Episode 80: Mental Health in the Workplace with Arriann Tauer, Part 1

00;00;08;29 – 00;00;37;28
Kelly Parbs
For most of us, work is a significant part of our lives. So it makes sense that what happens at work can affect our mental health, and what we’re experiencing in our lives can affect how we show up at work. As part of Mental Health in the Workplace month, we’re taking a closer look at what it means to create a mentally healthy workplace and importantly, how we balance supporting people with maintaining workplace expectations.

00;00;38;00 – 00;01;06;19
Kelly Parbs
Being supportive doesn’t mean expectations disappear, and being human doesn’t mean productivity and accountability don’t matter. Mental health and workplace performance don’t have to be competing goals. So what does that balance look like? What is a manager’s role when an employee struggling? And how can we create workplaces where people feel comfortable asking for help while still being successful in their role?

00;01;06;22 – 00;01;36;21
Kelly Parbs
My guest today is Arriann Tauer. Arriann is a licensed professional counselor and the Program Manager for Team Member Mental Health at Children’s Hospital in Wisconsin. She has more than 20 years of experience in the mental health field, and focuses on expanding access to confidential mental health support, reducing stigma and creating healthier workplace cultures. Hello Arriann, and welcome to OnTopic with Empathia!

00;01;36;28 – 00;01;44;29
Arriann Tauer
Hi Kelly, thank you so much for having me today. I’m excited to chat about what we’re going to be chatting about today and how are you doing today?

00;01;45;01 – 00;02;07;09
Kelly Parbs
I’m so grateful that you’re with us today, and I know that this is a topic that’s important to you as it is to me. So why don’t we go right ahead and jump in? Our topic today is mental health in the workplace. And from your perspective. Why is workplace mental health such an important conversation?

00;02;07;11 – 00;02;37;17
Arriann Tauer
I think it’s such an important conversation these days is because we’re seeing the impact of mental health at work. And then also with that, there is so much work being done for retention, engagement, performance of all of our employees. And we all know at least those of us in counseling know that if there’s mental health or substance abuse stuff going on, that that really impacts, you know, the quality of work that the employees giving out.

00;02;37;20 – 00;03;00;25
Arriann Tauer
And it also really impacts the company that they’re working for. So I think that’s one of the biggest things that has come out in the last probably ten years, is that there is definitely that data connection of if we invest in people’s mental health at work, we are going to get the best employee back in our workplace, doing the best work that they can.

00;03;00;26 – 00;03;05;20
Arriann Tauer
So I think that’s one of the biggest pushes. I think in the last ten years in this area.

00;03;05;22 – 00;03;26;17
Kelly Parbs
Everyone is positively impacted when we have good mental health in the workplace. Correct. You mentioned the past decade and from my perspective, being an employee assistance professional, I really have noticed there’s somewhat of a change in the role of managers over the years. Is that something that you have noticed as well?

00;03;26;19 – 00;03;51;03
Arriann Tauer
Yes. And I really particularly see like a lot of that change has shifted, like with Covid, because I think in the past that, you know, managers were really focused on performance. How are you doing today? Are we getting the task done? But that is also now morphed, because a lot of us are spending so much of our lives at work that now their role is checking in.

00;03;51;05 – 00;04;10;16
Arriann Tauer
Are you doing okay today? I notice you’re not yourself. It’s a lot more of a full wrap role than just. Here’s your job. Are you doing your job well? It is much more of a, you know, looking at it from almost like a family perspective that you spend so much time at work that we’re asking about, how are you doing?

00;04;10;16 – 00;04;33;10
Arriann Tauer
How are your kids doing? How can I best support you? And a lot of those questions probably were not ones that were asked even ten years ago. And with Covid and all those changes, then it really wrapped it up when we saw a lot of people struggling with mental health, that some of that language between leader and employee started to really change and become a lot more personal.

00;04;33;12 – 00;05;01;22
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely. That’s something that I’ve noticed as well. And in terms of doing leadership coaching, I think we’re talking a whole lot more about the importance of emotional intelligence with good managers so that they can serve in that supportive role with their employees. Yet still, we have to remember that managers don’t have to feel like they are responsible for or own the employee’s mental health.

