The workforce is entering yet another time of transition, and everyone is wondering: what’s next?
As employers make decisions about the future of their business, they can’t lose sight of supporting their people through these challenges, too. That means continuing to prioritize the
“There was a mental health crisis impacting the workforce before the pandemic and the pandemic exacerbated that,” he said. “We have to find ways for leaders to open up and talk about what they struggle with. Once leaders kick it off, people feel like, ‘I can give a little more to this company.’”
At Modern Health, founder and CEO Alyson Watson said she was so consumed with providing well-being support to others, she almost forgot about her own team’s needs.
“The rat race that we all feel is really hard to turn off,” she said. “As a business owner, you’re always going to the next milestone, but that’s completely conflicted with being present and slowing down.”
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But since those early days of the pandemic, Watson has learned to practice what she counsels other employers to provide: well-being support and an open dialogue around mental health. So she got vulnerable and admitted that she was burned out, too.
“I wrote a note to the team, ‘I know when I mentioned, go 110%, that’s not realistic,’” she said. “You’ll be so surprised at how many people will reach out and thank you for even bringing that up.”
Finding the right solutions can be an opportunity to experiment, Hanrahan said. At Eventbrite, the company asked employees what they were struggling with and then put programs in place to address those needs. Things like “Async weeks,” where no meetings are allowed, and “Britebreaks" when employees get the first Friday of the month off to focus on their well-being, are company-wide callouts to
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However, a virtual babysitting program, for which the company hired Broadway performers to entertain their employees’ children during work hours, was less successful, Hanrahan said. It was a good lesson in talking to employees first, before implementing what you might see as a solution.
“Employees were looking for signals from the top that they can take the time they need,” he said. “I needed to hear that from leadership, and not be offered an online babysitting platform.”
The more the conversations happen, the better off employees — and the business as a whole — will fare.
“A lot of us are feeling what we know is happening, we just don’t talk about it,” Watson said. “We have to take care of ourselves to take care of the company’s broader mission.”
