Ep#492 Transforming Workplace Mental Health: Stephen Sokoler

We always ask that question because the way people get to be doing what they're doing today in our industry is particularly interesting and rarely a straight line .

I certainly would have laughed , but grew up in Queens middle-class family , was always entrepreneurial , started random businesses here and there a snow removal business , a soda business and when I graduated from college , I ended up working at this company called the Award Group , which was helping organizations celebrate and inspire their employees , so we designed awards and

recognition programs . I ended up running one division , which I then purchased a few years later in a management buyout Fast forward financial crisis 2008 . Ended up consolidating the industry , so rolled up a couple of small companies in the space , along with a few others , and then expanded to London , Sydney , Hong Kong and Montreal .

And the reason this is relevant is I moved to Sydney to open our office there and it was the first time I had lived outside of New York and I very serendipitously found meditation through Buddhism and it was super helpful for me and ended up moving back to New York A few years later , sold the company .

Had no idea what I wanted to do , but when I looked I realized I really wanted to do something that made a difference in the world and I wanted to build another business and both of those were interesting , sort of the head and the heart and I thought there was an opportunity to bring meditation to people in a really simple , approachable , secular , science-based

way , and so we started out in meditation . That was in 2015 . Happy to tell you the whole journey on how we got to where we are today , but expanded basically from meditation into a whole host of subclinical practices , then added a clinical element and , yeah , I've just continued to evolve over the last nine plus years . That's awesome .

If you were to say I'm depressed or I'm having anxiety , one just the ability to share , that would be something that's really not allowed or culturally normal in many workplaces today . So that's number one and number two we don't know how to respond to that . Managers don't know , Employers don't know , Colleagues don't know . So there's a big stigma .

The other is when you do reach out for care , there's a shortage of therapists here in the States . I mean , the pandemic was obviously devastating for many , many reasons globally .

One of the pros , one of the silver linings , is that it shined a light on mental health , and so more people are saying , hey , actually the way I'm living is not working for me , and so they reached out , but they're coming into a system that just doesn't have the supply needed .

And then the third thing is most of the providers in the space , whether that's the traditional healthcare companies or a lot of the employee assistance programs , they don't provide access to care in a way that meets people where they are . So the average EAP , which is my world , takes three weeks on average for somebody to get care .

So imagine , David , you're looking for care and we're in the end of May and they're saying , oh , we have help for you in mid-June , mid to late June . That just doesn't work right . So I think that's just a small sampling of some of the problems .

So providing scholarships and other access to underserved communities , high school kids , college kids to be able to say , hey , this is a field that is really attractive , and perhaps you might not be thinking about this right , Because that's one of the things that's going to solve the long-term issues is just having more people available .

In the short term , you have to make do with what it is . So how can we get people access to care quickly ? How can we make sure that they're getting matched with the right provider ?

So oftentimes that's another problem Somebody will get a provider that has no experience with that particular person's lifestyle or where they're coming from , and that can turn someone off to the idea of therapy right away . And then there's also the reduction of stigma . So doing things .

One of the things I talk to HR leaders about all the time is the benefits are just the start . The culture has to support mental health . You have to make it safe for people to come in and say I'm not doing well today . I need to take the day . I need to sit out this meeting , right ?

We have to train managers to know what to look for and how to respond skillfully and how to point people in the right direction .

So I think it's not just that there's a shortage of therapists , it's that people don't really know where to turn and how to get care quickly , and so then issues end up exacerbating because , you know similar to physical health , right ? If you're not getting treatment at the start , the longer it goes on , the more likely it is to get worse , right ?

So , being able to cut things off , which means somebody might not need to be hospitalized , or they might not need eight sessions or 10 sessions with a therapist If we can catch them earlier , perhaps there's more tools available to them . And one of the things that I know you know is we really focus on proactive mental health or preventive mental health .

How can we ensure that employees have tools at their fingertips , things like meditation or live coaching classes where they can connect to a community and a coach who can help , you know , build healthy habits and help them create behavior change ? That will prevent some of those things from happening . So those are a few of the things we're doing .

One of the things that we find is employees are going to HR leaders and saying we're starving , we need all of these things , and HR is saying we're putting out this whole buffet , this whole smorgasbord of stuff . How is that possible ?

And part of it is the methods that HR is using traditionally to bring awareness to the benefits , including EAPs , are just outdated , and so we spend a lot of time up front .

