Name: Mental Wellness for Healthy Workplaces: What to Look For and When to Act
Uploaded: 2026-04-22T19:15:36.280Z
Duration: 52 min 20 s
Description: Mental Wellness for Healthy Workplaces: What to Look For and When to Act

Transcript for "Mental Wellness for Healthy Workplaces: What to Look For and When to Act": Welcome, everyone. Today, we're going to explore how the mental health of your team can affect your results and how to recognize concerns without diagnosing. You'll also learn when and how to take action to support employee wellness using tools and resources such as an employee assistance program or EAP. With mental health awareness month coming in May, it's a great time to evaluate your workplace needs and consider ways you can help your team's wellness and productivity. To succeed in business, everyone on your team needs to be at their best. While physical setbacks can be easy to spot and treat, mental health can be a little more subtle. So let's get started. So first I wanna briefly cover some housekeeping items. We recently moved on to a new platform. And before you join today's session, you should have encountered a quick tech check that helps confirm your audio and video settings are connected and primed for a great experience. And now if you look to the right of your console there, you'll see a couple of tabs. The first is the docs column where you can access a PDF today's deck. You can download and print that along with other related resources, including eGuides, articles, industry links, product pages, and more. Next to that is the q and a tab where you can submit a question. We've got some members of our team in the back end helping provide responses, and then we'll try to get to some q and a at the end of the presentation. I can't guarantee a response to all questions, but they are all received and they're used to help us create future resources like this to help strengthen your business. And as always, please note that this presentation does not constitute legal advice. This is for informational purposes only. And now I'd like to introduce our speaker. Tracy Tudor is a certified first aid mental health professional, and she has several years of experience in the mental health industry. As a dedicated advocate, she educates communities on mental health awareness and crisis response. Tracy's engaging presentations inspire proactive mental health support and empathy. So welcome, Tracy. Really glad to have you today. Thank you, Rob. So for the next forty five minutes, we're gonna be covering a lot of ground with statistics. We're gonna talk about how leaders can help improve mental health in the workplace, what to look for, and how to take action when necessary. We'll also talk about resources such as the ENI employee assistance program, which can help you create a healthier workplace environment that may enhance employee productivity, engagement, and retention. So I'd like to start with a quick poll just to get a feel for for where everybody's at here. So you'll see it open up on the right side of your console. There there'll be a little red button. I'd like you to mark your response and just click the submit button. So I'd like to get a feeling for where you are with your company in the process of improving mental health in your workplace. So alright. Is this the first time you've even heard of it? The first time you've even started thinking about it? You're just starting to research it now? Are you just starting to consider addressing this now? Are you really in the process of really striving, to really get good at this and get good at what is happening? So let's see what we've got here. It looks like, we've got a lot of votes coming in. And, Tracy, it's very interesting. Starting to research. Beginning this journey is the number one, option. Follow closely by in. the process. This is great. Right? This is great. Yeah? Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for being here today. It's interesting to see how the poll ranked in. I don't know if you guys noticed this, but it was a little bit of everything everywhere. So, hopefully today, this session will bring you to a further understanding of your role in your organization and how you can be on the lookout for folks that are struggling with their mental health and being able to really just be there to know what to say, how to say, and when to say it best. So thank you for joining me. In today's session, we're gonna focus on building your confidence as a leader when it comes to recognizing the mental health concerns, and more importantly, as I've mentioned, knowing when and how to respond. So I wanna start by setting some clear expectations, and that would be that this is not meant to turn you into a counselor or a therapist. We're not asking you to take on anything that's outside of your role, but instead, it's about helping you become more effective in your day to day leadership moments where mental health may really be a factor for someone in your organization. So, many leaders hesitate in this space. And it's not because they don't care, but it's because they're unsure of what to say or you're maybe worried about getting it wrong. And that hesitation is completely normal. In fact, if you've ever thought, 'Yeah, I really don't want to make it worse.' You're definitely not alone. We hear that all the time. What we'll do today is replace that uncertainty with simple, practical approaches to how you can rely on when something just feels a little bit off. We've all heard of our gut feeling and so on and so forth. That is very much something that you need to be in tune with in and around the world of mental health. Another thing I want to remind you of, your role is not to diagnose or to fix it. Your role is to notice it, to respond with care, and connect people to the right support when it's needed. So, you think about your employees now. I'm fairly certain you have people inside your organization that it's clear to you that they're struggling with their mental health. So, I'm not going