Recorded June 9, 2022
Snap Out of It! is talking to Christina McCarthy of One Mind at Work, the leading brain health nonprofit committed to healing the lives of people impacted by brain illness and injury through global, collaborative action. Christina is going to talk about both the moral and the business case for making workplaces accessible to those with mental illness and how her past experiences have driven her to care deeply about mental illness. She’s also going to talk about the unique gifts that those with mental illness offer a workplace.
If you want to hear how people with mental illness can positively impact workplaces, this is the interview for you.
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About Christina McCarthy
Christina McCarthy is the Executive Director of One Mind at Work, a nonprofit that brings together over 150 leading global employers committed to the mental health and wellbeing of their workforce. Christina came to One Mind at Work with over 15 years in the nonprofit sector, focusing on building capacity and business strategy to support long-term sustainability and impact. She started her career in public health operations, and in her most recent role prior to One Mind at Work led the Corporate Partnerships unit at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. As Executive Director, Christina partners directly with One Mind at Work’s member organizations to assess current workplace mental health efforts and identify opportunities to improve existing programs and increase access and utilization.
Christina holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a BA from Johns Hopkins University. She lives in Hoboken, NJ, with her husband and daughter.
Transcript
(This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse the mistakes.)
Natasha Tracy (00:08):
Welcome to Snap Out of It! The Mental Illness in the Workplace Podcast with me, Natasha Tracy, today, we are talking with Christina McCarthy, who is the Executive Director of One Mind at Work. She works to drive change and help organizations share their stories on how they’re implementing a gold standard for workplace mental health and wellbeing. Christina is going to be talking with us about the business case for companies caring about people with mental illness. She’s also gonna talk about how companies should go about helping people with mental illness and the special skills that people with mental illness actually bring to their employers.
Natasha Tracy (00:45):
I want to remind our audience that this is a live stream. So pop your questions for Christina into the comment box at any time. And they might just be answered during the podcast.
Natasha Tracy (00:54):
But before we get to Christina, I just wanna remind people that while workplace mental health is a very important topic, we are here to specifically discuss mental illness in the workplace, and these are not the same things. 20% of people have a diagnosable mental illness ranging from mild to severe. Whereas a hundred percent of people have mental health. We aim to shine the spotlight on the 20% that actually have an illness and are so often left out of the conversation about mental health. Hi, Christina, welcome to Snap Out of It!
Christina McCarthy (01:27):
Thank you so much for having me.
Natasha Tracy (01:30):
So tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at One Mind.
Christina McCarthy (01:34):
Sure. so first I just wanna really thank you and acknowledge the, the space that you’re creating here to bring more attention to to mental health in general and, and mental illness in the workplace. As you shared, I’m the Executive Director of One Mind at Work, which is a non-profit based in Northern California, though. I’m on the east coast, right outside of New York city that partners with employers of all sizes across industries, across geographies, to support leaders who are really committed to supporting the wellbeing of their workforce. We have a membership of over 150 companies globally representing just over a seven and a half million individuals. And we really work as thought partners to these organizations to advise them on how they can take a more meaningful and impactful approach to making sure that their employees are healthy and thriving.
Natasha Tracy (02:31):
Amazing. I, I was just talking to you before we went on camera that I didn’t know this organization existed until you contacted me about a speaking arrangement back in September. And I’m just so honored to know that there’s this organization out there working so hard to make this happen. So thank you.
Natasha Tracy (02:50):
I understand that you’re very passionate about helping people with mental illness due to your own personal experience in childhood among other things. Of course. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Christina McCarthy (03:00):
Sure. Happy to you know, in, in my experience, people who do this kind of work professionally are really motivated by a personal commitment and drive. For me, the sort of foundation of my interest in this space is, is rooted in a family experience. My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 12 after she experienced a manic episode. And as you can imagine, the time sort of around that diagnosis was really scary for me. I didn’t have the language or tools to navigate how I was feeling. Certainly there was a lot of fear and some embarrassment of course, and my primary coping mechanism ultimately ended up being com compartmentalizing my own experience and pushing it down. So I didn’t have to confront it. That ended up being a pretty defining feature of how I navigated adolescence and early adulthood which essentially worked until it really didn’t work at all.
