Recovery Month: Healthy Employees, Productive Workplace

Episode Summary:

This episode of Chamber Amplified from the Findlay-Hancock County Chamber of Commerce focuses on the business case for supporting employees in recovery. Amber Wolfrom from the Family Resource Center, joins Doug to talk about how businesses can balance operational goals with creating an inclusive and supportive work environment for employees battling substance use disorders and mental health issues. Amber emphasizes the importance of reducing stigma around these issues to foster a culture of empathy and understanding in the workplace. As we approach National Recovery Month in September, she explores themes and strategies businesses can employ to raise awareness and assist employees in recovery.

During the discussion, Amber talks about Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and their role in providing much-needed resources and support to employees. She outlines the typical offerings of an EAP, including counseling and legal advice, and addresses concerns about their implementation and costs. 

Key Takeaways:

• National Recovery Month: Offers an opportunity for workplaces to engage in open dialogue about substance use and mental health, promoting a supportive and stigma-free environment.
• Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): EAPs are valuable for providing counseling and other resources; they can enhance employee well-being and productivity. Smaller businesses can explore community services if they lack an established EAP.
• Stigma Reduction: Encouraging a corporate culture that acknowledges and supports mental health challenges contributes to a healthier, more productive workforce.
• Generation Gap in Wellness Perceptions: Younger employees are more open to discussing mental health, a contrast that businesses should navigate to harmonize workplace culture.
• Proactive Support: By proactively offering recovery resources, businesses can help employees manage personal challenges, benefiting the company's overall success.

Resources:

• National Recovery Month Toolkit

Music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Transcript

0:00:03 - (Doug Jenkins): Welcome to the show. I'm Doug Jenkins from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. On each edition of Chamber Amplified, we're examining issues impacting the local business community. Whether it's employee recruitment and retention, marketing, it issues, it could be really anything that impacts your business or the business community as a whole. Our goal is to give the local business community tips each week on at least one way they can improve operations and thrive in the current business environment.

0:00:29 - (Doug Jenkins): This week we're talking about the business case for helping employees in recovery. And I really hate to couch that way, I hate phrasing it that way. It really makes employees just seem like a cog in the machine. But you've got a business, you have quotas to meet, you have things to do, and so there is that kind of balance to it. We're going to talk about all of that today. One, how do you establish that balance?

0:00:51 - (Doug Jenkins): And two, how do you go about making sure you hold on to those employees and making them feel more welcome at work and in turn keeping them more productive and keeping them on long term? Amber Wolf from the Family Resource center is going to join us to talk about all of that as we head into Recovery Month in September. She'll also be talking about what exactly Recovery Month is and how your business can utilize it. We'll also talk about EAP programs and how to get one started if you don't have one in place already. And if you don't know what one is, we'll get into that as well.

0:01:20 - (Doug Jenkins): And that will be pretty helpful for you, we think. Again, be sure to rate and review this show if you're listening on Apple Music or on Spotify or really any service that lets you rate or review the show. It does go a long way. Now let's get into it. Welcoming back to Chamber Amplified from the Family Resource Center, Amber Wol joins us. Amber, thanks again for hopping on the podcast with us.

0:01:42 - (Amber Wolfrom): Oh, thank you for having me.

0:01:44 - (Doug Jenkins): So it is getting close to a big month for you with National Recovery Month coming up in September. We're going to talk about how that relates to businesses here in just a little bit. But just to get people familiar with the National Recovery Month, what is it? Why is it important?

0:01:58 - (Amber Wolfrom): So National Recovery Month is celebrated throughout the United States and some other countries outside of our borders to basically encourage open communication and conversations about substance use disorders and mental health and really trying to normalize that type of discussion about recovery.

0:02:20 - (Doug Jenkins): So, so this being Chamber of Commerce podcast, obviously we go and we try and tie everything back to business and what businesses need to know about things like this. So as a manager, as a business owner, why would I want to be aware of National Recovery Month and how could that be beneficial to me?

0:02:39 - (Amber Wolfrom): Well, first, there are probably many individuals that are employed at the place of employment that are in recovery and are in long term recovery. So acknowledging the fact that we have people in recovery in our workforce showing up every day and also it reduces stigma. So if we want people to get help, we want people to know that as an employer, we are somewhere that they can turn to because healthy employees are productive employees.