to really belabor into the statistics. You've seen them from SHRM, you've seen them from HR Connect, HR Hot Seat, the News. Everywhere you turn, people are talking about mental health and also mental health in the workplace. So many of you may have even drilled down into your own statistics around presenteeism and productivity, or you hear the buzzword, absenteeism, formal leave. So we're seeing so many people now take a formal FMLA leave or leave of absence for their mental health, whereas a couple of years ago that was really unheard of. So remember, every time one person on the team is struggling, it really affects the productivity and the members of the entire team in some way. So, let's look just a little bit deeper into the ripple effect that it does have in your organization. Mental health matters at work and it's one of the most significant yet most underestimated drivers of performance, engagement, and most importantly, retention. So, when mental health is struggling, it rarely shows up labeled as such. Instead, it often shows up in ways that leaders are already managing. Things like missed deadlines, decreased focus, more errors, sometimes irritability, disengagement, or even the increased absenteeism of someone who normally would not be absent. For example, you may think you're dealing with a performance issue when in reality the root cause could be stress, anxiety, or burnout. So, I want to pause just for a minute to kind of level set a little bit. So, we have mental illness. There are people who struggle with mental illness. Those are significant things that you are going to see hands down because it is going to jump out and be very, very aware. Things like schizophrenia, sometimes bipolar if it's in a manic state, Things like that are the mental illnesses that sometimes take a lot more care and concern for someone who's walking through that. But on the other side, you have mental health struggle, mental health journey. People think of it about their well-being journey. So, being able to understand a little bit of that terminology hopefully will help you know where some of these resources I'm going to provide you with today are most helpful. So, when you think about someone's mental health, someone's wellness journey, this is where a lot of these things will start to take place. So, we think about, you know, someone struggling with their stress, anxiety, depression, burnout those are buzzwords we have all heard before and oftentimes, we ourselves as leaders experience them. But over time, these patterns don't just affect the one individual. As I mentioned, it affects the entire team. So the workload gets redistributed, morale shifts, the leaders spend more time reacting instead of leading. And one of the most important things to understand is that timing does matter. So when an employee feels safe asking for help early, concerns are often manageable. And when they don't, those same concerns can manifest and they can escalate. Sometimes that burnout turns into an extended leave and oftentimes even turnover. We all know that a turnover, lack of retention in an organization, it costs a significant amount of money to attract and retain new employees. So we want to do everything we can to empower you and remind you of the resources that are available to you through Paychex so that you would be able to have the resources that you need to try to reduce some of those things. So, As a reminder, supporting mental health isn't separate from business outcomes today. We're seeing more and more in our roles that it directly shapes them. I want you to take a minute to reflect and think about your team. Have you seen performance issues that may have had something to do possibly deeper behind them now that you think about it? Whereas maybe before, you were just taking it on as performance, there being a little bit of a deficit in performance. So that's something you can think about. And as I continue to talk about some of these things, one of the next things is early indicators. So one of the most valuable skills you can build as a leader is the ability to notice early changes in an individual. Mental health concerns are rarely started with an obvious sign. More importantly, it shows up in small shifts over time. So the key is not necessarily focusing on one moment, but it's starting to recognize patterns. For example, a normally engaged employee may become quieter. You might have a dependable team member who starts missing some key deadlines when that's not normally how they interact in their day to day environment in terms of productivity. They start missing those deadlines. That's a little bit of an indicator something else might be going on. Another example is that someone becomes more withdrawn or less responsive in those meetings that you have. Do you notice a responsive in those meetings that you have. Do you notice a change maybe in their tone? Or maybe they're getting more frustrated and have less patience with their own coworkers? These are all things that might indicate someone who used to collaborate frequently or is now avoiding interaction, keeping communication very short. All of these things are reminders that someone could be struggling. So it is easy to dismiss these changes, especially when everyone's busy. But we as leaders often tell ourselves, it's probably temporary. They're going to figure it out. They're going to work through whatever's going on. And sometimes, you're exactly right. But then there's other times that you need to be aware of those changes because early changes are your opportunity to intervene early in an appropriate manner. The earlier you check-in, the easier the conversation tends to be and it's more likely that their issue is manageable. Let's think about now how mental health can actually present itself differently. It's important to recognize that mental health does not look the same for everyone. Some individuals definitely show some visible signs irritability, withdrawal, emotional reactions whereas others, it might