Christina McCarthy (04:03):
I think we’ll talk about that a little bit later. The, the other element of my mother’s experience was sadly a really common extended journey to get connected to the kind of treatment and support she needed to be able to thrive. It was close to 15 years, I think, before she really considered herself healthy again. Wow. And that’s a huge chunk of her time where she was struggling in some cases on a daily basis where we were seeing her struggle and it was really painful. And again, I think is a, just a really common story for people who are navigating mental illness.
Natasha Tracy (04:43):
Yes. Thank you for sharing that that must have been unbearably difficult for a 12 year old to deal with. And it’s really to your credit that you have turned that event into positive motivation for wanting to help people. And I just do wanna mention that it is really common for people with serious mental illness, like bipolar disorder to literally have years of journey in front of them before they can get to a place where they do consider themselves some form of recovered. That’s not uncommon, like, just like you said. And I just wanna say to anyone out there that’s experiencing that you’re not alone.
Natasha Tracy (05:18):
So I understand that you had your own experience with mental health challenges that cropped up when you were pregnant as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Christina McCarthy (05:26):
Sure. So I started experiencing pain when I was pregnant with my daughter back in 2017. And frankly it was terrifying because nobody had talked to me about perinatal anxiety, which is a mood disorder with a real definition and symptoms and very importantly treatment. I knew about postpartum depression. We hear about that a lot, certainly more, you know, in, in my generation than in my mother’s generation. But again, I, I didn’t have a language for what I was experiencing. And all of a sudden this approach to compartmentalizing really became much more challenging.
Natasha Tracy (06:10):
Yeah. it’s exactly what you said, which is that it works really well until it doesn’t. That’s what I say about some of my own experience with denial, which is that denial is a super coping skill until it stops working for you. Right. So I understand that feeling. Yes.
Natasha Tracy (06:28):
What did your panic attacks teach you about who you were as an employee at that time and who, what kind of employee you wanted to be?
Christina McCarthy (06:36):
Sure. So the first thing was sort of a personal realization, right? It was clear to me that I, I couldn’t maintain this clean separation that I had tried to create in my work life and in my personal life, I, I needed to moderate my work because it wasn’t healthy for me. I had to make adjustments in the way that I was engaging and sort of the, the pace at which I was functioning so that I could take care of myself. So that was the first realization, but it also made me realize that I’d really been blind to what colleagues. And in some cases, my direct reports had been navigating personally. I hadn’t been taking into account factors that were, you know, affecting them outside of the workplace and how that was impacting, how they show up in the workplace. And it made me really embarrassed and concerned that I hadn’t been as supportive as I could have been again as a colleague or in some cases as a manager.
Natasha Tracy (07:39):
That’s I guess I would say that that’s a very insightful way of looking at it. So everyone who reports to you, I guess, is lucky that you had that way of looking at it because certainly not everyone would’ve felt that way. So yeah, that’s great.
Natasha Tracy (07:52):
You are tuned in to Snap Out of It! The Mental Illness in the Workplace Podcast. We are talking to Christina McCarthy, someone who helps companies make sense of mental health at work. Don’t forget if you have any questions, please pop them in the comment box. And we may just answer them on air.
Natasha Tracy (08:11):
Now I’ve said many times that there is an ethical imperative to care about people with mental illness in the workplace, after all disregarding 20% of your workforce, just because they’re different, isn’t acceptable on any level. However, we are not here to talk ethics today. We are here to talk about a business case.
Natasha Tracy (08:31):
So tell me what is the business case for companies caring about people with mental illness?