0:03:12 - (Amber Wolfrom): So the recovery month, there's different themes which we can talk about later, but there's themes that really highlight the focus that employers can place on not just reducing stigma, but also just showing overall support for overall well being.

0:03:28 - (Doug Jenkins): I say, what? Before we get into anything else, let's talk about those themes and how employers can roll those out.

0:03:34 - (Amber Wolfrom): Sure. Well, the first thing we want to do is to show and highlight that we care about the full person. You know, and, and I don't know how else better to say this, but there are certain lifestyle related diseases that get a pass when someone, I mean when people come in and say, oh, I've just been diagnosed with X, there are certain things that get a pass and get empathy. There are other things that when people come in and say, hey, I've just been diagnosed with this lifestyle related disease, or I've just been diagnosed with this, this, this brain disease, people go ew or oh or you know, fix that on your own. And we got to stop that.

0:04:13 - (Amber Wolfrom): It's a whole, it's a whole person, it's a whole wellness initiative. So by reducing stigma and getting individuals to, to be, feel safe to say, hey, I've been struggling with this, it's starting to impact my work life, it's starting to impact my home life. Then as an employer we can say, okay, we have eap. And so Recovery Month is one way to really highlight what our EAPs robust offerings are. Many times HR director will say to me, our employees are not utilizing their eap.

0:04:45 - (Amber Wolfrom): Well, here's a great month to highlight just all the great things that the EAP has available for an employee assistance program and to, to understand how that impacts productivity. It also impacts the trust and loyalty to the employer as well. Because it's like I shared with my employer, I needed this assistance. My employer stepped up and said, hey, we have these resources available to you. And then in turn, not only do they come back productive, but they come back connected.

0:05:17 - (Amber Wolfrom): And so it Also encourages access to other additional resources. So the employer is not alone in the community and trying to address their employees needs. And so by highlighting, hey, are you aware in your community these events are happening hey, in your community are you aware these resources are available? It brings in those supports. So the employer and the employee are both connected and supported.

0:05:43 - (Doug Jenkins): Let's talk a little bit about the EAP because like you mentioned, some HR departments have them. Maybe smaller businesses that don't have an HR department or they handle their own hr, maybe they don't have that employee assistance program and they're a little nervous about putting one together. One they want to provide the right resources. They're also concerned about what those resources might cost. What does a typical E, I don't know, is there such a thing as a typical EAP program? But really what do you see most commonly included in those?

0:06:12 - (Amber Wolfrom): Well, for the big ones, you know, some of the employers that are able to connect through their health insurance provider to a larger eap, they often have some free counseling sessions if something has occurred in the employee's life and that those reset. So if they're time limited or number limited, if there's a new occurrence of something new in the employee's life, those numbers reset. So there's those free counseling services real quick.

0:06:42 - (Amber Wolfrom): Often most EAPs also cover family members even if they're not uncovered by, they're not covered by the insurance of the person. So what's great about that is obviously if something's happening in my home life, it is going to impact my work. So for an EAP program to say, look, even if your child or your, your significant other is not covered by our insurance, the EAP still does cover it. So that's one thing to always check out from the beginning. But there's counseling services generally there's may connections to pod podcasts or list serves or additional information.

0:07:21 - (Amber Wolfrom): There's often connection to providers in the community. So you can search in the EAP about other providers that might be available. My husband, I can just share. He, he works for a local individual and they are connected to a very large one. So he even has financial advice available, legal advice available, all free through the eap. And that's a, that's a service that is a benefit to the employee. It shouldn't only be tapped into when things are not going well, you know, being preventative, it should be tapped in all year round to see what do I have available in case I need it. For employers that don't have an EAP program, they might Be smaller.

0:08:04 - (Amber Wolfrom): If you are in Hancock county, you have what I call your levy funded eap, which is me, because the Alcohol Drug Addiction Mental Health Services Board of Hancock county is funding an adult prevention educator me and I can come into your workplace and provide trainings and programming at no cost because it's supported by the levy. And so that's something that I have offered to many employers in the community and through Hancock county, through the family Resource center, individuals have open access to be able to drop in to get a diagnostic. If they're feeling so that they can't do it on zoom through an employer eap, they can do it through the Family Resource Center. And the reason I mentioned this is the local levy also funds for everyone to receive if their insurance does not cover a free diagnostic to be able to know what is going on. So if you don't have that available through your employer, you do have that available through, through your local levy of the ATOMAS board.