look completely fine, they might look fine on the surface, but really they're struggling significantly internally. So in fact, I see oftentimes high performers are often more at risk because they tend to push through the challenges without signaling anything for help. So they may continue to deliver with results, but what's happening is their stress level is continuing to rise. You may also see differences depending on the work environment in these examples. So remote employees, they may appear productive, but they feel isolated. If you're an employer who has frontline workers, they may show stress through frustration or fatigue. And even leaders on your team, even yourself, you may hide stress often because you feel the pressure and that you need to hold it together. So oftentimes, we as leaders have to check our own emotional intelligence so that when we are on the clock, when we're on the job, it's okay for us not to be okay, right? So we have to check our own emotional intelligence so that we can make sure we are able to help those in need. So instead of guessing, we want to stay curious and we want to stay focused on the pattern at hand. So there's no one look to someone who might be struggling. We all look different while we're going through these things. Rob, how about we turn it over for another poll and let's see where we are? Yeah. It can do, Tracy. And and I really appreciate all the great information you just gave. It really the fact that it impacts the entire team, I think, is really something important that people don't necessarily always recognize. It's why we need to be paying attention to these things. So I love that point. Also, I want to encourage our audience, enter questions in Q and A. Hopefully, we'll have some time at the end and we can do it. I don't see any questions yet. So I want people go ahead and enter your questions and submit them at the end. And now with that, let's get to our poll. Based on what you've learned so far, how confident are you that you can recognize mental health challenges in your workplace? Alright. Somewhat confident, very confident. That makes me very happy to see that, Tracy, that that people are paying attention. That's probably why they're at this event in the first place is that there is an awareness there. Yes. And that's where it starts, is with awareness. And it takes a team, you know, the phrase it takes a village as we're raising our kids? It takes a village and it takes everyone on board to help people struggling with their mental health. So let's talk a little bit about responding without diagnosing. Once you notice a change in someone, the next challenge is knowing how to respond. A simple framework you can rely on is notice, name, and support. You notice the change, you name it using neutral language, and you offer support. Let me give you an example. If you notice someone is struggling a little bit in any of those ways we just mentioned, you can say to them, I've noticed you seem a bit more overwhelmed lately, maybe even a little less engaged in meetings. Usually, you're kind of vocal, which we like. So I was just wondering, are you okay? You know, I wanted to check-in and see how you were doing. This approach works because it's based on the observation, not the assumption. It shows you care without pressure, and it opens the door without forcing disclosure. So it's important here that this is what you don't do. So you don't want to diagnose, you don't want to assume that you know what's going on, and you don't want to try to fix everything. Instead, you want to create that safe entry point for conversation. One of the things we also have to think about is, How do I know? Am I really sure that something's going on? So when there's changes in behavior that are simple over time, you really don't know that something is going on unless you do ask those gentle questions in a gentle way. But let's talk just a little bit about when there's signs of a crisis. We have the opportunity all the time as the EAP partner for Paychex and for the solution that you have available to you. We have the opportunity to support employers when there is, unfortunately, a crisis that has occurred. You all know exactly what I'm talking about. There have been several even this weekend in America. Anything we as leaders can do to mitigate the risk to that individual, your employees that are surrounded by that individual, yourself and others, that is most important. Let's talk just a little bit about some more serious signs of crisis. While most situations do involve early or moderate concerns, there are many times when there's a more immediate action that needs to be taken. When you have someone on your team, or oftentimes they say it to a coworker, so this is one reason why breeding a commonality, breeding a culture around mental health awareness and well-being nurturing is so important is because it may come to you through a third party that someone has said something inside the organization. So something like statements around feeling hopeless, that they feel like they're in a situation and they're feeling like they're a burden to other people, or maybe wanting to disappear, should always be taken seriously. So, sudden drastic changes in behavior or visible distress can also be warning signs. In these situations, it's most important that you remember you are not expected to handle this alone. So, you want to follow your organization's protocols. If you don't have any protocols in place for how you're going to interact and how leadership and management and supervisory level, teamship level, etc, is going to interact with someone who has experienced a mental health difficulty, you may want to consider putting that on your roadmap, reaching out to your HR VP contacts at Paychex. They will be able to help you get in touch with the right people on our team that can help you put together that protocol. You also want to involve HR or some type of executive leadership and even refer them to the appropriate resources that are available