Making Communication Count in the Mental Health Movement

During this session, we will share how you can leverage diverse communication channels to capture employee attention and boost participation in mental health benefits, promoting a more emotionally healthy workplace. What you'll learn Strategies and case studies for reducing stigma and increasing the utilization of mental health care How to use effective channels to reach different audiences Powerful communication tactics to reinvigorate your employee outreach

Transcription:

Karen Scattergood (00:09):

Thank you for joining us. We're here to talk about making communication count in the mental health movement. So I thought we'd start by some introductions and then we'll get right into it. So I'm going to hand it over to my colleague here at KOA Health.

Kimberly Hammond (00:24):

Hi everybody, I'm Kimberly Hammond. Very nice to meet you all. I'm our Head of Clinical Partnerships at KOA Health. So for those who have not heard of KOA Health KOA is a digital mental health solution. We're actually based out of Barcelona, so we have just recently come over to the us, so a lot of that European mindset. We have a self-help app and website where you can go and do different journaling exercises, meditations, anything to really get you through your day and what's going on in your life. We're also expanding into therapy very recently, so adding on the digital therapeutics. Something that I think is really cool about KOA that I love to share is that with us and with mental health, you don't have to have something wrong. I think that's really important that mental health is more than just an episode or I'm really stressed right now between work I share with everybody.

(01:13):

I have a 4-year-old. For those of you who have young children, you know how much support you need in that. So I can go into our product and just say, I'm having a fine day, but I just want someone to talk to. So really cool, really interesting. And then I am local to San Diego, so I had probably the shortest commute of this group. I heard someone's from Temecula. We'll compare that later. But thank you for being here. And I will say I really like going paddle boarding off of the south side of this resort. So if this session goes poorly, I'm well dressed for paddle boarding and I'm just going to make my way out there.

Karen Scattergood (01:50):

Thank you. I am Karen Scattergood. I'm with Spitfire Communications and we are an employee communications firm. We help clients communicate all things internal, largely benefits and total rewards to their employees. And one of those topics that we see emerging more than any other is in mental health, helping people understand what benefits are available, how to access them, and how to make the most out of them without feeling ashamed to do so. And we work with a lot of clients like Brooke here, and so I'm going to have her give an introduction as well.

Brooke Standring (02:28):

Hey everybody. You can all hear me, right? I can hear myself. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay. Alright, great. I'm Brooke Standring. I'm a Benefits Communication and Wellness Program Manager for a company called Hologic Inc. We're a medical technology company with a primary focus in women's health and in the past four years is 2024. Right. We've really made a strong drive on mental health. So I'm excited to share my story with everybody today. So I'm going to turn it back over to Karen to get us going.

Karen Scattergood (02:58):

Absolutely. So we're really here to share some stories, some tips and tricks that we've learned. We have a case study, but I wanted to start by having Brooke share her story. So Brooke, could you let us know a little bit about what was the driving force behind you enhancing your mental health benefits and what that process looked like?

Brooke Standring (03:17):

Absolutely. So how many in the room have an EAP program? Yeah. Awesome. Does your EAP program offer say five sessions with a mental health provider? Maybe they help them find a mental health provider? So that's the standard, right? That's been around forever. I've been in the benefits world for 24 plus years and that's the standard. And when I came to Hologic eight years ago, imagine your first day on a new job and I was putting my 18-year-old daughter on a plane to California for drug treatment, for drug rehab if somebody needed mental health assistance. In that moment it was a hundred percent me. I was losing my mind, freaking out, trying to be everything I needed to be at this new job. And we didn't really have a mental health program, a strong program in place at the time, and I felt like that was really unfortunate because mental health is near and dear to me.