0:09:10 - (Doug Jenkins): That's good to know. Kind of what I was thinking is that if you're not even really sure where to start, if you don't offer an EAP right now, talking with you and just having a quick sit down to see if that's something you want to offer privately through it or whether maybe it's the county resources, however you want to go about that, that initial conversation I think would go a long way.

0:09:33 - (Amber Wolfrom): Yeah. And we, and I do, I go out and I speak with individual and just say what do you got? What do you, what are you hearing are potential gaps? And if, if we can't fill it through, you know, the resources, your HR resources that you, that you have, how can we assist? Because if you're employing Hancock county community members, then you know that's, we're part of that safety net. We want to make sure that our community is healthy. If our community is healthy, then our schools are healthy and our in our workplaces are healthy, our neighborhoods are healthy. And that's the overall goal.

0:10:08 - (Doug Jenkins): You mentioned a little bit ago that employees who are healthy, whether it's mentally healthy, physically healthy, whatever the case may be, they are more likely to show up to work, which I think is where a lot of businesses, maybe that's where the light bulb goes off if they've having, if they're having recruitment retention problems, if they're having absenteeism, things like that, recovery could be an issue for that if an employee is not in recovery.

0:10:36 - (Doug Jenkins): So just the business case for helping people into that, that journey I think is very strong. Where have you seen some success stories with that.

0:10:45 - (Amber Wolfrom): We've had local factories bring me in to do just a general wellness presentation. And from that I've had people walk up afterwards and say, can I get your card? Can I email you? And then they've followed through and they've gone to, and not always up our seat. So depending on where they live, right? So this is not just about Hancock county residents because our local employers employ people from outside our county.

0:11:13 - (Amber Wolfrom): So if someone reaches out to me and says, hey, I really loved what you talked about, but I live in Wood or Seneca or Putnam or whatever, I say, okay, let's get you connected to your Adamus board in your area to find out what services are available to you in your community. Especially if why I'm having difficulty focusing at work isn't necessarily me, it might be my significant other, it might be my child.

0:11:37 - (Amber Wolfrom): They're going to be back in the county in which they live. So we want to make sure we get those connections made. And also. So there's eight dimensions to each of us, right? I'm not going to go into a big spiel, but there's eight dimensions to each of us, our occupations, one, eight. And so it's important because without a job, then the other, one of the other ones is finance, is financial. Right. So that plays into that as well.

0:12:06 - (Amber Wolfrom): But when things get really heavy in one of the other dimensions, whether it's physical health, mental health or relationship or whatever, environmental even, maybe where we're living, when that dimension gets more energy, the other dimensions don't get as much. And so that might play into why our employers are not seeing us show up at 100%, but because somewhere else is pulling 150, 170, 180. And I don't have 100 then to give somewhere else. So that's why talking to employees about all wellness is important.

0:12:40 - (Amber Wolfrom): And for so long we focused on like health, like what's your bmi? Do you walk enough? How much water are you drinking? Well, are you getting self care? Do you feel like in a normal day you've got ups and downs and in the middle you, you flu, you know, you're, you're fluctuating, but you're, you're feeling like you're coming out even or are you always riding high or you always riding low? Those are things, those are open conversations to reduce that stigma, to say, then that might be something you want to get checked out and here's how you can do it and here's the resources we have and here's the communicate, like, here's the communication we've received from the community. We have lots of what's available out there.

0:13:21 - (Amber Wolfrom): And so September is just one way to make it seem normal to be sending out information and maybe putting a little tagline at the bottom of the emails that are going out to our employees about Recovery Month, maybe participating in the themes each week to normalize talking about recovery in our workplace.

0:13:49 - (Doug Jenkins): Let's talk about that normalization process. I think language sometimes gets in the way where we're like, for instance, let's just use the word normalize. That's not a word that we even really used, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. And so I always.

0:14:09 - (Amber Wolfrom): I've never met a normal person.

0:14:13 - (Doug Jenkins): Normalized or things like that. I think people are like, this is another touchy feely type thing.

0:14:20 - (Amber Wolfrom): Right.

0:14:20 - (Doug Jenkins): So, but we want to, for lack of a better term, normalize the way that we talk about these things. Or at least we want to make it open to talk about it. We want the conversation to happen however you want to say that that's going to work. What are some ways for people to address that? That maybe they don't want to get into the touchy feely of it. They do want to have healthy employees. They want their employees to succeed. They want them to show up and be present at work. And if this is going to help with that, they want to do that, but they don't want to look how touchy feely I am because I, I really feel like, you know, we're, we're a deeply Midwest town here.

