Latest / Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health / Modernizing Employee Mental Health Support and Embedding Well-Being Into Organizational Strategy

Transcript

Modernizing Employee Mental Health Support and Embedding Well-Being Into Organizational Strategy · Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health

• 0:00
  Hello, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with
• 0:02
  Becker's Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning
• 0:05
  in to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
• 0:07
  So today, we're going to talk about modernizing
• 0:10
  employee mental health support and embedding well-being into
• 0:13
  organizational
• 0:14
  strategy.
• 0:15
  And joining me for this conversation, we have
• 0:17
  with us Kristin Ford, the general manager of
• 0:20
  the employer division at Carillon Behavioral Health. Kristin,
• 0:24
  welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much
• 0:25
  for joining us today.
• 0:27
  Yes. Thank you for having me. We're so
• 0:29
  glad to have you with us. And before
• 0:31
  we get into the conversation,
• 0:33
  can you give our listeners just a little
• 0:34
  bit more of a sense of your professional
• 0:36
  background and also the work that you're doing
• 0:38
  at Carillon?
• 0:39
  I'd love to. Just a little bit about
• 0:41
  my professional background.
• 0:43
  It's actually in social work and public health.
• 0:45
  I came into this field with a very
• 0:48
  person centered perspective.
• 0:50
  I've always felt that,
• 0:52
  that really been, related to and focused on
• 0:55
  the question of how can systems support individuals,
• 0:58
  families, and communities to thrive. And that lens
• 1:01
  has shaped all the leadership roles that I've
• 1:03
  had the opportunity to take on.
• 1:05
  A big part of my career has always
• 1:07
  been helping employers to navigate a behavioral health
• 1:10
  landscape that can often feel fragmented and can
• 1:13
  feel complex.
• 1:14
  And I have the opportunity to to serve
• 1:17
  today as the general manager of the employer
• 1:19
  division at Carillon.
• 1:20
  And my focus there has really been on
• 1:22
  building a scalable and a high value employer
• 1:25
  portfolio,
• 1:26
  aligning our EAP and behavioral health solutions and
• 1:29
  our well-being solutions
• 1:31
  to what
• 1:32
  employers really care about and what really challenges
• 1:34
  them. And that's things around access and quality,
• 1:38
  engagement, SDOH needs, and population outcomes.
• 1:42
  Great to learn more about you, Kristen, and
• 1:45
  I'm excited that you're bringing this lens of
• 1:47
  wellness in the workplace. You know, I think
• 1:49
  we talk about behavioral health a lot at
• 1:51
  Becker's from the lens of providers and patients,
• 1:54
  But, you know, employees are patients too. So
• 1:57
  I'm excited to dig in a little bit
• 1:59
  more on what that looks like.
• 2:01
  So employee assistance programs, I know they've been
• 2:04
  around for decades.
• 2:06
  But the traditional model was largely reactive. It's
• 2:09
  it's been more of a resource that employees
• 2:11
  turn to when things have reached a crisis
• 2:14
  point. So I'd love to hear from you
• 2:16
  to start us off how you've seen that
• 2:18
  model really evolve in recent years.
• 2:21
  Yeah. I think that's a really great question.
• 2:23
  And employee assistance programs have really transformed from
• 2:26
  what I would say is a narrow crisis
• 2:29
  driven
• 2:30
  phone based type service into more broad based
• 2:33
  proactive services that are tech enabled and really
• 2:37
  deliver well-being services across the population.
• 2:40
  So the e p EAPs of today, just
• 2:42
  like Caroline's EAP, can be considered a front
• 2:45
  door to an employer's
• 2:47
  entire well-being strategy.
• 2:49
  If you think about,
• 2:51
  a history and think about,
• 2:53
  when,
• 2:54
  EAPs
• 2:55
  really evolved, they evolved in the mid nineteen
• 2:57
  hundreds, and they were designed to address alcoholism
• 3:00
  and job performance.
• 3:02
  By the early two thousands, they expanded to
• 3:04
  include mental health,
• 3:06
  family, legal, financial, and work life support.
