telehealth – Workforce

November 14, 2020June 29, 2023

VF Corp. invests in empathy and resources for working parents

Challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic have affected most people in the workforce in one way or another.

Working parents have not only coped with their own retooled job responsibilities as many of them adjust to working from home, but in many cases they have also added daycare worker and classroom instructor to their resumes.

New research from Microsoft Corp. revealed that 54 percent of parents reported that it’s been difficult balancing household and professional demands while working from home. And according to a recent WalletHub study, 54 percent of parents with young children at home don’t think they are being more productive at home than they are in the office.

VF Corp., a Denver-based publicly traded global company of 50,000 employees, realized the plight facing many of their workers as summer was ending and as parents faced the specter of another school year of distance learning for their children. Leadership of the apparel and footwear company, whose brands include The North Face, Vans and Dickies, quickly prioritized providing educational resources to alleviate the extra pressure and stress that working parents whose children would be learning remotely may be experiencing. The pandemic created significant uncertainty and posed new challenges for everyone, said Anita Graham, executive vice president, chief human resources officer and public affairs at VF Corp.

“Through conversations with associates and responses to our employee surveys, we knew that many of our associates were struggling with balancing work and the responsibilities of caring for their families,” she said.

Technology partnerships ease remote learning

One program, Laptops for Learning, provided more than 500 reconditioned laptops at no cost to eligible U.S.-based employees at VF Corp.’s distribution centers, retail stores and customer service centers, providing children with the technology necessary to participate in distance learning. The organization also implemented Rethink, a resource for parents with special needs children, Graham said. Another initiative, Guidance Now, provides employees with access to tutoring support and free access to SitterCity to help identify baby-sitting resources that could serve as a substitute for traditional child care.

Case study: PFS dials up a rapid work from home solution for its call center staff

“We believe that a good education is a critical and significant stressor for parents, and we wanted to help alleviate the added stress,” she said. “Virtual learning has posed challenges that working parents haven’t previously encountered. How do associates keep their children engaged in virtual school while also doing their own work? How do they afford reliable technology needed for virtual learning? The laptop program emerged from this need.”

A boost for those needing elder care

VF Corp. also amped up its communications so that employees were aware of resources such as telehealth and the benefits available through a partnership with Bright Horizons, which provides backup child care as well as elder-care support.

“The coronavirus pandemic has been particularly impactful on older communities,” Graham said. “Adult children have had to take on more responsibilities for their elder parents, from running errands to providing full-time care. Our partnership with Bright Horizons has provided help to those employees who are providing elder care.”

Through the partnership, employees can take an online needs assessment, find information on selecting elder care resources, and utilize a search tool for finding and evaluating care providers, Graham said.

Moving to flex schedules and remote work

The pandemic has tested organizations’ agility to adjust to new ways of living and working. VF Corp. recognized early in the pandemic that it would need to introduce new programs and resources to keep morale up and employees engaged. Placing emotional and physical well-being at the forefront, they partnered with employee assistance program provider ComPsych to offer emotional well-being webinars to equip employees with the tools to keep themselves mentally healthy.

They also implemented new schedules and training programs to help employees put themselves first. Understanding that working from home poses child- and elder-care challenges, VFCorp. encouraged employees to rethink the traditional workday and create a flexible schedule that works best for them and their families.

Case study: COVID-19 causes Radial Inc.’s 25,000 seasonal hires to practice safe shipping

“The flexible scheduling program is an initiative we introduced at the start of the pandemic as a result of the stressors we were hearing from employees,” Graham said. “An employee can work with their manager to develop a schedule that allows them to take afternoons off to take care of children before resuming work in the evening.”

Considering that within the United States 70 percent of VF Corp. employees are hourly, 17 percent are salaried and 13 percent are contingent workers, Graham said they are sympathetic to accommodate employee needs while maintaining organizational operations.