00;05;01;25 – 00;05;22;11
Arriann Tauer
Right. And I think sometimes that is, for lack of a better term, a trap that some leaders get stuck in because they want to be able to fix it. Right. And they want to be able to make sure that they can get it better. But the reality is, it is truly mental health. And the mental health professionals kind of need to step in and be able to help in that realm.

00;05;22;12 – 00;05;40;26
Arriann Tauer
And then if there’s things that need to happen with workflow or whatever to help get that employee back up and running, I feel that’s like a lot more in the lane of what the leaders, you know, should be doing. And I also know how slippery of a slope it is to get into wanting to fix the problem. Right.

00;05;40;27 – 00;05;42;25
Arriann Tauer
And then that. Yeah, yeah.

00;05;42;26 – 00;05;56;28
Kelly Parbs
And that’s something I’m definitely going to want to explore in a little more detail in a little bit. I’d like to establish, though, what does mental health work really mean? What does that look like?

00;05;57;01 – 00;06;22;22
Arriann Tauer
Well, I think when I talk about mental health at work, I’m really looking at the vision of that. You’re feeling relatively stable and able, right, to do your job well, and that means that you’re able to get things done timely, respond things out appropriately. You work well with your colleagues. You’re able to meet dates and deadlines really well.

00;06;22;25 – 00;06;45;08
Arriann Tauer
I think that’s when we’re talking about mental health at work. That’s kind of what the old school kind of version used to be. But I do think that that’s morphing more into, an actual touch base about like emotions. And how are you feeling? Do you feel respected and all those kinds of things? And I think that is starting to morph more into what mental health at work means.

00;06;45;16 – 00;07;10;29
Arriann Tauer
And I think we get stuck in that a little bit because we spend so much time at work, right, that it becomes that second home. And it’s really hard when there’s particular mental health issues going on to then hide them or minimize them. When you’re literally spending 40, 50, 60 hours a week at a separate location where you have to be on, it starts to just kind of come out, you know, organically.

00;07;11;01 – 00;07;30;23
Arriann Tauer
So I really do feel that, you know, mental health at work is really being able to do your job well, still feel positive about what you’re doing, feeling good in what you’re doing. And I think that’s the goal that a lot of us who work in EAP or even in mental health, that’s what we’re looking to help people get to.

00;07;30;26 – 00;07;41;05
Kelly Parbs
We’re making the workplace a little more human. We’re we’re focusing a little bit more on on the whole person because employees bring their whole lives to work. Right?

00;07;41;10 – 00;08;07;11
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not just a. Hi. How are you? I’m good. And then that’s it, right. Like a lot of workplaces, we’re integrating, you know, mental health support, integrating physical health support. We’re integrating all of these, health and wellness reward programs. Right. Because we want you to be at your best at work. So I feel like that whole holistic thing has really taken off.

00;08;07;13 – 00;08;30;10
Arriann Tauer
It started a little bit before Covid, but I do think it’s really skyrocketed after Covid and realizing how much stuff was going on that people needed support with that. Now, if you’re not one of these holistic businesses, right, that it almost seems odd that you’re not offering all of these things because that’s kind of what employees are expecting, leaders are expecting.

00;08;30;10 – 00;08;38;07
Arriann Tauer
And that’s also a lot of times what companies are now stepping up to do as just part of the day in and day out procedures.

00;08;38;09 – 00;09;06;27
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And we’re encouraging managers and organizations to recognize that people have families and they have stressors outside of work. They may be going through grief in their life, maybe financial concerns, personal challenges. And and that’s the whole package. But that is not to say that there are not responsibilities and deadlines and expectations, go along with your job.

00;09;06;27 – 00;09;16;29
Kelly Parbs
And so really we’re talking about balancing all of that in a way that is good for both the employee, the manager and the organization.

00;09;17;01 – 00;09;40;25
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the difficult things that I’m sure we may talk about more later on is that, you know, as leaders, you know, you see your employees as other people that you spend a lot of time with. So there’s a lot of empathy about what’s going on. And then it’s that tough balance of, you know, maybe this person has, you know, lost a parent.

00;09;40;27 – 00;10;07;17
Arriann Tauer
Things are going on financially, but yet there are still things that need to be done within the job to make sure that the job is done well, you know, and performance. And then having to have that performance improvement conversation gets really tough when you know someone’s struggling. But it’s that balance of balancing the needs of the organization which the leader works for, and then also balancing supporting the employee who may need a little bit more of a lift.

