Mental Health Check

STEVE HENDERSHOT

We’re in the midst of a reckoning over mental health. What was once considered a taboo topic in the workplace is fast rising to the top of many corporate agendas. For project leaders, it’s no longer just about schedules, budget and strategic alignment. It’s also about teams—and their well-being.

CARRIE FLETCHER

People are talking about how they are feeling and how their mental health is being brought into all aspects of their life—how it might be impacting their personal life, how it may be impacting their professional life. And we’re hearing that more and more in professional settings. It’s really forcing organizations to look at what they can do to improve their staff’s mental health. And at the end of the day, staff that feels psychologically safe at work and know that their mental health is being taken as good a care of as their physical health are going to show up to work, they’re going to be fully present at work, and you’re going to see productivity levels that are going to increase.

NARRATOR

The world is changing fast. And every day, project professionals are turning ideas into reality—delivering value to their organizations and society as a whole. On Projectified^®, we’ll help you stay on top of the trends and see what’s ahead for The Project Economy—and your career.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

This is Projectified^®. I’m Steve Hendershot.

Guiding high-stakes projects to completion can be a high-stress endeavor. And that kind of stress only intensified over the last year as people navigated new ways of working—and living. For example, 87 percent of managers around the world say they or their team have experienced at least one mental health challenge due to the events of the last year, according to a survey from Verizon Media, the Made of Millions Foundation and research firm Culture Co-op. 

But while lots of organizations think they’re addressing the issue, their employees don’t always agree. One stat that jumps out in a new survey of U.S. workers from financial services company The Hartford: 79 percent of companies believe they have created an environment that encourages conversations about mental health, but only 52 percent of their workers agree.

Today we’ll discuss how project leaders can help promote mental well-being on their teams. We’ll start in Toronto, at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, or CAMH—Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital. Carrie Fletcher, vice president of people and experience at CAMH and formerly the leader of its enterprise project management office, is leading an initiative to address mental wellness among CAMH’s staff.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

STEVE HENDERSHOT

As organizations look to better support their employees’ mental health, there can be some tension between corporate culture and KPIs and then a genuine care for psychological well-being. Is it possible to check all of those boxes at the same time?

CARRIE FLETCHER

Just because we’re talking about mental health, because we are providing psychologically safe workplaces, that does not mean that performance expectations lower. It does not mean that people don’t still have to work hard and execute, but managers, leadership need to understand the impacts that maybe their actions, maybe the way that they speak to their staff, maybe the way that they’re not providing their staff enough actual input into how they can get their work done or when they’re getting their work done.

So sometimes leaders need to reach out to their staff. They need to work creatively with their staff to understand how they can support their staff in some balance. Not to say that timelines need to be pushed, not to say that work doesn’t need to get done to the quality that’s expected, but maybe there’s a slightly less traditional approach to taking and achieving that. And simply by speaking to your staff, by talking through what needs to get done, what the resources are, and then how that may look to get it done and staff feeling that they have a say in the process and they’re included, that goes so far in terms of managing that psychological safety of your staff.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

How does the organization as a whole benefit from a staff that’s psychologically healthy?

CARRIE FLETCHER

People will show up, and when I say show up, they’re showing up wholeheartedly. They feel like they can bring their true self to work. They feel safe in raising concerns. And when concerns get raised and nipped in the bud, then they don’t actually escalate because sometimes when things escalate and things are simmering below the surface and nobody feels safe in raising a concern, then all of a sudden it gets to a point where it’s so escalated that might lead to a person going off on leave. Then you’re scrambling for resources, which then impacts another person’s amount of work that they’re doing, may impact the project timeline or an operating work timeline because they don’t have the proper resources in place.

Sometimes you just have warm bodies in seats, and they’re not actually as productive as they can be—that causes a lot of problems. So when people feel like they’re bringing their whole selves to work, they’re as productive as they can be. At the end of the day, that’s going to lead to improvements in an organization’s bottom line.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Speaking of productivity, there is, of course, such a thing as pushing too hard. What’s the organizational risk of working your team to its breaking point? What do you lose when people start to hit their limits?

