. Sometimes peer led initiatives are
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: developed ground up, grassroots from a group of employees who
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: are interested in that, and so we see it developing
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: in lots of different ways in organizations. I think the
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: one one thing I would add and kind of touches
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: on your last point is there's still there's still a
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: fair amount of stigma, right, whether that's across the society
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: or within workplaces or within ourselves. And I can't speak
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: specifically to the experience of public safety personnel because I'm
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: not I don't work within that sector. But you know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: we know from from peer on call and from the
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: research that there's specific stressors around performance around you know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: coming forward with having a mental health and substance use
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: health issue. And again that's one of the reasons why
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: peer on Call is anonymous. But I know from my
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: own experience, and I shared a eorariarlier about the experience
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: of losing my father in the fall, and I'd done
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: a LinkedIn post about experiencing brain fog, and you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I felt a level of self stigma around that and
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: putting that out there and sharing that with my workplace
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: of you know, it's been a month and I'm still
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: still feeling a bit foggy. And that's a perfect example
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: of where a peer let initiative might be helpful. But
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: how we all kind of grapple with some of that
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: stigma of if I put that out there in the workplace,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: how will it be received, And how do we create
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: supportive organizational cultures that can create space to bring forward
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: some of those lived experience of what we're all going
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: through day to day knowing that we're not all at
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: our best all the time, and how do we support
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: people in doing that? And so information is available in
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: terms of how organizations can at least embark on the
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: conversation of you know, is peer on call a fit?
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: But again within that range of what's available now and
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: what else my employees want might be pure sported, it
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: might be you know, access to something different, and we're
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: happy to work with with any organization to figure out
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: what might work best for that context.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And Maggie, Lots of love continued your way because losing
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a parent, I can walk that walk with you, and
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that brain fog is real, and grief is a whole
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: animal in itself. When you're wanting to continue your everyday
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: routine but your energy is only at ten percent, and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the other ninety percent is you're grieving, You're sad, you're confused,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you're upset, and you're wanting to perform at optimal level,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: but your circumstance has told you, Hey, you got to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: take a seat and be okay with that. And I,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I shared before we started that, you know,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: my mom's three year transition anniversary is this year and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: every year it's hard for me to write her tribute
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: post on her birthday and her transition day. At the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: same time, I still do it because it breaks me
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: open and it helps me to integrate my grief slowly
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: each year. Well, everybody, that was Maggie Enrich that you
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: heard from. She is the vice president of Innovation Operations.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: If you guys want to get a hold of her
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and also learn more about Purre on Call, you can
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: visit their website to book a demo call and hopefully
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: that also continues to keep the conversations going because there's workforces,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: there's people out there that are hurting, but just know
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that there's options out there for you. Okay, all right, everybody. Well,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that concludes another episode A Group with Porsche. Thanks for
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: listening to everybody, and peace and har grease until next time.