00;10;07;23 – 00;10;19;09
Kelly Parbs
Right. That can be tricky sometimes. What what would you say are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve seen employees facing in recent years?

00;10;19;12 – 00;10;41;16
Arriann Tauer
I think one of the biggest things that I notice is the amount of jobs that people are having, because I do feel like fiscally, things have changed a lot in just the last couple of years with just, you know, I mean, it’s not like my grandparents when I say this, you know, the cost of eggs, the cost of gas, butter, all that stuff has like risen so high.

00;10;41;16 – 00;11;14;29
Arriann Tauer
And now rent is so high and childcare is so high that what I’m seeing a lot of is people coming in, going, this is my primary job, but I also have a second and a third job that I’m trying to manage as well, as well as my home life as well is managing all of that. So that financial burden seems to be one of the biggest things that I see coming across my desk over and over again, where either people are so fatigued that they’re not able to do their primary job well, or they’re starting to burn out and people see it and they don’t know what to do about that.

00;11;15;00 – 00;11;36;05
Arriann Tauer
So that’s one of the biggest. And I think the other one, two that’s coming into play is that, there is a lot of stress when it comes to, organizational change because I think right now a lot of businesses, just like a lot of us. Right. We all have budgets and things that we’re trying to meet in really rapidly changing times.

00;11;36;08 – 00;11;56;01
Arriann Tauer
And I think when people are used to doing jobs a certain way and all of a sudden there’s all these process changes, you know, that’s where you see a lot of that mental health stuff kind of blossom, because a lot of us can do our repetitive tasks, our daily tasks, like if they stay the same, right, we can kind of almost autopilot some of that.

00;11;56;02 – 00;12;16;11
Arriann Tauer
But when mental health stuff comes in or there’s a lot of changes, that’s when we’re starting to see people not being able to get things done on time or not quality or whatever. And I see that over and over again now landing in my office of like, I don’t know what to do. You know, with all of these things that are going on, I don’t know how to prioritize.

00;12;16;11 – 00;12;21;27
Arriann Tauer
I don’t even know how to get enough energy to do the things that I need to do.

00;12;22;00 – 00;12;45;11
Kelly Parbs
Well, I think along with organizational change, there’s such rapid changes in technology, which is probably that same umbrella too. And most people can deal well with change. But when you have all of these other things on your plate as well, it’s hard to have the bandwidth then to deal with the changes in technology and organizational changes, like you mentioned.

00;12;45;14 – 00;13;11;26
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, it ends up being that stress sandwich that people really struggle with. You know, because when I talk about stress sandwich, it’s usually that pressure on both sides, right? It’s not only the work changes, tech changes, volume changes. Then you know, your bottom of your sandwiches, like your work. You know, your home life, your family life, your physical life, right where it just gets tighter and tighter and tighter, where it’s hard to keep holding up that really heavy sandwich.

00;13;11;26 – 00;13;23;17
Arriann Tauer
If you got all these changes at work and all these changes at home, it really ends up being a difficult thing to manage well. And when it’s not managed well, that’s when everybody starts to notice it, right?

00;13;23;19 – 00;13;54;00
Kelly Parbs
Right. And I think I would add to the list the stresses that come along with remote work. And I think a lot of us would say, hey, remote work is pretty great, but it doesn’t come without some stresses as well. And I think one of those is is loneliness. I think people used to be comforted by being in an office next, next to their coworkers or their manager, and now they don’t have those points of contact every day that they did several years ago.

00;13;54;00 – 00;13;56;27
Kelly Parbs
And I think there’s a downside to that as well.

00;13;56;29 – 00;14;22;09
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, I think the social isolation is something that people don’t talk enough about when we’re talking about remote work, you know, because a lot of times you’re at home with your computer screen in front of you. But there is a lot to be said to having your colleagues that to your right, to your left, in the same suite, because even just bouncing ideas off someone is a lot easier than going, oh wait, I got to send them a message and hope that they answer.

00;14;22;11 – 00;14;45;09
Arriann Tauer
You know me back. And I think that’s one of the things that working from home songs fabulous. And there are a lot of things of feeling disconnected, not in the loop, those kinds of things that actually you need to kind of bump up your ability to engage probably 3 or 4 times more than if you were in person, because it’s all either a messaging email teams.