(04:22):

It goes back in my family. My brother passed away from a mental health issue. It's deep rooted in my family. So it's a very personal mission for me to have a good mental health program. So with that in mind, I came to my new team and I said to them, Hey, we've got this EAP program. We've got six free sessions, but the mental health providers, I have to wait three months to get in to see somebody. I need to talk to somebody now. So we embarked on a mission, a three year mission to find the best program that would fit our needs, a mental health program to fit our needs. And not only was it because of my struggles, but working with my team, I realized we all had individual struggles. And this kind of goes back to what Kelly McDonald was saying about diversity we're all a little bit different, and it could be because I have older kids, one of my coworkers had young kids who had mental health issues, another one doesn't have kids and she's got her own issues. So we brought those things to the table and realized that we're not the only ones experiencing this. There are other employees that are experiencing mental health issues and we need a strong program to help these people. So we ended up putting something in place in 2020 and then we embarked on the mission of, alright, how do we break down the stigma and get people to use this program? That's a big one is the stigma. So I don't know if you want me to share, continue sharing how we broke down the stigma.

(05:55):

So after that three to four years of finding vetting out new mental health providers and finally narrowing down to somebody, we started working on a communication plan and that is really important. Being able to provide messaging to your employees in a way that is non triggering, makes them feel comfortable and helps break down that stigma. So one of the ways that we did that was with the home mailer. This is a copy of our little home mailer. It was really cute. It was a foldout and we had branded our mental health program. We called it the Mental health Spectrum of support powered by Lyra, which is our mental health program. And we've really tried to make things simple for people so they understood what the program was about. We even sent home a little alle plant that they could grow and the significance of that is alle is healing.

(06:53):

So people received that at home. So not only the employees would get emails or communications from us, but their family members would also receive this mailer and so that they knew that that was coming. In addition to that, we put together a mental health guide, the guidance and Eide, we do print it sometimes, but mostly it's an egu that people can access and it's a deep dive into what our mental health program is and what it can do for people and it drives them back to our mental health site. But what I think is the most critical component of our communications was getting out and talking to our employees. I'm very, very open in sharing my story about my daughter and her drug addiction. I'm very open in sharing my own story. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression many, many years ago.

(07:45):

I live with that every single day. Getting on a plane to get here today was a lot. I came from Massachusetts and I can tell you I struggled once I got here. I was fine. I was getting on that plane, that anxiety of, oh my God, am I going to be okay? Everything going to be all right. So again, that just reinforces the whole mental health. We need to get that out there. But I tell people those stories, I tell them that I'm honest. And what I found is over the first year of launching our mental health program and me getting out and talking to people and telling my story, people started using the program significantly more than if we didn't market it at all. I have people that come up to me from my company and they say, oh my God, your story really impacted me and I tried the program and I liked it and I used it and it's really helping me. So sharing your story and storytelling is huge. It's huge. So I don't know if we have another,

Karen Scattergood (08:49):

When we talk to our clients about mental health goals that they want to solve for, everyone says we need to remove the stigma. How many of you feel that that's an issue at your company? Is there a stigma associated with seeking support for mental health? It's huge. We also know that there are a lot of barriers that are preventing people from getting the help that they need, and those barriers are really wide ranging. They can be cost, it can be access, it can be the stigma, or it can be they don't even know what's available to help them. And that's why communication is so important and investing in the right programs is really helpful, whether it's a solution like KOA or lyra, it's really important to have those in place so that people have something to access and then provide that clear, effective and compassionate communication. Don't speak at people, create a conversation. And so we talked about storytelling. Brooke brought that up, and you have an avatar benefits Brooke?

Brooke Standring (09:59):

Yes.

Karen Scattergood (10:00):

Can you tell everybody a little bit about benefits, Brooke, what she does and how she helps your employees?

Brooke Standring (10:06):

Yes. Benefits Brooke. This is my 15 minutes of Hologic fame. People come up to me and actually will say, oh my God, your benefits, Brooke. I'm in videos that we do and we publish out to our employee population. We have over 4,000 employees across the US and we do have employees on the global market. I haven't broken out there yet, but I'm getting there. Benefits Brook will eventually get there, but what Benefits Brook has done is it's given people a little bit of a playful way of recognizing there's somebody there for them and that it's benefits Brooks utilized in some of our mailings, my avatar will go maybe on an envelope, it'll go into a video and people just really seem to connect to it because it's low key. It's funny, it's not necessarily a real person, but it is a real person, if that makes sense. And people just, they seem to gravitate to it and of course, benefits broken. It really kind of help the bees, the bb,