• 3:09
  But most were still call center based and
• 3:12
  often used a gatekeeping model before someone could
• 3:14
  reach a clinician.
• 3:16
  So today's EAP looks nothing like that. It
• 3:19
  includes
• 3:20
  chat and text,
• 3:21
  video and app based support.
• 3:23
  It includes self guided and digital content, including
• 3:26
  digital cognitive
• 3:28
  behavioral therapy modules.
• 3:29
  It has direct scheduling with counselors.
• 3:32
  And, increasingly, you will see more AI enabled
• 3:35
  triage and navigation.
• 3:36
  So the modern EAP functions is what I
• 3:39
  would call a multidimensional
• 3:40
  well-being hub, not just a single issue platform.
• 3:44
  So interesting.
• 3:46
  Multidimensional
• 3:47
  is a good word to describe this approach.
• 3:50
  What do you think within that shift that
• 3:52
  you're seeing, you know, going from
• 3:55
  having simply, you know, maybe call based support
• 3:57
  for mental health and how it's evolved into
• 3:59
  this multidimensional,
• 4:01
  model. What has been the biggest shift within
• 4:03
  that model that you've seen employers embrace?
• 4:07
  Yeah. What's changed most is that employers
• 4:10
  no longer see behavioral health as a side
• 4:12
  benefit.
• 4:13
  They really see it as part of a
• 4:15
  core workforce infrastructure,
• 4:17
  something that directly
• 4:18
  affects the performance and the retention and the
• 4:20
  safety and culture of their workforce.
• 4:23
  So that shift has really raised expectations.
• 4:26
  Employers now want proactive, not reactive support.
• 4:30
  They want a single integrated experience instead of
• 4:33
  a patchwork of point solutions.
• 4:35
  They want insights and outcomes, not just utilization
• 4:38
  reports.
• 4:39
  They also are very focused on engagement into
• 4:41
  the services because they know that well-being services
• 4:44
  can really help their workforce to do better.
• 4:46
  So they wanna see people using those services,
• 4:49
  and they wanna know about AI and and
• 4:51
  how it can really help with navigation and
• 4:54
  support the well-being of their employees.
• 4:56
  In terms of,
• 4:58
  the question about what's driving this, I would
• 5:00
  say first,
• 5:02
  the biggest driver is workforce stress and burnout.
• 5:04
  That has really reached a breaking point, and
• 5:06
  I would also say that employers are continuing
• 5:09
  to see high acuity behavioral health needs in
• 5:11
  their population.
• 5:12
  And those behavioral health issues
• 5:15
  now show up as business problems that impact
• 5:18
  an an organization's performance.
• 5:20
  And then I would also think about
• 5:23
  the importance of the impact on the national
• 5:26
  clinical workforce shortages,
• 5:28
  particularly in psychiatry as well as youth and
• 5:31
  adolescents care. That has really, forced employers to
• 5:35
  rethink what access looks like more broadly.
• 5:38
  So I think all all of that is
• 5:40
  just to say that there's a very different
• 5:42
  set of expectations for EAPs and the broader
• 5:44
  behavioral health ecosystem
• 5:47
  now in today's environment than there once was.
• 5:50
  Mhmm. Such a helpful overview. It's really interesting
• 5:53
  to see how,
• 5:54
  all of those forces have converged, you know,
• 5:56
  that,
• 5:57
  change in mindset on supporting the workforce, especially
• 6:00
  with stress and burnout.
• 6:02
  Meanwhile, technology is also coming into play. So
• 6:04
  a lot of these shifts that you're speaking
• 6:06
  to, Kristen, makes sense.
• 6:07
  And in your your previous response, you had
• 6:09
  also touched on I think you had said,
• 6:11
  you know, how organizations want to see their
• 6:14
  employees using these services.
• 6:16
  Organizations
• 6:17
  are rightfully so, you know, investing
• 6:19
  significantly in wellness benefits, whether that's stipends, mental
• 6:22
  health days, the digital tools that you've spoken
• 6:24
  to.
• 6:26
  So despite that, there still can be a
• 6:28
  struggle with engagement. So from your advantage point,
• 6:31
  what separates organizations that are seeing real results
• 6:34
  from those where well-being remains more of a
• 6:37
  benefits kind of footnote?