and escalate it, even if you need it, to 911 and even 988. Those are all different things that you need to be prepared to do now so that you do have a little bit of idea and control of the situation should something occur. One of the most common concerns leaders have is, if I ask, is that going to make it worse? And research couldn't be more pointed that that is, in fact, not correct. It shows the opposite. Asking directly about someone's safety can actually help them feel seen and feel supported. And so, the goal, again, is not to solve the situation. It's simply to make sure the person is connected to the right level of support. So, as leaders, we think about how our practice can make a difference. Some of the most impactful leadership actions happen before anything escalates. So, being consistent, giving check ins that are genuine check ins, they help you stay connected and it makes it easier for you or the leadership that is over that employee to notice changes early. So these really don't need to be complicated. You think about a lot of organizations have performance reviews. And that's good. You should have those performance reviews. But, do you have regular check ins to help look at someone's well-being, look at someone's mental health index so that you can make sure you offer them the best resources that are available and make sure that they know their family members also have access to those resources. So many times, we know, even in our own lives, things that occur at home, we bring them into the workplace by default often because that's just how we are. We spend a lot of time with our coworkers. We spend a lot of time under the roof with other people. But what's going on inside our home often exacerbates that inside the workplace. So instead of asking about someone's work in terms of performance, when you have your one on one session with them or your monthly check ins whatever that may look like for your organization you want to say, How's your workload been lately? How's it been feeling? Do you feel like you've got enough hours in the day to do it? Now, we all know the answer is mostly no. But how they answer that question their body language, some of the words that they use that can indicate a lot. Another question you can ask them is, It's been a challenging week this week for me. Has it been for you? So you're putting yourself in that same environment with them, lowering the barrier, lowering the boundary so that they can then feel safe and start that open line of communication. These small shifts in conversations signal that you do care about them and they're more than just an output. They're more than just a being that's there for you and your organization. You as leaders also set the tone through behavior and your executive leadership team sets the tone through behavior. So if you model your own boundaries, you take time off to be healthy, you talk about managing your stress, your team sees that as acceptable. Over time, it creates a behavior of what we refer to in the industry as psychological safety. Basically, that just means that employees are more likely to feel safe in the environment there at the employer, there with you, and they're able to speak up earlier, especially if they know the resources that are available to them. Let's look just a little bit about how Paychex and our company, E and I, can support your employees with their EAP offerings. So when we think about what this looks like, it's important to recognize that you should not feel like you have to manage these situations alone. You need that protocol inside your organization, but one of the main things in that index, one of the main go tos should be your EAP support through Paychex and the solution that you have. We, as E and I, provide a clear, accessible way for employees to get support. There's an 800 number they're welcome to reach out and call us. There's an app that is available. It offers confidential 20 fourseven access to resources available for your employees. Oftentimes, when people call in, they're having anxiety or stress, depression about legal or financial issues. Hands down, outside of relationship, normally it is a legal or financial issue. Because those resources are available in the package that you already have, our team is able to guide them to those resources, help them understand not only where to access them, but how to access them and make the most of it. It also means that employees don't have to wait to get care. So, we think about access to resources that they have. There's a host of things that are available. But one of the things that we also are able to do is help refer them to a counselor, refer them to a therapist. Even in their network, we're able to refer them back in, should they need that level of care. But there's so many other resources prior to that that can help someone in their day to day well-being journey. So they have guided resources through videos. They have help with mindfulness. They have access to wellness tools. All of these things help an individual stay healthy. And if they do get to the edge of the cliff and they need a little bit more, then that referring to counseling and or life coaching is available. Their support that's available and it's easy to access are some of the best words you can use when you're talking to your individual employees because it takes the pressure off of you and off the employee. I'm going to repeat that phrase one more time because this is one that you definitely need to add into your vocabulary. Learning how to be comfortable saying, There is support available and it's easy to access. Those are some things that we want to make sure, out of everything today, that we're able to help you know where to find those resources. So as Rob and the team continue to point those out to you, those are things that you could start to use to build your action plan for your organization. Let's talk a little bit about integrating this EAP that we have into your leadership practice. So, one of the biggest