“We have a wealth of initiatives and programs available to all our employees, no matter their role, location or level,” she said. “However, we do recognize that there are different needs across the enterprise, so we have developed unique programs for employees in retail stores and distribution centers.”

Remote work into the future

Rather than declare an “at least until” date, VF Corp. intends to remain flexible as a permanent approach and launched a future of work workstream called “Workplace Next” to define their vision for how they work in the future. The outcomes will be shared with employees in early 2021, Graham said.

Placing the needs of employees at the forefront of their actions is crucial to VF Corp. successfully navigating the pandemic, she said. It’s important to listen and it’s OK to over-communicate, she added.

“By listening to our people and taking action, we have been able to successfully keep morale high and our employees engaged and ultimately meet our consumers’ needs, and we’ll continue to listen to them to understand how we can help support them moving forward as our world continues to change.”

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March 31, 2020June 29, 2023

Onsite health clinics present unique challenges for employers during a pandemic

virtual care, health care systems, onsite clinics

In normal times, accessing health care on the property of an employer is a convenience. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, such access may stoke safety and hygiene concerns. Patients are supposed to avoid getting medical care unless it’s necessary in order to avoid coming into contact with the virus, and even accessing shared surfaces like biometric time clocks can put employees at risk.

According to Mercer, 17 percent of U.S. employers with at least 500 employees offer primary care through onsite or near-site clinics. During the COVID-19 outbreak in which people must social distance, employers may come across unique challenges with their onsite clinics and need to strategically rethink how to manage them

Mercer’s Worksite Clinic Consulting practice created a guide to manage employer-sponsored clinics during the pandemic.

The guide focuses on best practices to mitigate risk for employees and patients, respond to staffing limitations, identify supply chain barriers and “optimize the interest of public health.” The top six steps are:

Review and update existing plans.
Don’t make staff or patients sick.
Protect staff and patients by implementing new ways of working.
Prepare for absenteeism of staff.
Communicate, communicate, communicate.
Review and address any contractual requirements.
Regulatory considerations.

Just like larger health care systems, all employer health clinics and health workers must be prepared to evaluate and manage risks related to COVID-19. Proper infection-control equipment is a must, and clinic workers must know how to “safely isolate, transport and quarantine potential patients.”

Reducing the number of people requiring face-to-face examinations is necessary and can be accomplished via telehealth phone calls or video appointments.

Clinic staff members may get sick or need to take time off to care for a sick family member. Preparing for staff absenteeism doesn’t necessarily mean employees can’t work just because they can’t visit the clinic. Organizations can “repurpose clinical staff confined to their homes to be part of a virtual care team,” the guide stated. “This team can work together remotely to triage and serve patients via telephone or video visits to forestall the need for an in-person visit.”

Organizations can also support older staff members or those with health conditions by providing them virtual assignments only.

Meanwhile, communication is a key factor in all these steps. Employers should plan to communicate with their staff at least once a day regarding the status of COVID-19 in their community and within their organization, according to the guide. What’s especially important to communicate is how the company is dealing with various issues and challenges brought on by the outbreak.

Also read: During COVID-19 outbreak, utilize internal communications in your company crisis plan

Some communications best practices for employer clinics include:

Establish an emergency response command task force — all departments represented, reporting to the C-suite.
Establish a clinical response team, physician led — a team of clinicians who can track Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization information and summarize and distribute it to employees.
Communicate with the employee population regularly via a patient app.
Post information on the intranet and include information for appointment scheduling, the nurse call hot line and telehealth.
Educate employees on slowing the number of patients to not overwhelm the health care system.
Track lessons learned for post-pandemic response debriefing and process improvement.

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October 10, 2019June 29, 2023

Managing Mental Health Crises at Work

employers mental health; Millennials and mental health

Talking about suicide does not need to be taboo.

Mental Health America’s 2019 “The State of Mental Health” report has some concerning statistics. While adult prevalence of mental illness has been relatively constant, suicidal ideation, or suicidal thoughts, has increased from 3.77 percent in 2012 to 4.19 percent in 2017.