Christina McCarthy (08:37):
So the business case is really important. I don’t want to minimize the moral imperative that employers have here, right? It’s, it’s really important that we think about this both as the right thing to do, because as you say, it is the right thing to do. But there is also a strong case for companies making concerted efforts to really support people within their workforce, who are experiencing mental illness and people who are navigating the workplace and looking for job opportunities. What we hear from our members, especially right now is that recruitment and retention is incredibly difficult. We’ve been, I think, inundated over the course of the past year with messages about the great resignation or the great reshuffle, right? And, and that just means fundamentally that there is competition for talent. And so if you are disregarding at the outset, a segment of the population that is interested in working that has critical skills and experience, then you’re missing out and you are going to be behind the curve. So it it’s an easy sort of big picture message to share. But when we start thinking about what really helps to drive business decisions, a lot of times it’s some of these factors, right? It’s things that are more directly related to operational impact to that P and L and the bottom line. And we know that this is a major cost driver for organizations right now. So we believe very strongly that if you’re not thinking about these groups, then you’re, you’re gonna be left behind.
Natasha Tracy (10:17):
I just wanna mention that two weeks ago, I talked with a woman named Saskia who is a CEO of a charity. And she actually has incredible programs for people in her office who have mental illness. And because she has a mental illness herself, she developed those programs. But what she said is that, although those programs cost the, the company money, she saves money on the bottom line, she has the numbers, she can prove it. She can show that doing the right thing. Isn’t just the right thing because it’s moral, but it’s also the right thing for the company, the company’s bottom line. So exactly what you’re saying. People do it and it does work.
Christina McCarthy (10:57):
Now that’s a really powerful message. And to have that data to back it up is meaningful.
Natasha Tracy (11:02):
So when we talk about caring about people with mental illness and because I used that term and it’s very loose, what does that look like in terms of programs and changes that companies have to make
Christina McCarthy (11:14):
Sure. So I think that this is there’s a a multi-layered approach that organizations really have to take here. First, fundamentally you need to have a culture that is appropriately educated and socialized to these issues. Programs are really important, but in a vacuum they are not enough. And so that means that there have to be clear and consistent messages from leadership, from HR, from senior and mid-level managers about what kind of organization you’re working for and within, and the kind of culture that really supports everybody. Again, whether we’re talking about the entire population from a mental health perspective or from a mental illness perspective, that culture is really the, the glue that brings everything together. Programs are, are how this sort of lives and breathes, right? How all of this gets operationalized and how individual individual employees can feel supported on a day to day basis.
Christina McCarthy (12:17):
So there are some table stakes here. Certainly we wanna make sure that access to mental health services is available is equitable, is affordable, is clearly communicated, is reinforced through all of the sort of typical HR communication channels. If you have an HR function. The other thing that we really wanna see are flexibility in accommodations, right? We wanna make sure that an organization can take an open-minded approach to supporting those individuals who are experiencing mental illness. That might mean a dedicated mental health leave policy. It might mean a reentry support program. There are a lot of different ways this can sort of take shape, but I think that the fundamental sort of starting point here is really making sure that culturally these ideas and these awareness of these issues is well known so that everybody can come together and support those individuals if, and when they need it.
Natasha Tracy (13:22):
I love the idea of having like a mental health lead at work where their whole job is to ensure the mental health of the company and everyone in the company. Right? Like I love that idea. I know that’s obviously not something that every company is going to be able to afford to do, but I love the idea of it because I think that mental health is sort of an afterthought most of the time. Right? So even people with really good intentions don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to think about how do we implement this? How do we put programs together? How do we help people? They just don’t have it. They’re busy doing other things, but you know, someone like a mental health lead, that’s their whole job. That’s amazing. So I love that idea.
Christina McCarthy (14:03):
Yeah. If I, if we can pause on that a little bit, I think it’s a, it’s important for a couple of reasons. One, because people are busy, right? People are now, it feels like people are busier than ever, but it’s not fair to rely on someone with a full-time job to also be responsible for this sort of more specific aspect of an employee’s experience. So giving somebody the the, the title and the position, the autonomy, maybe even perhaps budget and resources to really manage and support this work is important for the organization. It’s also a really strong signal to the workforce that not only are these philosophies that, you know, a leader is espousing, but that they’re really, they’re really standing up behind this effort. And they’re, they’re putting resources in place. They’re approaching this with rigor and real commitment. And it’s a great indication that leadership is taking this work seriously. And again, not relying on the generosity of somebody who is perhaps just the director of benefits. Right, right. And has a lot of work to manage with that scope alone.