• 6:39
  Yeah. I would agree that many organizations still
• 6:41
  struggle with engagement. That is an ongoing conversation
• 6:45
  with customers
• 6:46
  related to how do we engage in, in
• 6:48
  these services. And,
• 6:50
  I think that the organizations
• 6:52
  where we see results
• 6:54
  that do that really well
• 6:56
  focus on three things really well. They build
• 6:58
  a culture of well-being from the top down.
• 7:01
  And what that means is that they don't
• 7:03
  treat well-being as an HR initiative.
• 7:05
  They treat it as a leadership behavior
• 7:07
  and a business priority.
• 7:09
  So high performing organizations
• 7:11
  often make well-being visible in leadership behavior. So
• 7:14
  what that means is that leaders consistently model
• 7:17
  healthy work habits and behaviors.
• 7:20
  They openly use well-being resources
• 7:22
  so employees
• 7:23
  can see that support is both valued and
• 7:26
  expected.
• 7:27
  They also embed
• 7:28
  well-being into how work gets done. So focus
• 7:31
  on organizational design
• 7:33
  and reducing the friction and burnout that naturally
• 7:36
  occurs in organizations
• 7:38
  by making well-being a natural part of daily
• 7:40
  operations.
• 7:41
  And then they hold their leaders accountable for
• 7:44
  team culture and measuring and rewarding leaders based
• 7:46
  on how effectively they create,
• 7:49
  safe and supportive and high engagement environments.
• 7:52
  So I would I would put all of
• 7:54
  that under the bucket of building a culture
• 7:56
  of well-being.
• 7:57
  The second area, I think, that is important
• 8:00
  for organizations that do this well is that
• 8:02
  they treat managers as the activation point.
• 8:05
  So managers control roughly 70% of engagement in
• 8:09
  a workforce
• 8:10
  and are the first line for well-being concerns.
• 8:13
  Managers are probably the number one predictor of
• 8:16
  whether employees use well-being resources
• 8:19
  and the number one predictor of employee retention.
• 8:21
  So adding trainings
• 8:23
  for managers and support for managers can really
• 8:26
  activate
• 8:27
  employees into their well-being.
• 8:29
  And I think the third area,
• 8:31
  that's really important is that they simplify the
• 8:34
  ecosystem.
• 8:35
  There's one front door, one message specific to
• 8:38
  their population. There's clear navigation.
• 8:41
  And when the employee knows where to go,
• 8:43
  they're more likely to engage early and often.
• 8:46
  So I I see those things as best
• 8:48
  practices
• 8:49
  for employers
• 8:51
  who are doing well on engagement.
• 8:53
  Appreciate how clearly you outlined those best practices,
• 8:56
  Kristen.
• 8:57
  And I know you mentioned the imperative of
• 8:59
  managers,
• 9:01
  being all in on this work, essentially. And
• 9:04
  I'm curious what that should look like at
• 9:06
  the senior leadership level as well. You know,
• 9:09
  how do you help employer partners build that
• 9:12
  case internally so that senior and executive leadership
• 9:15
  are on board as well?
• 9:16
  And we'd love to know any metrics or
• 9:18
  evidence trends that tend to resonate most with
• 9:20
  executives who are weighing whether they'll move forward
• 9:23
  with that investment.
• 9:25
  Yeah. I think the organizations that succeed,
• 9:28
  and get, senior leadership attention,
• 9:31
  really elevate well-being to a business lane and
• 9:34
  not a benefits lane. So when I work
• 9:36
  with employer partners, I help them reframe the
• 9:38
  conversation
• 9:39
  around metrics executives already track. So that's things
• 9:43
  like,
• 9:44
  turnover and retention,
• 9:45
  productivity impacts for absenteeism and presenteeism,
• 9:49
  looking at access to care, like speed to
• 9:52
  care and, network adequacy metrics,
• 9:56
  and also a clear ROI narrative is is
• 9:58
  becoming more increasingly important. So often when leaders
• 10:02
  see well-being as a lever for performance,
• 10:05
  they the conversation can change, and the financial
• 10:08
  outcome can change, and the business performance can
• 10:11
  change.