CARRIE FLETCHER

Quite often what you’re going to see is people can be pushed to a certain amount. And then, as you’ve said, they reach their breaking point. So organizations that are really struggling with this, you’re going to see higher sick time, you’re going to see short-term disability going up, you’re going to see long-term disability going up. You’re going to lose individuals. And because more and more organizations are really focusing on workplace mental health, are focusing on ensuring a psychologically safe workplace, people have more choices of where to go to work these days. And so ultimately you could be losing resources, which then is going to cost you. Anytime you need to recruit a new person and get a new person up to speed in an organization, that’s a very costly endeavor.

Then what you’re going to find is if already people are being pushed to their breaking point and you’re losing people, and those that are left behind are pushed even harder to get the same amount of work done but spread over fewer people, then you’re going to lose them as well. So even your top performers and those people that are just work, work, work, work, work, those workhorse people, they too have their breaking point.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

A few years ago, while you were leading the enterprise PMO, CAMH launched its Safe and Well initiative, a suite of projects aimed at supporting employee well-being—including mental health. Can you tell us a little about that?

CARRIE FLETCHER

We took on quite a few initiatives at CAMH to address physical safety, and that has now morphed into working on psychological safety. And psychological safety, I’ll be honest, it’s tougher to address than physical safety. With physical safety, you can put in self-protection training programs. You can put up signage. You can potentially look at your skill mix and adjust staffing on units. You can look at physical changes. But when it comes to psychological safety, it’s more challenging to address because you’re really getting into understanding people. And a lot of managers are very good at that, are very good at understanding people and working with people and making adjustments to meet the needs of their people. But some managers aren’t comfortable with it and need more support around that.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

So there’s a lot of institutional know-how there, but at the same time, hospitals, health systems don’t have a wonderful reputation for self-care, even though they sort of theoretically have the tools to do that. Have there been particular challenges to rolling this out in this environment, or—because this is an issue that everyone is passionate about—has it been easy to get buy-in?

CARRIE FLETCHER

It has been easy to get buy-in because we’re a mental health and addictions organization, so it’s what we do. Where it’s been tougher is, we’re an addictions and mental health organization; we should know what to do. They always say that clinicians are the worst patients. And it’s sort of true in this way. So we really had to focus on implementing our—and developing, really—our workplace mental health strategy. That we approached it like any other project that we do. And that started with requirements gathering. That started with having 19 focus groups across the organization, both in-person, pre-COVID, and virtually. We have staff that are spread out across the province of Ontario, so ensuring that we did road trips to visit them. We got thousands of recommendations back from those focus groups, of which we had a significant number of staff, hundreds of staff, that participated in those, where we then themed them. And that then led us to 22 recommendations that we’ll be enacting over a three-year period. And that’ll take work to implement it. It’s about identifying resources. It’s about shifting culture. It’s about ensuring that our managers and leadership understand what it takes.

We’ve addressed stigma to a certain extent externally to CAMH, but people still don’t feel comfortable, and in many workplaces do not feel comfortable, to speak about their mental health at work. They feel that it will harm them, harm their professional development and growth. They feel that they may not then get opportunities provided to them because they have shared. And that’s simply not true because if you’re able to share upfront early on and address how you’re feeling and get things addressed, as I’ve said earlier in this interview, early in the game, that’s when you’re actually going to see significant progress. And that’s where you’re going to see that mental health doesn’t negatively have to impact an organization if, again, you address it early, you keep the lines of communication open, and people feel supported by the organization. They will give back so much more to an organization that they feel supported by.

STEVE HENDERSHOT

Could you offer a few tips to project leaders on how they can help support the mental well-being of their teams?