Natasha Tracy (15:15):
Yeah. I, cuz I, I do think that mental health can definitely be one of those things. That’s just lip service where a CEO gets up in front of their staff and says, we really care about your mental health, but then nothing really happens. So when you do appoint someone, if you have the ability to do that, certainly you’ve proven that you’re doing something more than just talk about mental health, which is what we all want. Right.
Natasha Tracy (15:39):
So, how can companies ensure that employees with mental illness actually make use of the program specifically for mental health? Because I know that sometimes when you have a mental illness, you might be really shy about using those programs.
Christina McCarthy (15:53):
Shy is one way to describe it. Being afraid is another way to describe it. You know, I think that there’s really important work to do again in one communicating what a company is actually offering in terms of benefits and in some cases decoding that a little bit. So you know, a typical onboarding experience for a new employee might be an hour and a half orientation with a benefits overview and a menu of different health insurance options that they can pick from without a lot of navigation as to what that really means. So if I’m coming in to a new organization and I struggle with clinical depression, and I know that I wanna get coverage for certain things, how do I navigate that? How do I look at a brief or a memo or some kind of shiny flyer and really understand what’s behind that.
Christina McCarthy (16:49):
So there’s a role for HR to really drill into those benefits, both so that they understand what they’re offering as an employer, but also so that the employees know what’s available to them. I think the other thing that companies need to consider is maintaining open and transparent lines of communication between the folks who are in HR and in leadership and the employees who are actually accessing these services. When we talk to our members about something as simple as their EAP utilization, right? Utilization ranges between three and 6%. If we have a member who’s closer to 10%, they’re really proud of that. Right? And that’s an industry standard that’s really low and everybody is trying to drive people to these services because companies are paying for these services, right? It’s an investment on their part. And so they wanna see that utilization go up. But it’s hard to do that if you’re not speaking to your employees, making sure that you’re designing programs, benefits that meet their needs and that you don’t have a good feedback loop in place.
Christina McCarthy (17:59):
Yes. So maybe somebody reaches out to the EAP, they feel comfortable. They understand that it’s there and maybe then they end up on a wait list for a month. Yeah. And they say, well, this isn’t worth my time. If that doesn’t get back to somebody, who’s in a position to do something about it, then nothing’s gonna change that utilization isn’t gonna change. And that employee has now had a negative experience. And we really wanna encourage everybody to seek access to the care that they need. Those negative experiences can end up being real barriers for people in need
Natasha Tracy (18:32):
A hundred percent. And you know, it only takes one bad experience to sour you for years. Right. It’s not like people then just go back to the well and try again necessarily. They may just say, no, my employer doesn’t care. I’m not doing that. Or no, that’s a waste of time. I’m not doing that or whatever they think, but it can literally be a barrier as you said for years because of what happened the one time. Right. So it’s not really one time really. It’s an ongoing issue for that person that only gets corrected when they get motivated to try again, which is hard, right. It’s hard enough to motivate someone to do something the first time, but it’s even harder to get them to do it a second time when the first time didn’t go well.
Christina McCarthy (19:15):
Right, right. I mean, there are so many examples of, you know, having a bad customer service experiences on an airline and saying, I’m never flying that airline again. Yeah. This is so much more important than that, but the same, the same dynamics are at play. And so once you lose the trust or the confidence of that employee, it’s really hard to reset it and, and to give them a positive experience.
Natasha Tracy (19:40):
So, you said to me that everyone in an organization needs to support mental health at work in order for changes to be effective. So this philosophy of mental health and the organization needs to be baked in. So how can a company actually bake in the concept of mental health and them caring about mental health?