00;14;45;09 – 00;14;50;29
Arriann Tauer
Right? That that requires a lot more work to convey the same amount of information, you know.

00;14;51;02 – 00;15;20;20
Kelly Parbs
Right? Right. And it’s so important to have that sense of feeling supported by the people around you. And we just have to work so much harder to achieve that. And then the last thing I want to mention about that, is boundary setting. It can be hard to stop working when you’re working remote. And I think a whole nother skill set of knowing when to close that laptop and and change your focus to your home life is an important transition that not everybody has an easy time with.

00;15;20;22 – 00;15;49;24
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, not everyone does that well, you know, especially for for those people who, you know, aren’t following the stuff. So please don’t have your work computer in your bedroom. You know, make sure that it’s in a separate area, like all the things that a lot of us in counseling talk about to separate your work from home. Like, one of the things that I did because I was home for three years was that at the end of my day, I actually bought the ugliest book bag I could find at, at a thrift store.

00;15;49;24 – 00;16;09;20
Arriann Tauer
Right. And so at the end of the day, I would literally unplug my computer, put it in the ugly bag and put it in the closet and close it. Because for me, even having the laptop sitting out on my desk, it would kind of call to me, right? So just setting those hard boundaries. No matter what it looks like, whether it’s an ugly bag or some other way.

00;16;09;21 – 00;16;28;03
Arriann Tauer
Right. That’s how you got to start closing out the days. But it is very easy to be into something and often be like, oh my gosh, it’s already 630 and I haven’t even like the dogs or done my thing or whatever, because you’re at home and you don’t have the shoes of your colleagues or leaving or whatever, you know.

00;16;28;04 – 00;16;31;06
Arriann Tauer
So that is kind of agrees on. Yep.

00;16;31;09 – 00;16;36;27
Kelly Parbs
The ugly bag strategy I’m going to use that if you don’t mind.

00;16;36;29 – 00;16;51;11
Kelly Parbs
So I think everybody can say they have some sort of stress in their life in one way or another. But how can someone recognize when that every day stress is becoming something more concerning?

00;16;51;13 – 00;17;10;18
Arriann Tauer
Well, I think the biggest thing is I think people we have overused the word stress and burn out to the point where a lot of people don’t know the difference. Right? You know, because, I mean, stress is a normal response to an event that would probably for five other people in the room would also get stressed out, right?

00;17;10;19 – 00;17;29;08
Arriann Tauer
Like if you popped up yesterday and said, hey, I want you to do a six hour presentation in the next 15 minutes. And if I were standing with a group of ten, probably ten of us would all be starting to sweat. Because yes, that that seems like a normal, like I’m going to be out about this kind of scenario and stress as part of our lives.

00;17;29;09 – 00;17;54;08
Arriann Tauer
Right? And stress itself really kind of motivates us to try to do our best. That’s the goal of stress, like physically in our body. But when we start to get to that burn off phase, you know where things are not okay. We see the biggest change where people are starting to isolate weight in the stress. And then the other piece is that they’re really not seeing any hope that things are going to change.

00;17;54;12 – 00;18;17;07
Arriann Tauer
Like that’s like the biggest pink, red, blue, purple flag. Whatever color flag you want to pick is when you lose that hope that things are going to change, things are going to get better. Or even that belief that I can finish out the day. Those are some of those warning signs that people really need to start looking for, because that’s where regular stress is starting to creep into burnout.

00;18;17;13 – 00;18;43;05
Arriann Tauer
And, you know, there’s so many studies out there with stress and burnout. But what I always say is it’s stress. Plus burnout usually equals some sort of mental health thing. Right. Because you’re stressed up already. Now you’re burned out. You don’t have any hope. That’s when the anxiety kicks in. That’s when depression kicks in. So it is kind of one of those sandwiches and one of those formulas that we have to kind of watch out for.

00;18;43;08 – 00;19;19;13
Kelly Parbs
So for our listeners today, whether or not it’s your own symptoms, you know, watching yourself and your behaviors or, or caring about an employee, or maybe you’re in a manager caring about your employees. You want to watch for those symptoms that you just mentioned that with maybe isolating or maybe there’s a change in behavior, and intervene and offer support in those circumstances so that it doesn’t turn into a problem with, with someone’s mental health, or if it already is, that they’re able to get some resources to help them.