Karen Scattergood (11:11):

Yeah,

(11:12):

It's really important to have that recognizable factor when you're communicating with people so they know who it's coming from. They know it's something they can trust. I have Allison's spotlight up here as well, very similar approach. Allison is a real person, but this is for ZOLL Medical. They have departments all over the United States. It's impossible for Allison to physically be there. So it's important that she let people know she's a real person. She exists. If you have a question about your benefits, she is the one that's likely going to answer it. And so she has become the face of the benefits organization within ZOLL. The spotlight is a video series and video is the most popular method of communication. If you think about your personal life, you might be like me, you have all good intentions of going to sleep at night and 30 minutes later you're looking at some kind of video of dogs being rescued or playing or whatever it is that you like to do.

(12:09):

You can get sucked into those videos. All of the popular social media outlets are video centered. So video is incredibly powerful and Allison does a video series every month where she interviews someone. Sometimes it's a benefits provider that can help you learn more about your benefits, but the most impactful spotlights have been the ones with fellow employees sharing their story. People who come on and talk about what's been going on in their life. And for Mental Health Awareness month, she had a very courageous employee talk about his struggles with depression. He had a suicide attempt and he was able to work through that and he uses the Z benefits to help him maintain his mental health. So it was really important that he get that story out there and people started to share their stories. Once somebody said something about themselves, it's snowballs. People then begin to share their stories. They feel comfortable. You have that two-Way outlet because I think a lot of times we forget about the human in human resources. We're all people, we're all struggling, whether you can see it or not, we all have our own struggles and it was really important that they develop that two-way channel for storytelling.

Brooke Standring (13:28):

Yeah, it's a critical piece for storytelling.

Karen Scattergood (13:31):

Absolutely. I also wanted to talk about being conversational. So when you're talking to people about mental health, we want you to approach it in a very relatable way. Talk to people like you would talk to someone in your personal life. Don't make it academic and if you can personalize it, make it about them. When I was talking to Kimberly earlier about the app, what I loved about it was that your mental health didn't have to be a negative thing. You could be feeling really good. How do you keep that going? Because I know sometimes when I feel good in the back of my mind I'm like, well, this isn't going to last. I feel really good today, but tomorrow's probably not going to be as great. So learning how to go on there and find those positive aspects of your mental health and how to keep them nourished and flourishing is really important.

(14:26):

This communication is personalized with a first name. So it doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be hard, but research has shown when you put a first name in an email subject line, you get significantly more click and open rates. If you are in a room full of people and someone says Hey, or if someone says, Hey, Michelle, see she looked at me, it works. So knowing someone's first name creates that personal connection that enables them to want to share their story and look at the information that's available. And this just says, how are you? It's a simple question, but how are you? I don't know if anybody saw this video recently, but is anybody familiar with Blues Clues? I have young kids, so you can probably tell, but way back when Blues Clues first started, Steve was the guy that was sort of the man behind the entire series and he moved on, he retired from the show, but he's still around and he just recently released a post on social media. I don't know, does anyone know what I'm talking about? It was really sweet, and he just looked at the camera and he said, how are you? And he just sat there and occasionally he would nod his head. He didn't say anything, and it instantly went viral and it was so sweet because there are people out there that want to listen to you and it went viral because it resonated with people. So make sure your communications touch on that personal aspect.

(16:10):

So I have a case study that I wanted to share with you, something that gives a little bit of a different perspective to how you can handle your mental health and those communications surrounding it. Ocean Spray came to us wanting to talk about how to remove the stigma, the stigma and the barriers surrounding mental health access. And at the time they used their EAP, which I'm sure a lot of us use that as our primary or our first source for mental health support. It had a horrible stigma and Ocean Spray had a really difficult problem. They had shifts that went 24 hours and the people that worked those overnight shifts had the highest mental health claims and they were starting to see suicides and they were starting to see things that just were not good. So they really wanted to reduce that stigma and provide them with an opportunity to seek mental health whenever it was convenient for them.