Christina McCarthy (20:00):
So this to me is really where we start to think about how we can operationalize culture. So how do we move from a leadership commitment and perhaps a public statement or you know, initiative communications campaign. What have you to really making that sustained change. If you have a leader who’s engaged and committed and maybe passionate about this topic, but it doesn’t filter D filter down to divisional units or to managers, those employees, those frontline employees are not going to feel that support. So we really need to be intentional about making sure that we translate these big picture statements and commitments into action. Again, this can look really different across different organizations, different sort of business footprints. We wanna think certainly about how we engage every level of the workforce. So are we talking to executive leadership? Are we talking to senior and mid-level managers, are we talking to those frontline employees?
Christina McCarthy (21:08):
Are we really engaging in a collective approach to this work? Or are we relying on just one group or one set of individuals to try to carry this forward? If people feel like they’re being talked to, but then when they raise an issue they’re not heard, you’re not gonna get that kind of adoption and uptake that you really wanna see. So there are ways to think about or ways to incorporate mental health into everything that happens in an organization into those leadership messages, into communication and training into the benefits and services, certainly into work design. How are you structuring the day to day experience of an employee to protect their mental health and to accommodate when it’s necessary? We have a lot of partners who are in healthcare or are in management consulting or in legal professions where there’s an expectation of really hard driving work. Yep. And it’s a badge of honor, right. To clock in yeah. 18 hour days, or to not sleep for a few days in a row that’s not healthy. Right. So there’s really important work to be done around work design. And some of those organizations to, to break down some of those perspectives that think are, are really outdated, that we know are not good for us in the long term. And, and to think about how we can shift how we engage in the workplace to a, a more productive and more protective way.
Natasha Tracy (22:47):
Yeah. Thank you so much. I mean, that is really an all encompassing sort of idea, right? You want to go and take mental health and mental illness support from, I always say from the janitor to CEO, right. Everybody needs to take part in that in order for it to work properly. So yeah, that’s absolutely right.
Natasha Tracy (23:07):
Folks, this is Snap Out of It! And we are talking to Christina McCarthy, an Executive Director at One Mind at Work who partners with member companies to help build and implement effective workplace mental health programs. We are still taking your questions, pop them into the comment box, wherever you’re watching. And we may just answer them on air.
Natasha Tracy (23:28):
So, you’ve said that people often underestimate what it takes to live with a mental health condition. I would certainly agree with that. can you tell us what you mean by that?
Christina McCarthy (23:38):
Sure. So I think that a lot of the time, when we think about individuals who are experiencing mental illness, we take a deficit approach. What are the things that we think they can’t do because they’re struggling. And I would really encourage and pressure companies and employers to take a strength based approach instead, what are people with mental illness navigating in order to be able to engage in day to day life? And how does that support resilience? How does that make them more committed? How can we really think about tapping into this group again, from a talent perspective, to engage them in the workplace and to help them bring all of the skills and experience and assets they have to bear. And if we take that approach, if we’re really sort of earnest about this work, if we provide flexibility and accommodations and good structural support and benefits then those individuals are gonna be able to contribute in incredible ways. So this goes back a little bit to sort of the, the business case for this. But I think it’s really important that we not discount what people have to do to manage on a day to day basis. If they’re experiencing anxiety or depression or more serious mental illness conditions and really consider those as assets for the workforce.
Natasha Tracy (25:11):
So I admit I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it that way for myself personally, I’ve always looked at, I can’t do this and I can’t do that. And I can’t do that. So I admit I have taken a deficit approach within myself, but I do love the idea of looking at an asset approach because I do know that there are certain assets that I have because I have been dealing with a mental illness for the last 24 years. I do know that after all that time, I have developed many skills and things like resilience, which everybody talks about, right. Everybody talks about resilience. And yet when someone has resilience and shows resilience, because they’ve been through something really difficult, we almost write them off. So so I love that idea. And if more people could take an asset approach, I think we would definitely get somewhere. So that’s amazing.
