The topic of mental health has become more accepted within the last decade, with mental health in the workplace being no exception. According to a 2024 Forbes article titled “An Employer’s Guide to Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace,” 1 in 3 Americans say their jobs have a negative impact on their mental health. And in a Society for Human Resource Management study of 1,000 workers, 29% indicated their work made them feel anxious at least once a week.
So, how do Arkansas business executives take these numbers and set them on a declining trend? How do they show colleagues that what they’re going through is not a sign of weakness?
For Curtis Barnett, CEO of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Little Rock, there is no health without mental health.
“We’ve tried to do a lot of work in recent years around expanding peoples’ view of what health is. We’ve always thought of it as physical health, and ‘Am I walking OK? Do I feel OK physically?’” Barnett said. “We really didn’t think about mental health in particular, the thing you can’t see.”
Leaders in the health field say it’s often good to assess the interactions between the executives and the employees, and see if there is any undue stress, such as emailing on the weekends or a heavier than expected workload. Making sure that employees know those in the C-suite value their health and well-being, and are encouraging them to get rest, is one of the top things to implement within modeling strategies.
“So much of what a CEO does is being a role model for the rest of the organization,” Barnett said. “It’s important for CEOs and all leaders to model good habits when it comes to health. You want to try to show that health is important to you, for your own personal health, both on a physical and mental standpoint as well, and that you take care of yourself and are setting a good example for others.”
Blue Cross and Blue Shield offers additional mental health tools to its employees, including programs to become “mental health awareness certified,” also known as mental first aid. The programs can last from a few hours to a full workday, educating employees on how to pick up on the warning signs that someone may be struggling and how to get them the resources they need as effectively as possible.
For its 75th anniversary in 2023, Blue Cross and Blue Shield teamed up with the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership to provide mental health training to around 1,100 people and nearly all 75 counties across the state of Arkansas. Additionally, over 100 of the insurance company’s own employees have been certified, along with a number of executives and managers.
Blue Cross also offers Fitness for Duty exams, an evaluation that determines whether an employee is well-suited enough to continue or come back to work after experiencing a high-stress or traumatic life event. Having worked in the labor and employment law business for over 30 years, Mike Moore has seen the good that can be achieved.
“When I have somebody who’s clearly got some mental health issues, rather than terminating them, if we send them for a Fitness for Duty, that puts them in the hands of a medical professional that they might not otherwise get in the hands of,” said Moore, a partner at the Friday Eldredge & Clark law firm. “And especially with someone who might have some suicidal ideations, we want them to get help, and that’s the way we get them in somebody’s hands the quickest.”
Objective evidence that someone is a danger to themselves or others must be shown in order to qualify them for an examination. The sooner the signs are recognized, the sooner fellow coworkers get the care they need.
At Blue Cross, the leaders say offering such resources is worth every penny if it means that their employees – their family – don’t have to pay a higher price.
“It’s an investment that individuals make, that companies can make and it again is another way to show that this is a priority, because it is. And it can save people’s lives,” Barnett said.
The company is now investigating ways to improve not just mental health, but also behavioral health, such as bipolar issues, trauma in children and adults at home and substance addictions. The intent is to advance toward greater whole-person health across the organization.
This article originally appeared in the 2024 edition of Executive Mental Health, a supplement publication of Arkansas Business.
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