CARRIE FLETCHER

Number one is just simply checking in on people. So if, for example, you’re doing whether it be a weekly team meeting, or maybe you have status meetings with your team members, taking the time. Yes, you get the update on the project and where things are at and the tasks and the risks and the issues. And then you take five minutes to say, “And how’s everyone feeling? How’s the team feeling?” Or if it’s an individual meeting, checking in on the individual, “And how are you doing? Is there any support you need? Is there anything that you want to discuss with me?”

Number two is you will end up getting to know—at least in the projects that I’ve worked on—you get to know your project team pretty well. Even if you’re separated apart and maybe working in different areas or parts of the country or even world, you start to get to know each other relatively well. When you notice a change in someone, address it. Say, “Hey, Steve, I just noticed that you didn’t quite seem yourself. Is there anything that you need support on? Anything that you have concerns about with the project? Do we need to look at your workload? Do we need to look at how things are functioning?” Just opening that conversation. I get it that that’s sometimes scary because sometimes people don’t know, “Well, what if Steve tells me something that I’m not prepared to hear?” But you need to have the conversation. So that’s another piece, because many people who are struggling with their mental health, they want to feel connected. They want to feel like somebody cares. And sometimes it could just be a simple conversation. And Steve could say, “You know what, I’m just going through a really rough time. Maybe one of my parents is ill. I’m feeling really stressed.” Okay, well, do we need to shift some work deliverables for a week? Can we look at some flexibility around your schedule? What can we do to support you? Do you need to go to an appointment with your mom or your dad or whatever it is? Just knowing and working through and problem-solving with that individual will be really helpful.

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STEVE HENDERSHOT

Now we go to Wrocław, Poland. Projectified^®’s Hannah Schmidt spoke to Aga Swiatowa, who’s leading the people technology and innovation team at media company Discovery. They spoke about how leaders can support their team members—whether they’re in the office or remote.

MUSICAL TRANSITION

HANNAH SCHMIDT

How are you seeing the discussion around mental health and work shift?

AGA SWIATOWA

I was seeing a lot of these discussions before in my previous workplaces. It was more related to burnouts. I think we discuss more of it in Europe, or at least we did a while back. It was like five, 10 years ago. But I think the shift that we see now, it’s really related to the whole COVID situation, the virus, that we have been isolating ourselves for a longer time and probably because we all felt some type of mental health issues ourselves, right? So we started to discuss that more, also in workplace. And I think it’s great. It’s been a topic for a while, but definitely it’s becoming more discussed. It’s a good shift, in my opinion.

If you care about the mental health, you’ll see the results. You’ll see the objectives that are being met. You’ll see that people want to do more because they are trusted. If you have inclusive teams, of course with good mental health and good culture with values, you will outperform other teams for sure. And other companies. It’s as simple as that.

HANNAH SCHMIDT

How can a team member’s mental health affect a project? What are some things project leaders might see if someone could use some help

AGA SWIATOWA

I have these spot checks with people—being open and talking about how they feel, but also sharing with them how you feel. If you observe even small drops in performance, they may be related to mental health. Sometimes we feel that, “Oh, he or she’s not doing such a great job as half a year ago or a year ago.” “She’s less productive or she’s less performing in job,” but we don’t connect it sometimes to type of mental health problems. As you were asking, How do you observe it or what impact it can have? Definitely you’ll see productivity drop. I think that’s the first thing.

The other one is less focus. Doing a lot of multitasking as well, that doesn’t support focusing at all. The productivity definitely will be lower. Eventually people don’t focus enough. If they sometimes don’t show up to work as well because they’ll be more on sick leaves, you can also observe that, right? Taking one day, a couple days off because they are not managing anymore with the work-life balance. But that’s definitely the thing that will affect projects. And then eventually we are talking projects, we are talking timelines, we are talking deliverables of the project. If someone is away for a longer time, you’ll need to think about what’s the backup plan, right? How do I replace the key project member if this is happening? So I think these spot checks, talking a lot to people and talking feelings as well. What’s going on in your life? What’s going on at work, of course, but also trying to get a little bit more into sense check, you know? How are the things on your end? When they are feeling distressed, they really need this compassionate human response, in my opinion.