We have a proprietary process called the JEDI Journey , engagement Discovery Interview , where we spend a lot of time with all of the stakeholders that basically the company will allow us to speak with to really understand a 360-degree view of what's happening there . So what are their priorities for this year ?

Tell us about the demographics , tell us about the employee resource groups , and then from there we build this comprehensive program . That's not simply oh , we put it in the welcome guide , right , you join a company , there's 70 pages of a welcome guide and it's in there . Nor is it buried on the intranet , but it's a living , breathing thing , the .

I wouldn't call it a tagline , but one of the things we talk about with the product called Journey of Practical EAP is engage every employee every day . So light , gentle touches and nudges to make sure employees know this is available , know where to go . And I'll say one other thing Traditionally , eaps will measure one thing , which is clinical engagement .

Right , so it'll be . The average EAP is 3% clinical , 5% clinical engagement Okay , which means 95 to 97% of employees are not touching it at all . Well , we look at three different things . Of course we look at clinical . We also look at preventive right , how do we get you to take action before you need clinical ? And then we also measure awareness .

So most benefits employees are aware . 20% of employees are aware of it . With Journey it's 80% . And that's interesting for a couple reasons . One is , of course , if you're aware of it , you're more likely to use it .

The other is it might be something like a fertility benefit or a 401k where maybe this is your first job or maybe you're not ready to start a family yet , but just knowing that you have it is very valuable . It's valuable in terms of retention , it's valuable in terms of peace of mind .

So knowing that we're not just engaging employees but also bringing awareness to it makes a big difference for the employee experience .

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Now back to our conversation . So not only do you work with the HR team and the executives , but do you also help those people do more education for employees ? And what are you finding works best ?

They had a , a very famous women's basketball coach who was outspoken on the topic of mental health and we did that and I said , okay , great , but what are we doing in month two ? What are we doing in month five ? What are we doing in month seven ? Right , how are we keeping this ?

So it's not people use it and then it tails off , but the opposite , so it builds over time . So they'll sign off on the plan and then from there we'll do things .

So , for example , with Beck and Dickinson , we're going to their employee resource groups and we're showing up there whether it's women's leadership , black excellence , pride , veteran to present resources that are specific for them , because if you're a parent , as you and I were talking about prior to joining this , your needs are a little bit different than if you're a

manager or if you're a veteran and perhaps you're multiple right , perhaps you're all three of those . So how are we making sure that a very broad , all-encompassing benefit like an EAP still feels really personal to the employees when they're seeing it ?

And then of the product itself super inclusive , super diverse and making sure that when you go there as a I'm not going to state your age , but you can feel free as a gentleman at your age of life , right as we talked about before , your needs are going to be different than the Gen Z employee who this is their first job .

How do we make sure both of you , when you do get there , say , wow , this is perfect for me .

But you talk about six strategies to boost EAP up to 10 times . That's a pretty bold and audacious claim . Can we look at all six of those and talk about them a little bit ? The first one is expand coverage .

So making sure that we're not leaving any group of employees behind , because oftentimes companies will say , oh , we have good engagement , and then you'll double click on it . It's , oh , it's only the millennial females who are more socially aware of mental health and are more likely to lean in versus hey , we work with Walgreens . It's 250,000 employees .

A lot of them are , you know , they've been there for a long time or this is their first job out of high school , right , and they're not necessarily thinking about mental health . How do we make sure we're meeting them where they are ? And so enhancing coverage in that way ?

But one of the things that we pride ourselves on , as I talked about , is meeting people where they are , which not only means the diversity and inclusivity of the providers and the teachers , but also the tools themselves diversity and inclusivity of the providers and the teachers , but also the tools themselves .

So we have a mobile app , because a lot of people almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays , but we also have a Zoom app because many of us are spending far too much time on Zoom calls . We have a Teams app because a lot of big organizations run that way . We have a calendar integration .

I don't know about you , but for me , I live and die by my calendar . So having a 10 minute mindful break in there , where every day it sends me a new bite-sized video , keeps it top of mind . There's an email newsletter every day with a bite-sized tip and a bite-sized video . So the idea is there's a Slack app .

Like we at Journey , we run on Slack , so it allows us to have the mental health there in just gentle touches , gentle nudges , so that it's there for people , right , and that makes a big difference , because it's not . Oh , I have to remember that it's on the intranet , or I have to go ask Susie in HR . It's just there and just keeps it top of mind .