0:14:58 - (Doug Jenkins): Deeply Midwest here. We have those kind of cultural values too. And sometimes they're a little bit at odds each other, at odds with each other. Only because the way we talk and think about things, even though we kind of want the same thing.

0:15:12 - (Amber Wolfrom): Right. I will share for those of us boomers, I'm not a boomer, I'm a Gen X.

0:15:17 - (Doug Jenkins): You were really quick to mention that.

0:15:19 - (Amber Wolfrom): I'm just saying. I'm just saying. So for the boom, for the boomers in the room, for Gen X's in the room, the generations coming up behind us are more comfortable talking about this. And so we got to find a way to get a little more comfortable. I, I always ask individuals, if your coworker showed up to work and was limping, how many seconds would it take before you would say, hey, what'd you do to your foot?

0:15:42 - (Amber Wolfrom): Or what did you do? Or, or they put their, their arm was in a sling. It'd take you maybe Five seconds to say what happened. And then if they say, oh, I just dropped something on my foot and it still hurts. If they were still limping two weeks later, how long before you would say, hey, you really need to see somebody about that? Or would you be concerned about the job that they do? You might go to HR and say, do you know, so and so has been limping for two weeks.

0:16:10 - (Amber Wolfrom): So we're real comfortable with that. We need to get more comfortable to say, hey, you're not showing up like your normal, like your quote, normal self. I'm just, I've noticed that there's been a change and is everything okay? And, and being able to have that same discussion that we'd have if we see that they were limping, because physically limping and mentally limping is not any different. There's pain, right? There's pain, there's distraction that's going on with that.

0:16:40 - (Amber Wolfrom): So we do have to become more comfortable with it. And our younger generations are, our younger generations have figured out that the head is attached to the body and that the brain is talking with the rest of the body and the body's talking to the brain, where we've always liked to keep them separate. They figured it out and they're comfortable talking about it. So keeping up with the, keeping up with the, the workforce that's coming in, I would say don't be afraid to attend some TED talks, you know, pop on YouTube and attend some TED talks about how to normalize discussions in the workplace.

0:17:19 - (Amber Wolfrom): There's more trainings that are being available to employers about, you know, the things that are happening at home are coming to the workplace. Domestic violence is coming to the workplace, trauma is coming to the workplace, Substance use disorder, mental health disorders, they're coming to the workplace. So how can we set up the parameter for when an employee wants help and do our policies and our language and our procedures, does the wording show and follow through with, yes, we want individuals to seek help. We want individuals to be proactive. And in that proactiveness, we've got a plan in place that when you're ready to come back, no different if you were out for a heart attack, you were out for a stroke, you were out for cancer, we got away.

0:18:10 - (Amber Wolfrom): That when you're ready and you're healthy, we want you back. If you're, if you're in short term recovery, we're going to, we're going to understand that and we're going to work with your health care providers to make sure that when you come back, you're back at the right level of load, and we're going to support you in that recovery. It's really no different than any other reason we might be struggling.

0:18:33 - (Doug Jenkins): Your point about the younger generations being a little bit more in tune with this, I think is really important to impress upon the business community, as we've talked about it on this podcast a few times here, just how many different generations are in the workforce currently and how that's going to continue to change. And that's another employee recruitment and retention issue, all in its own right, is juggling multiple generations in the workforce. But for. For HR and for managers to be mindful of that, I think that is a good way to spell success when it comes to keeping employees on board and keeping them at their most productive. And, hey, guess what? You're helping them out in their life, too, if you're offering things like this. So a little bonus for that.

0:19:20 - (Amber Wolfrom): Yeah, my. My daughter's 20. She's in the workforce. And, you know, a few months ago, she came home from a previous job and said, my boss was super dysregulated today. And he was just spewing that all over everybody else. And I was like, okay. I mean, I know she. She's in the household of a preventionist, but that's not all my language. I didn't get that. You know, they're watching TikToks and they're. They're doing their own thing, and. And they're observing that maybe the way, you know, I was trained, I was trained by an older generation, and so I'm. I am. I still got to watch my bootstrap language sometimes, you know, when I'm. I'm trying to assist a co worker who's just coming in and maybe having a bad day, I have to check my dial and see where I'm tuned in, because I'm from that generation that, oh, you had a rough night.