(17:08):

Fit for Life is their benefits brand. It had been in use for 10 years. It was trusted, it was loved, so we thought, okay, let's take this opportunity to rebrand. They were getting a new EP provider, but the benefits were all the same, so they were going to need to communicate the new contact information. We said, what if we ditch EAP? People already have a negative connotation with that, so let's not call it that anymore. Let's take it off of everything and we'll create a sub-brand under Benefit called Fit for Life Cares. That's all we have to do, and then we'll send home a letter with a magnet and contact information. Nothing super fancy. They had other communications that were updated, so they had digital signs throughout their locations. They had a benefits website that they updated. They also had Carrie's Corner, which is similar to Benefits Brook or Allison's Spotlight, but that was all they did. They just renamed it. The benefit itself did not change, but they wanted to remove the stigma because if they said We have a new P, people would already be zoned out. They wouldn't look. And so what did we find?

(18:22):

Traffic to the benefits page, which had for been the EAP page but is now the fit for Life Cares increased by 87% from the previous year. So people were going to that page and that's huge because benefits are episodic. As much as I would love to think that people are looking at their communications and thinking they're the greatest thing they've ever seen reading it from cover to cover at best, we hope they hold onto it and reference it when they need it and when somebody needs it, particularly when they need it for a mental health emergency, they don't want to have to sort through or try to dig for information. That's hard to find. So we knew people were actually getting where they needed to go so that they could find what they needed. And the utilization of the EAP increased from 2% to over 11% within three months of the launch, which was a record Ocean spray typically had at best 3%. And so this was huge. Kimberly, I know that we talked about some case studies. Do you have some that you'd like to talk about?

Kimberly Hammond (19:27):

Yeah, I would love to share and I will just give some general thoughts as well that I think are really helpful. I think where we talk about the stigma of mental health, getting that person to show up at that office of that therapist or click the button and be there is a lot to overcome. I think the other stigma here is that being on the HR side of this, being on the buyer side of this is also understanding that you don't have to solve it yourself, but you also, I think it's really important, and this may be really basic, but we're all out of our normal element today, right? We've come here, we've come to San Diego, we're learning new things, our mind is open. Think of yourself and what you want in your own mental health, and I think that's really important is to step into that shoe and stop looking at as how do I solve this for my employees?

(20:06):

That's obviously very important, but think about you. What would get you to engage in this and do these types of things? And I think those are really important things to think about. As far as the case studies go, a really important one I think to share here is we also have to think about desk list workers. I think with this shift in the pandemic, are you working in the office? Are you working from home? There are still, I think it's 70 to 80% of workers are deathless at this point. How do you engage them? How do you get them to respond? For us, we work with a professional sports league that they're traveling all over the place. They're never in the same place twice or in the same two days or whatnot. So how do we engage them? And it's really like we said, meeting them where they're at.

(20:48):

I think the biggest thing with mental health is remembering that everybody is on their own journey. It is very personalized and like we said, adding the name in here, just those little things. Remember one person could be dealing with something like Brooke was going through. Another person could be like we were saying, having a good time. They just want to keep that up and not let the other shoe drop. Another one could be dealing with an elderly parent. It's really important to get those messages to them. So we had shared before the mailers with that little alle plant something that goes to their home. So when they come home and they come off the road, they have that reminder of like, Hey, it's okay. Take that breather. You have a lot going on. It's okay to do that. Also for those factory workers, I would imagine with Ocean Mist as well, is making sure that there are materials and things within those common areas that they share and remembering that one push of communications is not going to be enough, right?

(21:43):

They're going to pick that up when they are ready. So how do you keep surfacing that to make sure that they know about this benefit and this experience for them to ensure that when they are ready, a lot of this mental health stigma is helping them get to the spot that they are ready and whether that is self-help is getting them just to write something in a journal or to go to the therapy. It's just really important for them to have those reminders and know that those are available to them and help them do so. Since we have launched with this professional sporting team, it was about five or six months ago. In the past two months, really the season has picked up that they're in and we've seen a significant increase in the amount of usage in the product in both that and then also going to these teletherapy appointments obviously directly correlated to they're under a lot more pressure.