Christina McCarthy (26:00):
I, I think it’s thank you for sharing, right? Sort of your, your own experience and navigating this dynamic. I think it’s really important when we can to bring some humanity to these conversations and recognize within ourselves that there’s this tension and sometimes doubt. But when you think about, you know, for yourself, some of the coping mechanisms, the healthier coping mechanisms instead of denial or compartmentalization, right. The ones that really work, those are really good practices. So how do those things actually help you, not just to manage your mental illness, but to, to navigate the day to day, right. To be able to be more focused and be more present, be more engaged in the kind of work that you’re doing or in your relationship with family and friends. So these are things that some of us end up engaging with because we’ve experienced mental illness. And haven’t just come to mindfulness, you know, accidentally. But it’s a, we know that there’s evidence behind it, right. And so I think that it’s important for us to also elevate this element of the story and the narrative.
Natasha Tracy (27:13):
And so I was, I’ve been thinking about this this asset asset based approach. And one thing that I always would get asked in job interviews, as, you know, can you multitask, can you do that? You know, if you have this much work and this much time, how do you prioritize? Those are like, you know, when you’re a project manager or program manager, they always ask you those kinds of questions. And to me, it’s like, well, yeah, my whole life is like that. , you know,
Christina McCarthy (27:37):
Check
Natasha Tracy (27:38):
Yeah. Check been doing it for a long time, every single day of my life got that one. Right. So, yeah, that’s totally something that I realized was really easy for me to step into that role and do that because yeah, I do that every single day, so yeah. So that’s great.
Natasha Tracy (27:56):
You’ve said that ideally there should be no division between who you are at home and who you are at work. In other words, you advocate for a whole person model when it comes to mental health at work. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Christina McCarthy (28:11):
Sure. So I think again looking back on my, my own experiences, I think that it’s really important for individuals to feel comfortable, truly representing the totality of themselves in, in the workplace and, and with those who they spend time with every day. And I’m gonna give you a, a very recent sort of example of this. So you don’t know this Natasha, but I’m, I’m pregnant again. It’s nice to not, you know, have visibility into my belly right now because it’s burgeoning, but I managed to navigate the first four and a half months of this pregnancy without a panic attack. And I was so stoked. I was like, this is great second time around not gonna happen. And, and then I had a panic attack on a plane on my way to a business trip. And it was, you know, again, it’s terrifying.
Christina McCarthy (29:17):
I normally have no issues traveling, but but I, you know, sort of couldn’t manage through it. And so landed for this trip did, my couple of days came home, had the weekend and was gearing up for another trip on Monday mm-hmm . And I thought, I, I can’t do this. I have to talk to my manager about this. I cannot go on this trip. And so I called him, I told him what had happened and, you know, given the work that we do not surprising that he was incredibly understanding and said, by all means, of course the trip is not critical. Take the time that you need to take care of yourself and your family and not just this week, but, you know, going forward. Right. Let’s think about what we need to do to make sure that you’re supported and that you feel, feel supported.
Christina McCarthy (30:05):
So that was for me a huge relief, right? It was vindication that I need to be speaking up for myself and advocating for myself, but it’s also something that I shared with my team. Not just because I wanted them to know why I wasn’t gonna be in Montana, but because I wanted to help really sort of send that signal that I would hope they would feel comfortable doing the same. And so this is what I mean, these divisions that I think were used to these separations between work and home have in a lot of ways collapsed. I joked about this earlier, but I I’m sitting in front of my, my bar cabinet, right. , I’m like in a little corner of my small apartment. And if it were a couple of hours ago, my dog would be here snoring, next to me.
Christina McCarthy (30:55):
So we just have to realize that we’re, we’re living in a different world right now, and it’s important for organizations, again, of all sizes, whether you have a hundred employees or whether you have a hundred thousand employees to recognize that people are navigating so much on a day to day basis. And all of that is coming into the workplace, wherever the workplace is now. And employers need to be mindful of that and, and not think about just what’s happening within the four walls of an organization, but you know, how they can really support their employees holistically. And so that’s certainly, again, access to benefits and services, but maybe it’s childcare support or elder care support, or creating employee resource groups for people with shared identities or interests to come together in safe spaces and really protecting that time. So lots of ways that organizations can take this on, but I, I hope that more employers now are willing to acknowledge that they’re hiring people. They’re not hiring robots and we’re, we’re all just human and we’re imperfect. And we go through lots of ups and downs in life, and there have been a lot of downs. It feels like in the past couple of years, the past month alone and losing sight of that I think is just really dangerous.