predicators of whether employees are going to use the resources is whether or not the leaderships talk about them. And so, we think about the leadership of your organization. It starts from the very top down bringing it up on your company meetings, making sure employees feel comfortable openly talking about their mental health. Of course, there's times when it's very appropriate, and there's times when it's not. Sometimes there does have to be a redirect, but not bringing it normalized into the workplace is going to hinder you at some form or fashion in some way because it is such a significant topic in America today, particularly in the workplace. One of the facts that's out there surrounding right now is we have five generations in the work force today. The younger three generations are very open to talking about their mental health struggles and their well-being initiatives that they have for their personal lives. Used to be, in the world, when someone would look at taking on a new job, health insurance that was offered by the employer was top notch, most important thing to them and that's still the case today. But now, second to health insurance, employees are looking at what mental health and well-being resources are already vetted out and offered by their employer. And so, I encourage you to make this a priority inside your organization. And so, when we think about these things being the biggest predictors, whether the leadership team down is talking about them, we only mention it sometimes during a crisis and we don't want that. We want employees to be associating it with something, not something that is wrong, but instead something that can help them stay on a better path to help. We know that our mental health 100% affects our physical health. Being able to reduce stress and anxiety honestly breeds happier, healthier employees that equates into happier, healthier teens, which breeds more productivity inside an organization something every single one of you leaders are trying to solve for today keeping things productive and moving along for what your company does in the workplace. When we think about things that we, as leadership, can mention regularly and normalize the conversation, it may look as easy as these things. It could be mentioning it during an onboarding process. You're onboarding that new hire, you talk about the benefits, talk up the EAP, talk up about the offerings that are available to the employee and their family members. More importantly, reference it in team meetings. You definitely want to make sure from the top down it's being normalized and it's referenced in those Team meetings. You also want to bring it up casually in one on one meetings. This is a way where you can start to ask some of those questions. The goal, again, is not to promote. We're not wanting to promote this by any means. What we're wanting to do instead is normalize it. So when leaders consistently are able to reinforce that support is available, employees are more likely to use it early. So you being able to take that on and normalize it for your organization is going to help everyone under your roof. That translates into under their roof at home. So then that's where you have the help from the work life balance standpoint in terms of someone's mental health and well-being. One other thing I want to mention is that it is vitally important that someone, if not several people in your organization, take the Mental Health First Aid Certification course. What that does is it teaches you how to be a mental health first aider. And that is exactly what they call it. It's learning even more than what I'm sharing with you today so that you and your leadership team, key individuals, especially if you're a three shift operation, you wanna make sure that someone on that night shift, someone on the second shift understands mental health first aid so that if something does occur on their watch, they know exactly what that protocol is for your organization, but they also would have the skills of a mental health first aid person who would be able to step in and assess that need. One of the main things we think about, and I mentioned this just briefly, is monthly leadership actions. So we see sustainable change. It comes from consistent habits, not one time actions. We've all heard it before. If you do something for twenty one days, it breeds a habit. So, it's more likely you stick with it if you stuck with it for twenty one days. Same concept here. Monthly leadership actions produce sustainable change, and it's the outcome of consistent habits that you're trying to breed inside your organization. So instead of thinking about mental health and well-being as a large initiative, which May is coming up. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It's a perfect time to kick off a new campaign and new protocols for your organization. So not just focus on the large initiatives, but also focus on the small ones so that it can be repeatable behaviors that become part of your company culture. You ask one meaningful check-in question a week. You may notice patterns across your team. Normalize it, have a campaign, Have something happen every single month to remind individuals of your resources available through your EAP with Paychex so that they can normalize that as part of their well-being go to strategy for themselves and their family members. And then you want to continue to reinforce those available strategies. If you're one who does open enrollment meetings every year, at open enrollment time, make sure you take time to reinforce the mental health and well-being things that are accessible through the EAP. I will also say, in addition to the multi generational workforce that I mentioned earlier, we do see in our space, that the folks who are in the first two generations that are still in the workforce today, they're comfortable with the word EAP. They're comfortable with that. But the younger generations, they're not quite so comfortable with the terminology as a whole simply because