(22:29):

It's the middle of the season they're picking up, but we did those mailers, we sent those things to and let them just remind like, Hey, you're on the road, but that doesn't have to stop you from getting the mental health support that you need. So I think that's just really important that we always keep in our mind our journey is not their journey. That person's not the next person's journey. As we looked in that keynote speak of the difference of the diversity, I think it was 84% are different. I mean if you try to pick two random people, their mental health issues are going to be a hundred percent different. So we just have to remember that and remember that everybody's going to be different. I think sharing stories are extremely inspiring in that nature to help them feel more relatable or if they haven't gone through therapy or haven't done anything about it before, but just remembering that people will get there when they are ready and you just have to help give 'em that gentle nudge so they remember and then they will get there at the right time.

Karen Scattergood (23:23):

Yeah, well said. And you break up a great point about once is not enough. I don't know if anybody here has had a background in marketing and heard of the rule of seven, but the rule of seven states that it takes about seven times to communicate a message before it sinks in. And so you will pass something, you will read something, you will hear something seven times before you remember it. So it's really important to do that and to meet people where they are because people will consume information differently. We are all different. Younger generations will lean toward electronic communications, older generations like the tactile print. So making sure you have variety, we'll give that communication outlet to the people who need it when they need it, and most importantly, they'll know where to find it because again, when they're having an urgent matter or they're not feeling themselves, you don't want to give them an extra task to try to solve just to feel better.

(24:24):

Before we get into the key takeaways, does anybody have any stories they'd like to share of how they have worked with mental health, how they have tried to reduce the stigma or how they have seen some changes within their own organization? Not to put anybody on the spot, and that's okay, you don't have to share, but we're giving you the option, which is exactly what we want you to do with your employees. Give them the option and recognize not everybody is comfortable sharing. So normalize help seeking behavior by asking people how are you? You are making that more normal. You are setting the stage for them to answer. Foster those open conversations. Really make sure that you are being around for people who need to talk. I loved this morning when she was saying, I need your help instead of can you help me? So really think about how you're phrasing these questions to people, the tone that you use and that you do expect an answer and you'll listen.

(25:34):

If they have one, expand access to culturally competent care. It goes right back to what she was saying about all of our differences. The mental health services have to be available. That is one of the biggest barriers to care that we've seen. If you cannot get to diverse communities, if you cannot get to people in the way that they need to be helped, you're going to miss out. If you need translation, make sure it's translated. If you need to get out there in person, I would encourage you to do so. That is the single most effective way to communicate with people by showing up in person, really easy to delete an email, really easy to ignore a text, really hard to ignore somebody who's standing right in front of you, and that might just be the thing that they need.

Kimberly Hammond (26:27):

I'll also just add to that as we're speaking about it, that reminds me of vulnerability and both yourself and your population with the I need help comment. Allowing them to be able to say that in a safe and trusted space I think is critical. I think removing the judgment, which guys, we get emails flying at us every day, slacks as calls at us. Sometimes we're on a high control there, but I think even like we said in here, are there any stories to share? It's about being vulnerable, right? I think Brooke's done a wonderful job of that. If you ask me about my mental health, lemme tell you about my childhood trauma. Let tell you about this one. I'm an open go on, I go on forever. But I think it's really important to be vulnerable and to allow your individuals to be vulnerable. And as we were talking about diverse communities, this reminded me, obviously you all right?

(27:11):

This is buzzwords right now is social determinants of health. That is a really, really big deal right now. And it's the same thing. It's a buzzword, but it's a really big issue that needs to be tackled. I will just say whether you have a solution or you're hiring someone externally, that is so critical, right? We have to make sure that every provider of mental health at this point in time is looking at all those different qualities of life and different issues and different factors. Because like we said, it goes back to that personalization of the support. And I think that is such a critical thing is we have to understand the diversity. So that's just really important as we think about that. Expanding the access to care.

Karen Scattergood (27:46):

Definitely. That's an excellent point. Use those multiple communication channels. We just talked about the rule of seven, but don't communicate it in the same way seven times. Really think outside the box. One of our favorite ways to communicate is on the back of bathroom stall doors. It is so underutilized, but it is highly effective.