0:20:15 - (Amber Wolfrom): Well, you know, when your work shift is, you better be here. Well, what help is that if I come in impaired, you know, if I come in mentally or physically or emotionally impaired, am I really being a benefit to my employer? And I think that's the. That's the rub, right? We want them present, but present doesn't always mean present. Yeah, there's the physical presence, and then there's the, I'm here and I'm giving 100% or, hey, at some point, sometimes employers are like, give me 70, just give me 70.

0:20:51 - (Amber Wolfrom): I'd be happy with 70. Right. So where are our policies and our procedures and the Programming that we're putting in. Are we, are we, are we being mindful that we're trying to build a workforce within the walls where we have control, where we have influence? I should say, because none of us have control. That's, that's, that's just a, that's a myth. Rational construct. But where we have influence, where we have the influence.

0:21:17 - (Amber Wolfrom): What are we doing with that time that we have in front of our employees to say, this is how we're going to support our workforce?

0:21:25 - (Doug Jenkins): And if you're unsure about how to go about that, National Recovery Month seems like it would be a great place to get started with a lot of resources available to individuals and businesses alike. Again, Amber, if people want to learn more about National Recovery Month, and I know you sent me a toolkit, I'll put the link to that in the show notes. But if people have questions about it or, or thinking that this might be a good time to really dig into that EAP that they've had sitting there but haven't done much to do with, what's the best way to start working with, with you or whoever on that?

0:21:55 - (Amber Wolfrom): Sure. So the first easy thing is that toolkit that you're doing the link on, it has downloadable stuff that you can just tweak. It's got logos, it's got themes, and it tells you even what to do with the themes. So easy peasy lemon squeezy. Pull that up. Just start downloading what you need. And it's from samhsa. It's the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration. So it's a, it's dot gov. It's a legit site. Go ahead and download whatever you need.

0:22:22 - (Amber Wolfrom): If you, if you're local and you're like, hey, this is what we got, and it's hodgepodge and we're trying to push it all together. And what can we do more with. Just give me a shout. I'm. Look, I, I think I'm on the Chamber website as a member anyway.

0:22:35 - (Doug Jenkins): I believe so.

0:22:37 - (Amber Wolfrom): Call Family Resource center, ask for Amber in Prevention, because we do have another Amber. But if you just say, hey, Amber in Prevention. I know. I was like, why did you do that? But she's really super cool, so she gets to stay. But if you ask for Amber in Prevention, they will put you through to my number directly and we can set up a time to come in and just sit down and say, you know what's possible.

0:23:02 - (Doug Jenkins): You are of the generation of Ambers, Jennifer's and Heather's, so.

0:23:07 - (Amber Wolfrom): Well, I was okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a little thing here. I was the only Amber in the Fostoria City school district until 10th grade, when one of my previous babysitters named their daughter Amber. And then I heard another Amber, like, in the school. I'm like, who? But yes, I had my three of my best friends were Heather. So it was like blonde Heather, short Heather, all Heather. He's like, yeah, I get it.

0:23:33 - (Amber Wolfrom): That's a Gen X thing.

0:23:34 - (Doug Jenkins): Thank you again for joining us.

0:23:36 - (Amber Wolfrom): Thank you again.

0:23:38 - (Doug Jenkins): One last note on EAPs. If you don't have one or maybe you're not sure what to include in it, we'll actually touch on that at a future Safety Council meeting. That's because beyond employee retention and absenteeism, it's also an issue that the Bureau of Workers Compensation has recognized as an issue when it comes to just safety in the workplace. So if you're looking at different ways to approach it, there's another one for you. And that'll be coming up later this year for our Hancock County Safety.

0:24:04 - (Doug Jenkins): Well, that'll do it for this week's episode. Chamber Amplified is a free podcast for the community. Thanks to the investment of members in the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. Because of our robust membership, we're able to focus on providing timely information for the business community, run leadership programs for adults and teenagers, and be an advocate for the area. That's all while providing tools to help local businesses succeed.

0:24:26 - (Doug Jenkins): And if that sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, just let me know. We can talk about how an investment in the Chamber not only strengthens your business, but but the community as a whole. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear us cover on future episodes, send me an email. Djenkinslayhancockchamber.com thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time on Chamber Amplified from the Findlay Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.