they sometimes feel like the employer has a little bit of no in it, has a little bit of see and say with what's going on when that is absolutely not true. It's just a cultural thing with how people perceive the EAP versus mental health and well-being. It is the same thing, the same resources. It's just a matter of how it's offered and how it's delivered. So, just remember that consistency creates culture and that culture is what we want to consider and to be more happy. So, let's think about a commitment. Maybe you as leaders, thinking about the things that I've mentioned and the things that we'll probably talk about in some Q and A time, you want to think about what commitment are you going to make to help with the mental health and well-being of the people that are inside your organization. So, we've talked about that protocol. We've talked about normalizing the conversation. As we wrap up, let me bring this to action for you. So, each of you likely have a situation that has happened or occurred recently and I want you to reflect back on that time. So someone inside your organization may have acted out, acted inappropriately, or they may have been more of the passive type where they just weren't as vocal in a meeting, missed a couple of deadlines. Think about those people in your organization. A conversation that you've been putting off or may have sparked your interest about a team member that you're concerned about, you want to think about the things we've learned today and see if there might be an opportunity for you to approach that person in care. Ask the question, give them the opportunity to say if they're okay or if they're not quite okay, and then remind them that there are several opportunities for them to reach out to E and I's EAP and help them with whatever they're facing at the time. So you don't need to do everything differently. One small step is enough. So maybe it's one conversation. Maybe it's asking a better question, one that you haven't asked before, something you could ask them that would seem non threatening and being able to ask them, Hey, are you okay? I've noticed that you were a little late to that meeting. And that's not like you. Just want to make sure everything's okay. And then you think about the small actions that are done consistently are the ones that create the meaningful change. So Rob, if you're okay with it, I would love the opportunity to open up for letting you talk about what we've learned today if you'd like to, or maybe just go ahead and open it up for some Q and A because it's when leaders get to ask some questions in that live environment that we get the opportunity to help them with something they may be facing in their own workplace today. Rob, I'll pass it back to you. Thank you, Tracy. And there are a lot of great questions coming in. I hope we'll be able to get to a bunch of them. So hopefully, people don't mind staying on. And, Tracy, such great information. I love, this whole idea about normalizing support, that you're creating this environment of psychological safety, just so terribly important. And I'm sure we'll be touching on it more during the the q and a. So let's just do a quick recap. Oh, and I also wanna give a shout out to Dee, who herself is a certified mental health first aid responder, who said. this was a great refresher. Really enjoyed this content. So thank you, Tracy. Talking welcome. about you you talked about the importance of mental health, why it's really just good business. Yes. Talked about that leader's role and how they come into play. And, actually, I had a question come in and and a question of my own that I think are going to touch on this whole leadership, issue there. Early indicators to notice, what to pay attention for. Sometimes just being aware makes a real difference. Yes. Responding without diagnosing, so hard. We're always trying to especially as leaders, as managers, our job is always to fix things. This this idea that I can respond but direct people to the right place, I thought was very useful. The practices that make a difference, this goes back to that normalizing, just this, let's just make this a part of this is not separate from how we conduct ourselves. This is how we conduct ourselves, and I thought that was great. You're then, finally. And if if I can, just let me interject ahead. one thing right there because I think it's the. perfect place to mention this. So part of that HR protocol, one of the things that we encourage leaders to do is even in your leadership meetings. So, behind closed doors, when the employees are not in the room with you as leaders, you all practice asking each other those questions. You practice asking them because the more you can say it out loud and the more comfortable those words are coming out of your mouth, it's going to be that much easier for a leader to actually say it to an employee. So, I would encourage part of your leadership team, I don't know if you meet quarterly or monthly, but I would bring the idea to them that you look at some of the ways, the signs, the symptoms, and know what to say and when to say so that you're able to already have those top tracks practiced and you're not tripping over that. A lot of teams that I work with have had the opportunity to really do that inside their leadership meetings alone. That's that's a a great point. I'm gonna touch on it because we have a question that that really there's a couple questions that really touch on that exactly, Tracy. You know, and the last thing you talked about is how Paychex and E and I can actually support employees. And I do want to you know, for all of our, attendees, to the right side of the screen, there's a docs tab. You can click on docs, and you'll see there a a copy of today's deck, a PDF presentation of so you can get all this information and share it as necessary. There are also some other resources from E and I so that you can start taking this journey and learning what's available to you. So I just I wanna get to a quick poll before we get to q