Brooke Standring (28:10):

We call that the porcelain press.

Karen Scattergood (28:14):

I love that. I think anywhere that people might be taking a minute is always a place you can communicate. We also like mirrors in front of the sinks. You get to educate people and maybe they'll wash their hands a little longer. It's a win for everybody. Elevators common areas. Kimberly, you mentioned where people might take breaks. All of those are really great places to get people while they're taking a moment.

Brooke Standring (28:41):

We've done place mats, we've got little cafe areas throughout our building and we've put place mats on the tables, so they're literally forced to eat on top of it. Let's see it. It's right there.

Karen Scattergood (28:51):

Yeah, it's excellent.

Brooke Standring (28:53):

And they stick to the table, so it's not like a table tent where they can just move it out of the way. Has anybody done table tents before? Notoriously people, they end up in a corner every single time, but the place mats have been very effective. They stick right to the table.

Karen Scattergood (29:09):

It's fun. And that's the same material you could put on a bathroom stall door or a mirror or an elevator. Anywhere that people might be taking a moment is a great way to communicate. You want to make sure that you have those pieces going to home as well. We generally recommend that per big campaign. You send one thing home and that's because a lot of time the employee isn't the only person that you want to reach. You'll have a decision maker. I know I'm on my husband's benefits and if we did not get something mailed home, we would have nothing. We would have absolutely nothing. It's not his world, and that's okay because there's a lot of things that we could reverse that aren't my world, but it's important that it get home. And even if he were the decision maker, I'm on his benefits, I want to know what's available because when you have everybody in your life happy, you are happier. And that really impacts your mental health. So make sure something goes home. The allo plant was such a creative and fun idea, but it really can be something as simple as a postcard if you're worried about costs. It doesn't have to be flashy, it just needs to get in front of people. Yes.

Kimberly Hammond (30:25):

One other thing to add here too, I know that for a campaign that was actually sent to me in the past, this was right after Covid happened, they sent succulents to everybody. And what I think thought was really creative was that our internal team then turned it into a competition of who could grow the best succulent after a certain amount of time. So if there's one thing people love, it's competition. So I would say that's also something really interesting that could be embedded into this. Everybody started doing the sourdough. I'm sure you could make something with aloe vera, but I think there are also opportunities not just to send that home, but to remind them of that item and what it is associated with and continue on in the campaign in that way.

Karen Scattergood (31:05):

Absolutely. Gamification is really fun. If people feel like they're an active participant in whatever it is they're doing, they're more likely to pay attention. They're more likely to absorb that information and they don't feel so negative about it. It kind of brings a little bit of fun. You do have to walk a fine line with mental health because you don't want to make light of it, but you also don't want people to be afraid of it. You don't want people to stigmatize it more than they already are. Exactly. We talked about safe spaces and providing communities. Does anybody here have employee resource groups? They might be called something different, but we see a lot of ERGs. It's a great place to talk to people and get them starting the conversation because you will bond with people who you feel have a lot of similarities to you that you feel safe and trusted with. So create those spaces for that open dialogue and for those shared experiences so that people feel safe. Bless you. And people feel that they can share their story. Brooke, I'm curious, when you shared your story and when you started talking to your employees, did you find people were sharing their stories back?

Brooke Standring (32:11):

Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Even after weeks after hearing my story, they would come up to me or they'd send me an email, thanks so much for sharing your story. Here's my story. And it became a comradery between me and a lot of these employees about sharing. And it was support for me. For them, we were helping each other and it made a big impact, a really big impact.

Karen Scattergood (32:38):

Absolutely. And imagine the people who were impacted that didn't speak up

Brooke Standring (32:43):

Yes.

Karen Scattergood (32:43):

Because I think there's probably still a lot of people who were impacted, but maybe they're not comfortable for whatever reason, speaking up. So to get that feedback is really, really encouraging.

Brooke Standring (32:54):

I had a lot of feedback from people saying, thanks for sharing your story. I never would've shared my story if I hadn't heard you Were going through this looking at me and my position and what I do for the company. They couldn't believe it. They couldn't believe that I would have anxiety, I would have depression, that I would have a daughter who's an addict. I'd have a brother that killed the himself. They never would've guessed that by how I put myself forward. And they really appreciated that vulnerability and it opened the door for them to be vulnerable and talk as well. So it's really important to share and give people that safe space.