And this goes to what we were talking about earlier , about you know , the experience being perfect for you and perfect for somebody else , right , who might be logging in from South Africa , or from Jamaica , or from you know Portugal , right ? So not just making sure that the language feels right , but having localized content and resources .

So not a US lens translated into Russian or to Arabic that wouldn't work but actually creating content in the region . So that's one of the other ways that we think about cultural competency .

Nothing that you do is shared in a personally identifiable way with your organization , and we have that everywhere , because that's really important to just continue to let people know that . And so it's an I'll call it an uphill battle .

You know , obviously some organizations have great relationships with their employees and there's a massive amount of trust , and others' employees feel like I can't go and say that I'm using , you know , this therapy product , because if I do , they're going to think I'm weak or something's wrong or my job's going to be in jeopardy .

So we just want to let people know that . And the other thing that we do is try to de-stigmatize it . So , throughout the platform , it says I use my EAP when dot , dot , dot .

And then it says you know , worker personal stress is challenging , I'm having trouble sleeping , I can use some support managing my finances , like trying to make it more approachable versus hey , david , tell me about your relationship with your parents , right ? And then you're like wait a minute , I don't , I don't want to go there , right , that's not for me .

So different type of introduction of the product to people and say , hey , this is not going to be shared with your employer .

And , of course , the good news is most of the time people are calling in , they just need support and so we're able to get them through that process . But there are those times where people need care in that exact moment . Right , we have to put them on hold and call 911 or we have to do more than that .

So asking a number of questions during that intake process . But we report our clinical results to our clients . With an average EAP or traditional EAP , less than 50% of people see clinical improvement . With Journey it's 88% , and the reason is what I had said earlier because we're getting care to people sooner , it's easier to get better results .

It's easier to see improvement because it hasn't snowballed into . I'm just at that breaking point , right .

So we build a custom benefits page to showcase all of these other benefits , so the journey can be the front door . And then when employees say , oh , I'm starting a family , I'm aware that I have this family planning benefit , hey , I need legal support , okay , we can do that , but perhaps they have some other support that they offer there .

And so showcasing that and having it built out so every employee can see what's available for them .

So , if I'm a part-time employee or full-time , if I'm union or non-union , and just making sure that everything like we want it to fit hand in glove , so everything you know , a rising tide raises all ships and rather than 10 different point solutions or 20 , some companies have even more than that all trying to drive engagement .

What if we can consolidate that and let employees know hey , you do have this whole buffet , you know , go and choose as needed . Getting people the right care at the right time basically needed getting people the right care at the right time basically .

So we did a clinical study with Humana's chief behavioral scientist , a woman named Dr Susan Bukowski , and that showed that when employees use Journey , they save their employer almost $600 per year in health care costs .

So if you think about Journey , it's a couple dollars PEPM , right Depends on the size of the company and all the benefits et cetera but it's in that range , right . So it's $20 , $30 , $40 per year . You're saving $600 in actual hard costs within the same calendar year . Now we also had another clinical study that showed absenteeism .

This was with Humana showed absenteeism was reduced by 51% . So if you're working one of our clients is Inspire Brands , 70,000 employees across Arby's and Dunkin' Donuts and Buffalo Wild Wings Imagine you're working there and your colleague calls out sick . Right , that's going to impact you . That's going to impact the customer experience . That's going to impact revenue .

Right , it's going to be stressful for you . We're giving people tools so they show up to work more often , so they're not burning out . They're not turning over and , to your point about the ROI , they're not hitting the health plan as often , which saves companies money .

So , you know , on one hand , this goes back to the conversation we had off camera about how quick children grow up , right ?

On one hand , 2030 sounds like it's forever , it's going to be here like this , right , but if we can continue to shift the narrative , that also will help more people get into the space , because there's a lot of people that want to help people , right , there's a lot of people that if they knew that they could have a career in therapy or psychology or psychiatry

, would go to that right and so being able to say , hey , this is a very valid path for you , right , seeing more people in your community take that up . And then , of course , on the demand side , right , that's the supply side .

On the demand side , just letting people know that these tools are available to them and it's easy to access , because right now , that still remains one of the biggest challenges .

So , yeah , if you're out there and you want to talk about this , I'd love to have a conversation .