• 10:12
  So interesting to hear how you help them,
• 10:15
  reframe
• 10:16
  the
• 10:17
  the value in these services,
• 10:19
  through those specific
• 10:21
  metrics. Really, really insightful, Kristen.
• 10:23
  And I wanna make sure that we touch
• 10:25
  on the employee perspective as well.
• 10:28
  What strategies have you seen work best to
• 10:30
  normalize engagement with EAP programs and really encourage
• 10:33
  folks to access support before
• 10:35
  a mental health situation or otherwise might become
• 10:38
  worse or even a crisis.
• 10:40
  Yeah. I think this is the area where
• 10:42
  the difference between tactics
• 10:44
  and culture really matters. And so organizations
• 10:47
  that normalize engagement treat it as a behavioral
• 10:50
  change challenge,
• 10:52
  not just a communication challenge,
• 10:54
  do better. And they,
• 10:56
  work to embed support in in leadership behavior.
• 11:00
  They equip their managers to recognize and respond
• 11:03
  early. They integrate well-being into work design.
• 11:07
  They look at how to make support easy
• 11:09
  and visible and stigma free, and then they
• 11:12
  really focus on prevention. They focus on early
• 11:15
  intervention
• 11:16
  as a cultural norm of their business.
• 11:18
  So when employees see leaders and managers using
• 11:22
  and talking about these resources,
• 11:24
  engagement just becomes normalized.
• 11:26
  It increases,
• 11:27
  and, it
• 11:29
  turns it into
• 11:30
  a standard of care and and,
• 11:33
  turns away from crisis.
• 11:35
  Yeah. Well, Kristen, you've given so many great
• 11:38
  insights for our listeners today on what EAP
• 11:41
  benefits can really look like when they're optimized
• 11:44
  from the leadership perspective,
• 11:46
  from employees' perspectives.
• 11:48
  Can you offer maybe one last piece of
• 11:50
  advice for a leader that's ready to take
• 11:52
  a more strategic approach to workforce well-being? What's
• 11:55
  the best place to start if they haven't
• 11:56
  yet?
• 11:57
  Yeah. I think that's a great question, and
• 11:59
  I think the best place to start isn't
• 12:01
  with a new program.
• 12:02
  It's really with clarity on your existing program.
• 12:05
  So starting by understanding the current state of
• 12:07
  your workforce and the root causes of stress
• 12:10
  and burnout and disengagement.
• 12:13
  Looking at the leading indicators like absenteeism,
• 12:17
  turnover,
• 12:18
  manager escalation themes, and quality issues can really
• 12:21
  give some critical insights and allow you to
• 12:24
  design a strategic approach to well-being.
• 12:26
  I always like to say that you can't
• 12:28
  manage what you can't measure, so let the
• 12:30
  data guide you. And then once the data
• 12:33
  guides you, focus on managers first. They are
• 12:36
  the activation point. Simplify the ecosystem. Make it
• 12:39
  easy to know where to go. Align well-being
• 12:42
  with with how work actually gets done, and
• 12:45
  then model the behavior what you want the
• 12:47
  organization to adopt. And with that, I think
• 12:49
  you'll find your employees
• 12:51
  will be thriving both professionally and personally, and
• 12:54
  they will be able to live happier, healthier
• 12:56
  lives, which helps an organization
• 12:58
  be its most successful.
• 13:01
  Such great advice, Kristen. I wanna thank you
• 13:04
  again for joining Becker's today for this conversation.
• 13:07
  It's been a pleasure learning more about you
• 13:09
  and your work at Carillon,
• 13:11
  and all of the things that you've advised
• 13:12
  for our audience. I think it's a lot
• 13:14
  to consider and appreciate the practical next step
• 13:17
  forward that you just shared. So wanna thank
• 13:19
  you again for for joining.
• 13:21
  Thank you. And, of course, we'd also like
• 13:23
  to thank our podcast sponsor today, Carillon Behavioral
• 13:26
  Health. You can tune into more podcasts from
• 13:28
  Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at
• 13:31
  beckershospitalreview.com.