and a. This is just a really fast one, and you can just click the submit button with your responses. But I wanted to know if you wanted to speak with a Paychex expert about customizing your HR Pro package, which should already include the E and I employment assistant program for your business so we can help you get the most out of that. If you already work with an HR professional, we wanna redirect you to them for further support. Whether you need it, need that support in building the psychologically safe culture or just a wellness program in general for your. employees. And if you just like more information in general about EAP and how we can help, we're here to help you. So just click yes on this poll, and we'll absolutely be be ready to to talk to you about what we can customize and deliver for your business because every business is different, and. we wanna make sure we're crafting the solution that works for you. So if everybody's had a chance to get to that, I'm gonna try to get to some q and a. We end in five minutes. If you don't mind staying longer, I'm gonna let this run a little longer because there's just a lot of really good information here. You can send, as a reminder, the q and a tab to the right, you can send questions privately, and we can't we're not gonna be able to get to all of them, I don't think. And there's some that are very specific, Tracy. And as you know, we can't really touch. on those, but we can talk generally. And and and this one came in early, and this was very interesting to me. And you you touched on the end. This was Dan was asking, who's going to help us? Who's gonna help these HR leaders? Who's. gonna be looking out for for the frontline managers? We're busy looking after our employees, but who's gonna look out for us? And and Lorraine also had a question looking up, like, what if it's my manager who I see issues and what you know, so you touched a little bit on it on, like, practicing this amongst the leadership team. But can you tell me that dynamic leadership buy in? How do we make sure that we get supported, and how do we make sure our own leaders get supported? Yeah. That's a great question, and this comes up often. So one of the things I will tell you, and I briefly mentioned it, we do a whole session just on this for leaders, is your own emotional intelligence. So you have to be aware of your stress level. You have to be aware of your emotional indicators. You know, we're human too. We come in from our home sometimes dropping the kids off. They were late, they forgot their lunch box, we've gotta go take that lunch box back, meanwhile we're late for the board meeting that we didn't get through our PowerPoint slides for. So we 100%, as leaders, have to look at our own emotional intelligence so that we can be healthy in ourselves. That means it's okay for us to use the EAP resources. So we, as leaders, have tools that are available to us just like to the employees, and we should be using them first because then we have the opportunity to give testimonials about how well they worked. Again, normalizing the conversation in the workplace. It's the best thing you could possibly do is to be able to engage with the resources so you know how to refer them back into those. Okay. Oh, go ahead. Yep. Go ahead. I also will say that it's important for your leadership team to have different type sessions like this on the regular so that you can ripple down and communicate effective mental health and well-being strategies to the supervisors and to the frontline managers as well. That's great. And it remind I just flew over the weekend. It reminds me of, when the masks drop down. Yes. It says prepare of yourself first before taking care of the the person. that needs help. It's like, okay. Let's be aware of what those resources are really like. That's right. This this next question was from Keith, and it plays into a question I had too. Keith was asking, is there a time frame? If we see an employee acting differently, how long do we wait till we take action? Like, how you know, my question, how does a leader tell a difference between just a normal workplace stress, all the you know, Brian. will be fine, and, oh, the employees are they are facing some challenges, and I've gotta start helping out here. Yeah. No. That's a great question too. Keith, the one thing I would tell you is that you gotta go with your gut. So if you see something, say something. That's kind of been the the mantra these days. Days. So I would encourage you, you know, give yourself a couple days, maybe a week or so. You're gonna know when that person continues to repeat that behavior more than once. That's something that's kind of that slow effect that gradually comes on. So don't let it go too long. If you see them late a couple of missing deadlines, if you see them more aggravated than normal, go ahead and ask. When you see something, say something. You never know when you could be meeting that person's needs in that moment. If you don't say something because you're hesitant, when you feel like you should have, it could be very impactful to them and literally a pivotal point in changing their outcome for the day. I love it. I love it. Alright. This next question comes from Jeff, and it's really a nice follow-up, to what you just talked about. How can we how can we have our manager support mental health without overstepping boundaries? Who are you to tell me that I'm having trouble? I mean, like, you you know what I'm saying? Like, there's there's it's a it's a fine line, and and there are a lot of people who are who are certified mental health first aid professionals Yeah. on the call or interested in learning more about that, but most of us are not. So. how do we how do we handle this without overstepping our boundaries? Another great question. It's okay to ask the question with the right language. And so being able to say, hey. I noticed you were a little stressed. You're not assuming. You're going based on the actions that they gave. So that's the same thing. Don't