Mental health garners spotlight at chamber event

With roughly 20% of U.S. adults annually dealing with a mental illness, according to the World Health Organization, employers need to make sure their workplaces are a safe space for mental health conversations, a group of panelists said this month at a Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce event.

“The first thing is to make sure that your environment is psychologically safe for people,” said Lindsay Bauer, director of people and culture at Keep Supply. “It’s about training your leaders and making sure that everyone is aware of the fact that we’re working with humans. We’re not working with numbers. So, if people are coming off as stressed, it is important to be able to sit down and have a conversation.”

Bauer joined Ryan Savage, executive director at Beyond Healing Center LLC, and Bailey Pyle, a licensed professional counselor with Burrell Behavioral Health, for a panel discussion about mental health in the workplace. The Dec. 11 event was held at the chamber’s office, 202 S. John Q. Hammons Parkway.

Pyle, who moderated the panel, asked Bauer how business owners can identify signs of mental health struggles with their employees without overstepping bounds.

“I don’t think you’re overstepping as long as you’re not really digging, but just ask someone without any judgment, ‘Are you OK?’ And provide a space where they can have that conversation with you,” Bauer said. “That’s probably the most important thing you can do. If you don’t have an environment where someone is psychologically safe, it doesn’t matter what you do; you’re going to overstep your bounds.”

Hard conversations
Savage said people are engaged in hard conversations all the time in the workplace and home, be it with business partners, employees, spouses and children.

“What I’ve found is that when you show up to those hard conversations with an invitation into vulnerability, you’re really adding some texture to your own experience,” he said. “What I mean by that is coming to the plate with saying, ‘I’m a little scared to have this conversation, or I’m a little nervous, or I’m not sure how you’re going to respond.’”

By employers bringing vulnerability to the conversation, he said, it can help the employee feel freer to share what struggles they are facing to do their job.

“It brings this kind of three-dimensional aspect back to the reality of our experience and the experience of the others that we’re with,” he said.

However, Pyle said when employers ask if someone at work is OK, they need to be prepared for whatever answer they receive.

“We live in a society and the world where when we ask, ‘Hey, how are you?’ we say, ‘Fine’ and smile and move on,” she said. “So, we need to be prepared if somebody says, ‘I’m struggling.’”

Mental health costs both in and out of the workplace are considerable, research shows. According to a 2024 Columbia Business School study, the economic cost for mental health in the U.S. is more than $280 billion annually. Its aggregate cost is equal to 1.7% of the country’s annual consumption.

Exploring leadership
With over 15 years working with employees in human resources and similar departments, Bauer said there was a time when organizations trained leaders to just send people with mental health issues to HR officials.

“They would just be like, ‘OK, we’re going to stop the conversation; go see them,’” she said of employers referring workers to HR. “And I think the reality of the matter is that is probably the most uncaring thing someone can do.”

Business leaders need to be equipped and willing to effectively listen without judgment to people and still be vulnerable, Bauer said.

“Leadership is no longer about being the strongest person in the room or the smartest person in the room,” she said. “It’s about being the one that people can listen to or that people can share and know that you’re going to listen.”

Pyle said that ability in leaders is invaluable, particularly the willingness to be a bit uncomfortable, as the tendency is to want to fix a situation.

“Whether that be our children, whether that be our significant others or our employees, they’re not necessarily looking for us to rescue them,” Pyle said. “A lot of times they just need somebody sitting on the bench with them, to be there with them, and we don’t have to have the solutions.”

Taking steps
A key component for companies to provide a psychologically safe workplace includes understanding how your employees feel, Bauer said. Keep Supply conducts a quarterly survey to gauge stress in its workplace and examines employee net promoter scores, which measure worker engagement and loyalty to a business.

“If that’s going down, then you’ve got either a tremendous amount of stress in your workplace or something else going on,” she said, adding employers also need to make sure their leaders are trained on having mental health conversations. “It’s got to be normalized. It can’t continue to be stigmatized because people, if they’re feeling a real stressor and they’re not comfortable saying anything or talking to anyone about that, they will continue to let that internalize until the point they’re just really in a bad, bad spot.”

Pyle said the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which was revamped from the U.S. suicide hotline in 2022, is another resource employers should utilize. The business leaders can call 988 on behalf of their employee and allow the experts on the line to take over.

“There are different ways we can provide that psychological and mental health safety and support for our people, even if (Employee Assistance Program) resources are not available for us,” she said, in reference to a voluntary, work-based program that offers free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals and follow-up services to employees who have personal and work-related problems.

As an employer seeking feedback, Pyle said be prepared to receive and listen – even if it’s difficult. Sometimes, that might mean having to absorb it and get back with the employee before making an unprepared response.

“And when you receive feedback and you start making changes in accordance to that feedback, connect the dots for people,” Pyle said, noting employees don’t always know what behind-the-scenes work may be taking place. “If people feel like they’re giving feedback and it’s falling on ears that aren’t hearing or implementing that, they’ll stop giving feedback.”