Karen Scattergood (33:36):

And I remember I have always struggled with anxiety myself, but I remember when I was younger, I didn't really know what I was feeling. I didn't know it had a name. I didn't know it was normal that other people had it. And the first time I heard somebody describing how they felt and I recognized I felt that way too. It was a really powerful moment for me. I felt like I was no longer alone. I wasn't weird. There wasn't anything wrong with me. So remember the impact of these open communications. When you do talk to people, they're not all going to come back with a story you love when they do, but it will resonate with people in ways that maybe they never could have imagined. And make sure that information is accessible. If you are going to share your story, make sure that people can get that.

(34:24):

If you are going to communicate about a benefit that you're offering, make sure everybody's able to access that and keep it Simple. Benefits are like a foreign language. They're so difficult to understand. So keep it conversational and keep it simple. You want them to get the help. You can worry about the terminology and all of that behind the scenes later. It's really interesting because with a lot of benefits, you look to see that your numbers go down. So if you have a lot of claims surrounding diabetes, you want to see those claims drop. But mental health is really different because you don't want to see those claims drop. And so it becomes kind of difficult to judge the efficacy of what you're doing, but just to know that it's working. When you get those conversations out there and you get this feedback,

Brooke Standring (35:13):

What you should see, you should see good utilization in your mental health program. And then you should be seeing your absenteeism rates starting to decline a little bit. People are going to be feeling better about going back to work. Maybe even disability claims might be going down a bit. People might not be claiming mental health claims. So you should be seeing an offset over time. It's not going to be immediate, but you will see it over time.

Karen Scattergood (35:38):

That's great. Yeah, there are ways that you can tell that it's working in a more measurable way, and that's great to be able to cross-reference those benefits to see where you're having other impact and how it's helping. So make sure whenever you are communicating or setting something into place that you have a way to measure. It doesn't always have to be hard data utilization charts and graphs and all these fancy things. Those are great, but sometimes it's just that feedback. So I was curious, Brooke, do you have any other ways that wasn't really hard quantitative data that made you feel, I know this is working, I know I'm making a difference.

Brooke Standring (36:19):

I'm going to go right back to that. Having employees come and talk to me and tell me. I've used the program

(36:25):

Every year. I go to our national sales meeting in October, and that's the time I get to see our field employees who I never get to see. It's about 2000 employees and every single year they come up to me and they're like, I used the program. It was amazing. I used it for this, I used it for that. And it's not just serious things. Sometimes they're just like, I had a bad day and I just needed to talk to somebody and I use the program. So I take that positive feedback and that's how I measure that the program is working outside of the data.

Karen Scattergood (36:59):

Kimberly, we were talking this morning about that very thing that sometimes people approach mental health thinking that they have to have this diagnosis or they have to have something wrong. Do you remember what it is that you said to me this morning about how sometimes you just want to talk to somebody?

Kimberly Hammond (37:13):

Yeah, I said sometimes I just want my therapist to talk to. Just as an unbiased, you're in these conversations every day. Like we said, you're traveling, you're in these work meetings. Zoom fatigue is real. You have your family life, you have all this. I don't have to have a really bad depressive moment going on to want to just talk to my therapist and say, okay, here's what's going on. I just want this one hour of unbothered time and unbiased time to have those conversations.

Karen Scattergood (37:38):

And one thing I loved too when I was looking through CO's offerings was that focus was put into mental health. And I loved that because sometimes that's my struggle. I am very overwhelmed. I don't know where to start and I need that help. But I don't know that a lot of people would consider that. They would think, I'm only going to go to a certain benefit because I have anxiety, I have depression, I have something that's more serious. But it can really be just your whole state of being. How do you feel? How are you today? So letting people know that they can use these benefits for something that isn't necessarily a serious diagnosis can really open their eyes to feeling better overall and using it more holistically. And that's really the goal. We want them to be able to use it.