Natasha Tracy (32:29):
Well, first of all, I just wanna say congratulations on being pregnantThat should always get a congratulations first. But number two, I think you should also get a congratulations for doing so well with your panic attacks, because I’m a person who can tell you how hard it is to manage a mental illness symptom. And you’ve obviously done a lot of work in order for you to manage that particular issue successfully for as long as you did. So congratulations, number two,
Christina McCarthy (32:58):
Thank you, but I, I will say the support is critical, right? Being in a place where you feel like you can talk about these issues and where you feel like you can seek care. I mean, it’s this whole culture and glue dynamic that really again, requires us to come together in, in communities and support each other.
Natasha Tracy (33:19):
So finally, I wanna know what signs are there that a company actually does a good job of people with mental illness in the workplace. So if I’m looking for an employer, for example, how do I know who to actually go to, to actually be a, have a successful experience there?
Christina McCarthy (33:37):
So this is a really difficult question to answer. One of the truths right now is that there is just not a lot of data on this space. It’s not something that companies are used to reporting on. Think for a lot of organizations, again, even larger employers. This is, this represents a newer area of investment, right? So maybe we’re talking about 10 years as opposed to 30 or 40 for some really large companies. So if you’re navigating job decisions figuring out, you know, what’s gonna be the most welcoming environment is gonna be challenging. I will say that one thing that always stands out to me with, within our membership is when you talk to organizations and someone says, I’ve been here for 12 years, and this person’s been here for 15 years and I’m going, you know, this person’s on 25 years when you have that kind of longevity and that loyalty to an organization, it means that you’ve probably felt pretty supported during different stages of your life.
Christina McCarthy (34:49):
Maybe you’ve grown up professionally within that organization. So you’ve had access to good training and professional support and probably benefits as well. Maybe you’ve navigated some major life transitions during that period of 10 or 15 or 20 years. And you’ve been motivated to stay where you are. So that to me is a really good indicator that a company respects its workforce, that it treats it well across a whole host of issues, mental illness being one of them. Right. but, but I do think that we have work to do in creating more transparency around, you know, what organizations are doing, what we want to assess from a workplace perspective and the maturity of some of these programs. And it’s actually an area where one mind at work is is really engaged right now and thinking about how we can develop some more robust and independent metrics. Yes. So that businesses, first of all, know how they’re doing, but so that the general public knows as well, right? How can the investor community make decisions about organizations? We have these great metrics in place for environment and governance mm-hmm but the S in ESG is still pretty fuzzy, right? So I think mental health is a great place for us to consider you know, how we can be more, more rigorous in our approach to measurement and assessment.
Natasha Tracy (36:16):
I would love just in my fantasy world. I would love to see a scorecard, right? So like a nice little graph where there are things down the left things cross site, and, and they get an A, or they get A-, you know, a B or whatever. I’d love to see that for companies where you can just literally go, this is how they treat health. And it doesn’t even have to be mental health specific, mental health can be one aspect, but that they have a health, you know, report card. And that, that you actually can see it and say, okay, this company really does take that seriously. I would love that in my fantasy world.
Christina McCarthy (36:47):
I think that would be really great. It’s a nice sort of stay tuned plug for some things under development at One Mind at Work. You know, I think that there, there are places where you can get crowdsourced information, right? You can go to indeed.com. But those are not as rigorous or as independent or as objective as we really need. Right. And so I think, again, investment in this space is really critical.
Natasha Tracy (37:14):
Okay. So we’ve got a few questions that I do wanna get to. So one question is you mentioned resilience, which is a skill, especially in the post pandemic environment. How can employers, oh, sorry. It’s hard for me to read this here. Just one second. Oops. It easy. There we go. Okay. You mentioned resilience, which is a sought-after skill, especially in the post pandemic world environment, how can employers celebrate and harness without exploiting the natural resilience that people with mental illness bring to the table?