HANNAH SCHMIDT

So we’ve talked a little bit about maybe some of the things that you’ll see from team members that kind of make you want to check in. And so how can project leaders best support team members’ mental health, and how can they also best support themselves?

AGA SWIATOWA

Starting with being vulnerable and really talking openly about [your] own challenges as well. Not only asking but sharing what’s difficult for you in your work-life balance, juggling multiple roles like we all do, especially talking now women with kids and careers. And demystifying this kind of busyness—being busy all the time and I have to be busy, my calendar has to be booked. Lots of multitasking as well. I’m always saying to my teams that, “Hey, guys, one step at a time. Maybe we go little slower, but later we can accelerate.” Because we get the basics right, we can accelerate in the long run.

This culture where people can really be themselves, feeling safe about talking emotions and sharing, I think that’s the key. If you create that environment, in the long run, you create trust as well. And that will help you to pick up early if something is not going right. On the other hand side, Hannah, this is more of a trust, empathy, kind of growth mindset with leaders, but also like basic stuff that we can support and make sure people take care about themselves. We also have to care about ourselves as leaders, of course. I have been given many good advices from my leaders, and I do the same to people I work with. Just book out some time in your calendar, whether you like walking, jogging, going to gym, whatever you like, book it out. Keep it. Don’t move it, because that’s really, really important. 

HANNAH SCHMIDT

We’re also seeing a rise in virtual and hybrid work. How does that change the dynamic between project leaders and their teams?

AGA SWIATOWA

I have been working, I can tell you, about 17 years or so with global dispersed teams. It’s definitely a lot more communication than you would normally do when you’re actually sitting together in office and seeing each other every day. It’s really dedicating your time, your calendar, to these one-on-ones, team meetings, spot checks, to pick up what’s going on with various team members. I think it’s very good practice as well to not only meet with your direct leadership team, but also to have from time to time [an] open line for anybody who wants to dial in.

But, again, it circles back to this open culture that you need to create, right? That people feel, “Okay, I can go, I can talk [about] what’s going on in my life and she will listen.” So this active listening skill is very important, too, and I think even much more than in normal setup. So when you work virtually, that’s actually all you’ve got. Of course, we use cameras a lot, but not everybody feels like camera. Sometimes there is no camera day, because I don’t feel like [it], and it’s fine, too. You don’t want to do that today? I’m fine to listen, and listen with no judgment, of course.

HANNAH SCHMIDT

Say someone does take some leave for mental health reasons. How can a project leader support them when they return to work?

AGA SWIATOWA

I’ve been there a couple times already with team members coming back after burnouts, as we call it. Such team member, after a break—couple weeks, months sometimes—they feel like, “Everybody knows I’ve been on that type of leave, and maybe I’m not in the same situation when I was leaving, so will I be even given a proper role in the project? Or do I need to be working in the background?”

So there is a lot of questions that people have. I think it’s talking openly about how you feel. Can you take this type of role in the project, or do you want a stagger approach? I actually had this situation that we were thinking, “Okay, you are not coming back full-time, but we take it step by step and increasing your role in the project.” So I think that’s really number one. Also in team meetings, sometimes it’s making sure that this person can take part in discussion, because maybe they will not feel immediately that they want to be discussing as the rest of the group. But giving them space and opening the door a bit.

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STEVE HENDERSHOT 

The hallmarks of a healthy organization have always included satisfied, engaged employees. Still, it’s refreshing to see so many teams and organizations embracing that fact publicly, working proactively to support employee mental health and just showing greater care for their people. There’s work yet to be done, but it’s clear that no matter where we land in the “new normal,” those companies paying attention to mental health matters are on a good path.

NARRATOR

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