00;19;19;16 – 00;19;35;14
Arriann Tauer
And I think one of the biggest things, too, is that, you know, some of the leaders are fearful to ask, right? Like, I don’t even know what to ask. Like, it doesn’t have to be anything complicated. It can be just like, hey, Kelly, you just don’t seem like yourself, you know? Is there something I can do to help you?

00;19;35;20 – 00;19;57;23
Arriann Tauer
You know, is there something going on that I may support you with? Right. It does not have to be any grand. Whatever. Because most people, when they end up meeting with me, eventually, they always say, what was that leader that sat down and said, hey, you just don’t seem like yourself. That really motivated me to kind of go and seek some help out for myself.

00;19;57;25 – 00;20;12;00
Kelly Parbs
The power of just checking in and being present with people. You don’t always have to know exactly what to say. You certainly don’t have to diagnose that there’s a problem. But notice there’s a difference. Yeah. And you know in someone.

00;20;12;02 – 00;20;34;24
Arriann Tauer
And noticing the difference you know a lot of people in leadership they do kind of have that intuition right. When you watch your employees long enough or you’ve been around them and and there’s that moment where you go. And I always say if you’re having moments about one of your reports, you need to check in because your brain is kind of telling you that’s not the Kelly I know, that’s not the Joe

00;20;34;25 – 00;20;52;27
Arriann Tauer
I know, right? Like something’s off. So I always say what my brain goes, I need to check in with someone, because that’s usually your brain kind of giving you that flag that they’re not themselves or either leaving early. They’re more isolated, shorter tempered. Whatever you’re noticing makes you go.

00;20;53;00 – 00;21;03;19
Kelly Parbs
You work in the healthcare industry. Maybe you could give us an example of something that you might see in the healthcare industry. That would be an indicator. Oh, something’s not quite right.

00;21;03;22 – 00;21;29;17
Arriann Tauer
Well, we see a lot in healthcare is that, you know, healthcare kind of attracts a lot of 100%, kind of like the Road Runner personality. Right? Well, mostly because, you know, when you’re in healthcare, you’re either running to a patient, running from a patient, you’re either doing things with patients. You’re either I mean, healthcare is busy regardless of whatever role you’re in phones, you know, it really doesn’t matter.

00;21;29;20 – 00;21;56;14
Arriann Tauer
But when we start to see the Energizer bunny, people just kind of disappear off the map where they’re moving at half speed, where they’re not engaging, where they’re not like stepping up to do volunteer stuff like they used to. Those are kind of like the red flags that we watch out for. Because if they’re already starting to do that, they’re probably a lot worse off than they want to tell anyone because they’re spending a lot of energy trying to look okay.

00;21;56;17 – 00;22;14;01
Arriann Tauer
But it’s still a lot lesser than the Energizer bunny they were. So that’s the kind of thing that I watch out for quite a bit, is where you have a really high achiever, and all of a sudden you’re you’re not seeing them anymore. And I’m not saying physically see them, you may not see them on meetings, you may not see them contributing.

00;22;14;01 – 00;22;24;07
Arriann Tauer
You may, you know, those kinds of things. Those are the things you need to take note of, because those are usually the first flags that something is not okay, and somebody needs to do a touch base with them.

00;22;24;09 – 00;22;46;15
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And I just love the idea of touching base right away and not waiting for a crisis. I think in the field of employee assistance, a lot of times people don’t reach out for any type of intervention until there’s a crisis. And I think our message would be, please don’t wait for a crisis to reach out for help or support.

00;22;46;17 – 00;23;10;20
Arriann Tauer
Right, absolutely. Because I think once you reach that crisis point, like, like with anyone, right, that’s going to be like double the amount of work to kind of get back to your baseline. Whereas if someone just checks in when you’re just maybe first starting to struggle, like it could be as easy as, hey, let’s just get you connected, you know, with one of our EP therapists and just kind of check in with them and see what your options are.

00;23;10;21 – 00;23;29;23
Arriann Tauer
Right. Like, that is a lot less work than now. You’ve missed work. Your projects aren’t going great, right? You know what I mean? Like you’ve waited way too long, and sometimes it’s a leader is watching, going. I don’t know what to do with that. It’s much easier to hit it in the beginning, because you can get a lot better success rate out of it.