assume that they feel a certain way. Take their actions, sometimes their actions in more than one occasion, their actions over time, and use that as the nature for the foundation of the question. Hey, I'm a little concerned. Hey. I I feel like this isn't you know, you haven't been quite acting like yourself. I just wanted to make sure. Is everything okay? And if you take the time to go through the mental health first aid and become a a mental health first aider, you will see that straight from the Institute of Mental Health First Aid, they are going to tell you to ask those direct type questions. Now, I do understand in an HR world and in a benefit leadership world sometimes, it can be a tricky slope because you're not asking the question, Tell me what's going on with you. You don't. dabble in. You don't want to pursue that question, but you want to give them the opportunity to feel heard and to be seen, which sometimes is more than enough for people to be able to say, Yeah, I am struggling just a little bit. That gives you the open opportunity to say, Hey, as a reminder, we have some resources that are available. Do you wanna stop by my office, or do you mind if I email you some information? I'm happy to even take that step with you and help you reach out if you would like me to. So sometimes it's a seeded root of people even feeling lonely and not even knowing where to go for that help, which is another reason why it's so important that you normalize the conversation in your organization. I love that, Tracy. And it's really a nice segue. We had a a few different people ask some questions about the resources. And we do, in our docs tab, have some resources, around E and I and how to take advantage of the service. You know, but Liz asked, you know, if you could touch on what resources are available, guides and whatnot. And Mary also asked, are there email templates? Are there are there tools to help us communicate to employees a little more easily. So, Tracy, can you just tell me a little bit about that that ENI support beyond just the employees gonna get that support? How do I communicate it? How do I make sure, employees are taking advantage of it, that they're aware of it, and and they feel comfortable getting into it? Yeah. That's great. So over here on the docs side, as you mentioned, there are some overviews, and I think they're listed on here as flyers. So the services that are available on that flyer are going to give you all of the services and a little snippet about what that service is meant to do to support the employee. It's super important that that is in your break room. It has an 800 number on it. It's gonna tell them how they can have access to even the well-being side. So it's not a lot of people think mental health is just this negative and a little emoji that just is sad all the time. That's not always the case. Sometimes it's just a little bit of stress that someone is not used to having and they don't know how to work through that. I want you to think about mental health as also a day to day journey keeping you as one of your best selves. That employee well-being flyer will focus on some of those features that are available in that regard too, Rob. That's great, Tracy. We're gonna be plugging another organization here. I have so many questions coming in on how do we get certified as a mental health, first aid professional. How how do you go about that, a great? question. I think the best way to do that would be connect with your HRBP. We do classes all the time for organizations, and it's a very simple class. If you're an in person kind of person, there's definitely some probably in and around your neighborhood, especially if you're in a big city. What we see more people doing now is going through the virtual course. It's a two hour e learning course, a self paced course that you would have to go through. And then you would enter a half day with a virtual trainer, you know, similar to the way that we're talking right now. And then by the time you complete that, you take a short exam and you would be certified as a mental health first aider. That's fantastic. Mhmm. This question comes from Carly. What we're talking about, ENI and EAP, is that different from balanced care? That's another good question. So Balanced Care is the same thing. So Balanced Care is just the name that Paychex had used it under for so long, but those things are the bones for the the EAP. Yes. That's great. I I wanna thank our audience for all these great questions. I'm gonna have time for one more. It's my my personal question here. What as a manager, what are some steps I can take right now? Like, after I walk out of here, what can I do right now to help my company, my business, improve employee well-being? I love it. Put together that action plan. Put together what you're going to do, not just when the wheels fall off the bus with an employee, but more importantly, what are you going to do in the next week, month, quarter, year to normalize the conversation in and around mental health and well-being? Because it's that psychological safety that protects the individual, the people that are in the workplace, leadership, and your company in a number of different ways. Fantastic. Well, Tracy, thank you so much for just all this great information. I really, really appreciate you, and and thank you to our audience for joining us today. You were engaged. It's obviously an important topic, and I really appreciate, you all participating and taking care. Yes. As a reminder, you can access a printable copy of the presentation deck in the docs column on the right side. You may have also seen our survey pop up during the q and a. Just fill that out. Let us know how we're doing. We're really trying to do the best for you to give you resources. And, of course, you can connect with a member of our team about any questions you have about paycheck support with that talk with our team button on the upper right. So once again, thanks again, everybody. I hope you all have a great day.