Christina McCarthy (37:53):
It’s a really great point. It’s definitely been a buzzword the past couple of years, right? Yes. I think that resilience is important and our ability to experience stressors and have a, you know, physiological response and, and manage that well is critical to our survival. Right. but we also don’t wanna focus too much on putting the onus on individuals to be the, the most resilient version of themselves at all times. It’s not possible, right. Our baselines have been elevated from a stress and anxiety perspective over the course of the past two years. Some people have felt that much more acutely than others. So there’s a need for resilience training for the introduction and education around coping mechanisms and mindfulness practices that we know again, have evidence behind them and are helpful, but there’s also a need for employers to look at how they are contributing to the stress of their workforce.
Christina McCarthy (39:04):
Yes. Right. It’s this is not just a matter of as one of our scientific advisors likes to say building a better mouse you can only do so much there. Yeah. and we know that in some industries that are represented in, in the one mind at work membership, people are tired of hearing about resilience. They’re tired of hearing about burnout because they feel like it puts the responsibility on them to do more and do better. So I think there’s a, there’s a, again, a need for support and for training and education in this space. But there’s also a real need for employers to look at, you know, how they’re contributing in some ways to these factors.
Natasha Tracy (39:44):
Yeah. That actually is a really fair point because you wouldn’t need to be so gosh, darn resilient if life wasn’t, so gosh, darn hard. And so maybe an employer could make life a little less difficult and you wouldn’t have to be so resilient. That’s a very fair point.
Christina McCarthy (40:00):
Right. You know, you can offer resilience training, but it’s not fair to then reintroduce that employee to a toxic work environment. So, you know, your resilience training, isn’t gonna do much if you’re expected to you know, work unreasonable hours at unsustainable wages with an unsupportive manager, it’s asking a lot.
Natasha Tracy (40:19):
So one more question when, from your perspective, should mental health be part of a company’s approach to diversity equity and inclusion initiatives?
Christina McCarthy (40:30):
Absolutely. You know, and I think that there’s there’s an argument to be made for sort of what’s the umbrella approach, right? Mm-Hmm so there is huge interplay with issues of representation in the workplace and mental health. There are some of our members who have embedded diversity equity, inclusion initiatives under their mental health and wellbeing strategies. There are others that have taken the inverted approach. So mental health sits under diversity, equity and inclusion. I think what’s really important is acknowledging and respecting the intersectionality of these two things and really making sustained and earnest commitments to both. Neither of these issues are flashed in the pan or new, or the result of the pandemic. Right. Right. What’s happened now is that we have renewed attention or new attention to the importance of these issues. And so what I really hope is that we see as we continue to migrate into different phases of, you know, what is now this endemic that employers don’t take their foot off the gas either for mental health considerations or strategies and for diversity equity and inclusion programs and initiatives.
Natasha Tracy (41:51):
Well, thank you so much. I think that’s how, that’s, how we’re gonna end it on that particular note. I would just like to thank you. This has been Christina McCarthy and she has shared with us some absolutely brilliant insights. So thank you so much. I know that advocating for people like me in the workplace actually works for the entire workplace overall. So thank you so much.
Christina McCarthy (42:12):
Thank you Natasha, for having me, it’s been a pleasure.
Natasha Tracy (42:15):
I’m happy to do that.
Natasha Tracy (42:16):
Join us at the same time next week. That’s 2:00 PM Eastern for a very special live stream with me, Natasha Tracy, I’m actually gonna be sharing some basic facts about mental illness in the workplace. I’m gonna share my personal story about mental working with mental illness. And I’m going to answer any questions that you may have. It’s gonna be really fun because a lot of it is gonna be directed by your questions as to where we’re gonna go.
Natasha Tracy (42:41):
Drop by the podcast’s website at snapoutofitpodcast.com for more information.
Natasha Tracy (42:47):
Snap Out of It! recordings are available on your favorite podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Natasha Tracy (42:54):
And if you’d like to be a guest on Snap Out of It!, check out our website and fill in the guest application form. Again, that’s at snapoutofitpodcast.com.
Natasha Tracy (43:03):
My name is Natasha Tracy. I hope you have a great week with great mental health.
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