00;23;29;24 – 00;23;52;21
Arriann Tauer
And also, the employees then truly feel seen right from the beginning, because I think that’s one of the things I hear a lot of is that my manager didn’t notice that things are going not well with me until I, you know, did this really critical error, although other people saw things going on so earlier is always better is kind of my mantra in that, right.

00;23;52;22 – 00;24;15;20
Kelly Parbs
And we’re talking a lot about from the perspective of a manager, a manager, but even from the perspective of a peer, right. You notice one of your friends or colleagues or peers at work just isn’t quite right. The same thing applies, right? To just check in and and say, hey, you know, I noticed you’re coming into work really tired lately, or you’re closing your office door more than you used to.

00;24;15;21 – 00;24;20;08
Kelly Parbs
Just checking in and noticing can mean a lot, even if you’re not a manager.

00;24;20;10 – 00;24;49;13
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, absolutely. Because we all have, you know, our basically our family at work, right. That we all kind of work in the same department or, or whatever. And it means a lot when someone notices that things are just not up to par, you know, and it makes people feel seen and heard, which I think right now in the workflow that we’re doing so much work, whether it’s health care or not, to be seen in, acknowledge and notice that you know, somebody cares for you is really, really important.

00;24;49;14 – 00;24;56;21
Arriann Tauer
And it may not be something that people get outside of work either. So it does a dual thing for that.

00;24;56;23 – 00;25;32;15
Kelly Parbs
And in terms of remote workers, that’s even a little trickier, right? Because we don’t see that someone’s eyes are puffy at work, or that they walked in the door a few minutes later than they usually do. And so looking for different types of cuz like, gosh, I’ve, I’ve noticed you haven’t had your camera on any meetings this week or you haven’t contributed to the meetings the way you typically would or, you know, you’ve been missing a couple of my emails, look for some of those cues and notice them in a friendly way and just let people know you still see them, even if you’re not physically seeing them.

00;25;32;17 – 00;25;54;25
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, and I think that does take, you know, a lot of work, either from a leadership perspective or even a peer group perspective. Right. Because there’s a lot of groups that meet, you know, to get projects done. And if you’re noticing something’s off and nobody’s saying anything, even if it’s an off camera like, hey, you okay? Message kind of a thing, it really speaks volumes.

00;25;54;25 – 00;26;10;12
Arriann Tauer
And it does so much benefit that I think people forget that and it does not need to be. And I go back to that. It does not need to be something overly complicated. It can be very short, simple, hey, you know, I, I care about you. And I notice that you’re really kind of checking out a little bit.

00;26;10;13 – 00;26;13;26
Arriann Tauer
How can I help you? This this is not like you. You know what I mean?

00;26;14;02 – 00;26;32;18
Kelly Parbs
Yeah. That can mean the world. You alluded to this a little bit before, but I want to come back to it. Finding that line between being a supportive manager or a supportive colleague and trying to be someone’s counselor. Can you speak a little bit to that?

00;26;32;21 – 00;26;54;26
Arriann Tauer
Normally what I my rules of thumb for that is, is if we’re talking about short term, you know, my grandma died. I’m not finding help in daycare. Like those kinds of things are ones that most managers step in and help with, right? But what I always look at is take a step back and actually look at the time.

00;26;54;28 – 00;27;33;11
Arriann Tauer
Because if we’re talking about like this behavior or struggles has one on now for three months, six months, nine months, if you’re hitting the three month mark and there’s still things that are not going very well or you feel like you’re communicating it’s style, it’s just not working, or a Pip was done and things are not improving. Really looking at that time line is really important, even sometimes more so than the symptoms, because we always say that if things are progressing to be more significant, time is kind of time is the one that indicates that, you know, a lot of us have bumps for a month or two, right?

00;27;33;15 – 00;27;53;26
Arriann Tauer
Because that’s what life is. But once you hit those, that three month mark, that’s more of a habit or more of a bigger event that probably needs more support and being able to step back as a leader and go, okay, we I’ve been trying to work with you for three months, but the quality is not there. You’re not answering things.

00;27;53;26 – 00;28;11;15
Arriann Tauer
They’re like, we’re going to have to start putting some things in place and even reframing it. Not so much that I don’t want you to. I don’t want to fire you, but it’s like I really value you as my employee. How can we make sure that we still get the work you need to get done, and make sure that you get the support that you need at the same time?