Kimberly Hammond (38:27):

Karen, that's such a great point because my husband love him, but he has said to me before, my mental health issues aren't that severe. They're not bad enough for me to go and speak to somebody or go through this. Right? I'm sure you guys all have employees that probably have that same thought and that same mental process. And I think it's really interesting with KOA and other providers as well to say Exactly. We said, no, you can just go and go through this. And one is another option with KOA is just say, I'm curious. That's all. You don't even have to have really emotion. I'm just curious. I'm not happy. I'm not. I'm just curious about what I can do and where I can start. And just having those resources to again meet that individual where they are, I think is so critical.

Karen Scattergood (39:09):

And you've probably heard that phrase a lot. It is something we talk about in the benefits world, meeting people where they are both literally and figuratively. And ever since Covid, it's become more important than ever. And it is really great to let them know being curious is natural. And so it is our job to help employees be able to satisfy that curiosity by putting something out there in a clear, easy way to understand.

Brooke Standring (39:36):

Cool. Maybe take some questions. Yeah,

Karen Scattergood (39:38):

I think we're really coming up on time. I thank you again for joining us. Does anybody have any questions or anything that they would like to add? Don't all jump at once.

Brooke Standring (39:49):

I know it's scary to be the first one

Kimberly Hammond (39:53):

And the theme of vulnerability.

Audience Member (39:57):

Thank you so much for talking about this topic. I think this is a topic that's not Oh, thank you. I think this topic, I'm just not talking loud enough. There you go. I think this topic is just not discussed a lot. And I'm wondering because of the fact that it's not talked a lot, and how long of communications do you actually have to do for someone to have that connection touchpoint? I know Brooke, you said it took like three months, right? And then, so I'm wondering from KOA standpoint in regards to how long it took for that standpoint to happen, as well as do you see more because of the way we are virtually now, do you see more people trying to connect through their phone versus actually having a phone call?

Kimberly Hammond (40:49):

Yeah, absolutely. So we have two different offerings levels, and the first one is really that self-help and that meditation and that journaling. The adoption rate of that is immediate. That is between eight and 10% utilization. And that first wave is going to be your really big wave therapy. That piece of it is our second piece that's a little bit more stigmatized, similar to Brooke's timeline, two to three months really. You also get the early adopters that are like, oh, I've already gone to therapy. Look at this new benefit and it resets the amount of sessions I have. But what we actually see more than anything is the higher number of return past initial visits. We're seeing this group that's coming back and back to go through their second and third and fourth. And so they're really seeing the value in the continuation of care.

Audience Member (41:36):

I have one more question, if you don't mind. Sure. Because there has been a topic now discussed about children and teen mental health, and I know that Karen had talked about sending communications at home. Have you seen that because the benefits the employees not the one contacting, is it more of an uptick for family members?

Brooke Standring (42:01):

I can speak from a hologics perspective. So we offer 16 no cost therapy sessions, therapy or coaching. It goes both ways for us, and that's to our employees, their significant other, that's their domestic partner, spouse, whatever it is in their children. And our particular program, it's children like 13 and up to age 26, and we're seeing a pretty 50 50 split in utilization. There's no, it's not like all employee usage and all spouse independent usage. It's a pretty big 50 50 split with employees and the domestic partner and the spouse.

Kimberly Hammond (42:44):

And I can share just quickly in the US we do 13 above as well. But very interestingly internationally, we're seeing a lot more interest in that adolescent space. Specifically Australia, a lot is coming out of Australia right now wanting us to service from ages five and older. Now, there's a lot of data out there that says from age nine and above, teletherapy is great under nine, go brick and mortar because they get distracted and there are other things going on. But we're seeing RFPs come through specifically for adolescent therapy and supporting that. And then also in the UK has a really big population of this right now. So internationally, we're seeing a lot of uptick in requests for adolescent therapy and mental health support.

Brooke Standring (43:29):

Thank you. We're seeing that also. We've seeing a lot of requests at Logic for more adolescent support.

Karen Scattergood (43:38):

Well, thank you everybody. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're so happy to have you here. We'd love to talk to you. If you have any questions afterwards, feel free to come up to any of us after. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you.