“That’s over 10.3 million adults in the U.S. with serious thoughts of suicide,” the report noted. Meanwhile, more than 10 million adults in the U.S. have an unmet need for mental health treatment.

Companies should understand how suicide could impact not only a person’s family and loved ones, but also their co-workers, clients and everyone around them, said Ali Payne, practice leader for organizational wellbeing at insurance brokerage Holmes Murphy.

“I think the way we make sure people feel connected is having a strategic relationship with leaders and having leaders be open about how it impacts them or how they do business,” Payne said. She suggested creating a work environment where open conversations are encouraged.

Leaders should educate themselves of the available resources and prepare themselves if a mental health crisis happens, she said.

Suicide is a significant public health issue both in the United States and worldwide. Between 1999 and 2016, suicide rates have increased in every state in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Further, the World Health Organization estimates that one person dies of suicide every 40 seconds worldwide.

“Our Global Suicide Crisis,” a 2019 report from Prudential, notes that while it’s understood that depression and anxiety can be precursors to suicide, there isn’t yet enough known about the many reasons behind suicide to prevent it. Still, addressing depression and anxiety can help.

One way to address mental health in the workplace is by adopting best practices such as telehealth for behavioral health and on-site mental health clinicians, the report notes. It also stressed that when an employee takes time off to deal with a mental health episode, managers should remain in contact with them. “This may not only help an employee through depression — it can also reduce their fear of returning to work,” the report noted.

Workplace benefits and policies like this are valuable, Payne said, but employers and managers can also learn about accessible community-based resources that address mental health. These resources include mental health services provided by and crisis hotlines, government organizations, state-based organizations and local hospitals and health providers.

“A lot of employers don’t always know what those resources are, and they sometimes take them for granted until they’re impacted by [a mental health crisis],” Payne said. “Then they might take the initiative to figure out what those resources are. But I always say, let’s be as proactive as we can and really try to get a handle on what [these resources] are even outside of what we’re buying today.”

Co-workers can also benefit from guidance in learning how to address what they think may be a mental health crisis in a colleague. It may not be a comfortable situation, Payne said, but part of the training she does for clients is based around understanding how to help struggling colleagues.

Productivity Expectations

One work reality that may impact an employee’s mental health is rising productivity expectations, Payne said. “Right now we’re all asking our people to do more with less,” she added, saying that employees are more often wearing many hats and pitching in wherever the company needs them. “We need to make sure we’re thinking about how workload impacts people.”

Even though employers understandably want employees to be their most productive selves, that’s difficult for an employee when they are having mental health problems. It’s an added stress as well if they still feel workplace pressure to be at maximum productivity even when they’re not feeling good, Payne said.

“If they’re feeling like this, they’re definitely not going to bring their whole self to work. They’ll leave a majority of what they need and what they want somewhere else,” she said.

She also suggests that team leaders learn to help people recognize when they’re not feeling 100 percent and when they need to take a break.

Personalizing Programs

“We can’t just say that mental health affects everyone the same way,” Payne said. Financial stress may negatively impact one person’s mental health while career stress may cause a similar reaction in someone else. There isn’t one simple solution to address this workplace issue.

“There’s no silver bullet to anything, and that’s what everyone wants,” she said. “Everyone wants this silver bullet that’s going to solve all the problems in mental health, like stress management.”

While stress management programs have some value, stress impacts everyone differently. People can improve their resiliency, but even so they may not be as resilient of a person as someone else, Payne said. Some people are just more resilient than others. Simply investing in programs meant to increase employees’ resiliency is not enough to address stress and mental health, she said.

Payne encourages her clients to consider all the resources they have at their disposal that can be impactful to different people with different needs who are struggling.

“It doesn’t mean that they’re struggling all the way to suicide,” Payne said. “It might just mean they’re struggling in general. How do we make it OK to not be OK?”

Further national, state and local resources: