Canadian HR Strategy

24 Executive Series Digest hrreporter.com We all have everyday mental health issues (Organizational Effectiveness) By Dave Crisp A s director of cross-Forces social work and a former military police offi cer, Suzanne Bailey clearly picked up the value of simplifying programs to suit staff needs. Where previously social work senior staff used to lecture, using technical names and descriptions of types of mental health chal- lenges, they decided to ask front-line soldiers what they needed in order to understand and improve things day-to-day. e fancy name for what they developed is a "continuum of mental health." But to everyday you and me, this boils down to some pretty basic concepts that make total common sense. e materials they use un- derscore how straightforward this can become. I'd summarize it like this: We all have mental health issues. We all need to learn to cope with stress, overwork (to varying degrees), family problems, and fear (even in civilian organizations — including fear of job loss, being fi red or "found out as a weak per- former"). ere are all kinds of anxieties about coping. In every organization, one only has to ask what topics are popu- lar to hear a list that includes stress management, time management, delegation and a whole range of "how to cope with a problem boss, co-worker or employee." If we think these issues aren't impeding everyone's productivity — including our own nearly every day, in one way or another — we are missing the point. So what do we do? Should we focus on making people feel good? My old CEO used to call HR "social workers" — and he wasn't being complimentary. Nora Spinks, one of the presenters at the session, and Bailey both say focus on performance. Managers need resources they can turn to for advice on handling others or where to send people for advice on handling themselves, but a manager's primary focus has to remain performance. What could be simpler? Why haven't we paid more attention to this in all these years of ignoring, avoiding and trying to get rid of people with mental health issues? e answer is simple. ere are two ways of identifying perfor- mance as a number one concern to an employee (a statement even Attila the Hun could agree with, or your CEO). One is to say performance is all that counts, so if you have to fi re people, beat them up mentally, force them, turn up the heat or what- ever jargon serves in your organization — so be it. Another is to say, as these two presenters did: Your objective is to fi nd out why someone is slipping in performance and what can be done to help or how you can encourage them to help themselves. All too o en, we get caught in the wrong end of these dual ways of pressing for better performance. It is the same issue the Forces recognized when they decided to ask soldiers what they needed. As individual bosses, we should ask employees what they need. We should mention we've noticed they seem stressed, tired or unable to focus the way they used to — and it's aff ecting performance — but with a goal of asking what would help: "Remember to take your vacation," "Call your EAP" or any one of dozens of possibilities from mundane to exotic. Keep the focus on performance and insist that something gets done to improve it — but off er ways they can fi nd help. As we so easily say, it's not rocket science but it is nonetheless diffi - cult. Courageous conversations take courage (there's plenty of fear you might get a bad response, make a situation worse, open a can of worms you can't control or give someone an excuse to start slacking off ). We can all tell when someone is off their game. Maybe we try to kid about it but do we really want to confront the fact this has been going on for awhile and not improving? Equally important, we know when we're off our own game, when we're not motivated or we're procrastinating. Do we hide from a boss who's likely to ask if we need help? ose can be mighty scary words. e only way to encourage people to have these conversations and to begin pointing more people at ways to help themselves — before things get to a crisis point — is to make everyone, literally everyone, at the organization familiar with having such conversations and having discussions about what works for them, what others have tried and where help can be found — on an everyday basis. If we really care about performance, it is the performance of all of us. Recognizing where we all are on the continuum of slipping at times and how to get excited and energized again, that's a problem everyone faces. Making it OK to talk about this stuff a lot more easily is a simple program that improves mental health all around, and productiv- ity and performance with it — nothing terribly unique, unusual or weird, just everyday stuff , right? Let's make it so. Dave Crisp is a Toronto-based writer and thought leader for Strate- gic Capability Network with a wealth of experience, including 14 years leading HR at Hudson Bay Co. where he took the 70,000-employee retailer to "best company to work for" status. For more information, visit www.balance-and-results.com. Why is there still stigma around mental health? (Strategic Capability) By Karen Gorsline O ne in fi ve Canadians will experience a form of mental ill- ness at some point, according to the Canadian Institute of Health Research. Organizations struggle to publicly acknowledge and accept MENTAL HEALTH

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