00;28;11;17 – 00;28;42;17
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And I think managers put undue stress on themselves or, or fellow employees thinking, I have to fix this or I have to be this person’s primary emotional support. And I think there’s danger in, in that when when you feel like you’re trying to diagnose someone or you feel like they’re coming to you more than any other resources in, in their lives, I think those are some red flags, right?

00;28;42;18 – 00;29;08;29
Arriann Tauer
And if you’re starting to carry that stuff home for that particular employee or maybe even co-leader, right where it’s bothering you at home, that should be a pretty big indicator that you’re now taking their stuff as your stuff, because we have that conversation a lot and counseling that, separating that space between that. So there’s stuff that’s happening to them that I’m more than happy to help them with, but I can’t pick it up and carry it home and make it my stuff.

00;29;08;29 – 00;29;32;09
Arriann Tauer
Right. Because now I’m double stressed. So it’s that balance of going, okay, now I’m starting to carry all their stuff home with me. I really need to take a step back and go, okay, we need to get some alternative supports in here, whether it’s an EP counselor, whether it’s an onsite counselor, whether it’s whatever, there needs to be someone else in there because most leaders are not leading just one people.

00;29;32;09 – 00;29;44;04
Arriann Tauer
They’re leading a group of people. And if you have one person who’s got a lot of stuff going on, then you know that you’re not able to really attend to the other part of the group as well, and you want to make sure that you can balance that out.

00;29;44;07 – 00;29;58;18
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And not everyone is a trained counselor. So to know your lane, it’s it’s always important to be kind and supportive. But that doesn’t mean take on the role of a counselor, because that’s doing that person a disservice as well.

00;29;58;21 – 00;30;16;14
Arriann Tauer
Right. And I think one of the things I tell, like especially I work through a lot of work with young leaders is where if someone says something to you and you’re like, gut drops and you’re like, I don’t even know how to answer this, that should be like your first ding ding, ding ding that you probably need to get someone else to help you.

00;30;16;16 – 00;30;37;13
Arriann Tauer
Because most of us, you know, in leadership roles or even colleague roles, right? We do a lot of things. But when that when you’re about, you know, your gut drops out and you’re like, I don’t even know how to answer this. That’s usually want to be your biggest indicators that you need to pull someone else in. Who this is more of their daily language, of things that they deal with.

00;30;37;16 – 00;30;52;18
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And that would be a time to be transparent, right? And and what you just said, like, I’m, I’m not sure how to advise you on this. I care about you so much. Can I help you get connected to someone who can help you better than I can?

00;30;52;20 – 00;31;13;12
Arriann Tauer
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things I’ve seen in my role is I do have a lot of leaders coming to me going, I don’t even know how to script this out because she’s already struggling. I don’t know what to say. Right. And so there’s a lot of work that I think happens back and forth, even in consultation with leaders that, okay, how do you say it?

00;31;13;13 – 00;31;35;29
Arriann Tauer
You know, how do you say it? You know, but we need to do this. And this is what I hope that you would do, you know. After this conversation, because you know a lot. We’re also humans to begin with. So nobody wants to hurt anyone else. Nobody wants to invalidate someone else. Right. But there’s also not everybody knows the language to use.

00;31;35;29 – 00;31;45;11
Arriann Tauer
So please reach out and use resources, because there’s a lot of us who do help write those up, you know, and help you kind of guide, you know, the language to use.

00;31;45;13 – 00;32;08;27
Kelly Parbs
And in a little bit, I do want to explore a little bit more about the role of an employee assistance program, E8. I recognize that not all of our listeners have an employee assistance program available to them, but many of our listeners do. And I think the point we should just from this past part of the conversation is if you do need help.

00;32;08;29 – 00;32;33;16
Kelly Parbs
How do I say this? How do I approach someone? Your Employee Assistance Program might be a really excellent resource for you, and that’s where we’re going to pause for today. We’ve talked about what mental health in the workplace really means some of the employees may be experiencing, and how managers can recognize when everyday strength may be becoming something more.

00;32;33;19 – 00;33;04;09
Kelly Parbs
Please tune in next time when we continue our conversation with Arianne Tower and talk about practical ways managers can employees, while still maintaining accountability and workplace expectations. To hear this episode and other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website at www.Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia so you don’t miss an episode. I’m Kelly Parbs and this is OnTopic with Empathia!