Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to the Axiom Insights Learning and Development podcast. I'm Scott Rutherford, and this podcast series is focused on driving performance through learning. Today, our discussion is going to focus on managing mental health in the workplace. And I'm glad to be joined by Susan Malaya, who is a certified executive coach, also the COO and the chief learning strategist for mania Learning Global Solutions, a long standing and valued partner of Acxiom learning solutions. We worked together for many years and collaborated many ways. So, Susan, it's great to talk to you.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Thank you, Scott. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. This is a great topic. I'm happy to be here.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm excited to get into this a little bit as well, because, you know, and I thought maybe we should start with just understanding and sort of level setting. What are we talking about when we are addressing mental health in the workplace? Because on one hand, mental health in the workplace is context specific. It's, you know, are we. But are we only concerned about our workforce's mental health within the, you know, walls of the business, or do we. Or should we be thinking about this more broadly at mental health and also how it affects the workplace?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Well, you know, that's a great. It's like the chicken or the egg kind of thing, right? So I think when you. Mental health, as you know, is like, one of the greatest challenges, I think, that we're facing today. Right. Be it in our workplace, be it in our personal environments, just especially since COVID even before that, it's only been escalating. Over the last 15 years or so, 20 years, we've seen such an increase in the need for it and a shortage of actually mental health providers or just people's competency and skill to be able to really effectively work with that. But when we talk about, I think, mental health in the workplace, which, you know, when I look at it as a learning professional, I'm looking at training leaders to be effective at kind of being able to have awareness about it and more. How can I support my employees, right? So that's the way I look at it. But I also think it's. Is a broader. It's definitely a broader context that organizations can focus on through, like, their benefits plans and things like that to kind of help people beyond the walls of work. Right, as you had stated. But I think when we talk about, you know, from my perspective, for leaders kind of with mental health, it's really. One side is preventative. It's really like helping people manage stress of the workplace, like in one area often addressed by wellness programs, like, you probably know, companies that have lunchtime yoga or they're having lunch and learn informational sessions on mindfulness or how to do breath work, or just like informative type sessions that are really designed for employees to be able to take advantage of these tools and resources that they have to kind of manage day to day stress, right. Of just everyday living, not necessarily just work related. And I think the other piece is awareness. So as we think about, especially since COVID and you look at some of the issues of not just Covid and being isolated and feeling depressed or having anxiety, but what about individuals that are, you know, I have children that I have to take care of, and my spouse is gone all the time. And, oh, by the way, now I'm a caregiver for my parents, you know, so I'm carrying this huge load. Plus I'm trying to do my work right as well. And so that's, that's really challenging for people. And that kind of a situation is so much more common, especially as the boomer ages get older, they start going. And so we're going to see more and more of that type of taxing of our employees on the emotional side from the home front. And I think the other piece, though, for leaders is about awareness so that they have greater awareness of what's going on with their employees. So this is about them noticing behavioral changes or physical changes. Employees, for example, decline in productivity, or maybe they're withdrawn. They're coming in late to work more often than they were before, or they might be noticing physical changes like excessive tiredness or weariness. Maybe their physical hygiene isn't the way it was before and just kind of erratic behaviors that are not really typical for that information, I mean, for that individual. And so I think it's really important, though, when we talk about leaders with mental health, it's more around the awareness piece and how to have the conversation with the employee. Their job is never to diagnose. That is not their role. We're not trying to make leaders, clinicians to do that. That's not their job. But their role should be to be aware, I think, of these behavioral and physical changes in the employees so that they can help them develop strategies and skills. Right. That's what we're trying to do with the leaders, to effectively check in on their employees in a way that's very sincere and non judgmental. Does that make sense?
[00:05:15] Speaker A: It does. And I think, I think it's reflective of, you know, the way workers relate to their employer has changed. I can think over my own professional career, but it just. In the past ten years, where there's.
There is no longer such a firm split between people's personal Persona, their personal sphere and the work sphere. People are encouraged to bring their authentic selves to the workplace. People are, you know, people enter the workplace with a. And I think this is a good thing, an increased expectation to be included.
And, you know, there is, there's in my mind, a distinct overlap between, when we're talking about supporting the whole person of. Of any member of your workforce and their mental health, there's. It enters into inclusion and belonging and accepting. Accepting that person as a person. Not just. Not to be stark, but not just a cog in the wheel.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So. And it's like, you know, because I think with, with mental health issues especially, there's a lot of stigma around that, right. And just as there. When you talk about inclusion. Right. And belonging, that there's a lot of stigma around a lot of other factors around inclusion that we talk about in diversity, equity and inclusion. So, yes, mental health is definitely, I think, one of those things where we've got to start getting comfortable with people are challenged sometimes, and sometimes people need help and it's really okay if they do. And the sooner they get the help, the better the outcome from them. It's been statistically proven.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Right. And it's better for the people. But ultimately, you know, we're talking about this from a leaders perspective. And so, you know, I think we want to be aware of, well, what are the organizational benefits of this? If we're going to be putting in this effort as a business, we have to expect to see is it, is it reduced absenteeism, is it increased productivity, is it better retention? Or, I mean, what's the dynamic shift that an organization can expect when its leaders are conversant in just understanding and support mental health?
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think there's kind of a great divide here because, you know, when we. And I want to call this out, because when you look at large and mid sized companies, you know, probably for the most part, these organizations are bigger. They have bigger pockets. They're able to provide great benefits for their employees. Right. So many of them have things like employee assistance programs where, you know, leaders can share, have these great resources and options that they can refer employees to when, when they observe and the employee is willing to kind of get that kind of support. But if you start thinking about the number of small businesses in the country, right, or around the globe, small companies don't typically have the financial resources to offer these types of programs for employees. You know, so how are they going to help them? And I think that's something we kind of have to keep our eye on and pay attention to because, you know, even a few small, a few like a ten person company or I think a 50 person company, you know, that's where the threshold starts changing. But, you know, there's still a lot of people there that probably would benefit as well. Not probably, definitely, if there's mental health challenges and leaders in those organizations, albeit smaller, are able to help support their employees.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Right. And I would even go as far as, you know, you use diff, and I don't want to, I don't want to parse your language too much, but, but my thought is, is in this, this, again, is a little bit reflective of a emerging sort of modern perception and awareness of mental health. You know, if you have a dozen people in your very small company, there's nobody who's not walking in with some baggage on a particular morning what that is and what that looks like and what, we could debate what that is. But people are human regardless of the number of the size of the group, right?
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, Scott. And you talked about it from an employer's perspective, supporting mental health, really in the workplace, it has a significant impact on business. So if you look at things like retention and turnover, there was a study done by wellable that found that, like, that those with mental health issues are two and a half times higher risk of leaving the organization. If I'm depressed or I just, you know, I'm not, I'm not myself. I have a lot of anxiety. I'm going to be two and a half times more at risk for leaving. And if you can believe this kind of staggering thing, I was kind of surprised by this. 50% of employees have left a job due to mental health reasons, be it their own or someone else that they care about. If you think about all the people that are working in the world, like, that's a lot of people, right? That's a lot of people. So it's very personal. And I think, you know, when you look at productivity, well, imagine, of course, if you're, if you're tired or if you're dragging or if you're late to work, you know, it's, it's like it has a significant impact on productivity in the workplace. And the World Health Organization reported that depression and anxiety alone costs the global economy a trillion 1 trillion. Right. $1 trillion a year in lost productivity.
That's a staggering number.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: That's a staggering number. Yeah. 1 trillion.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Capital T. Yes, capital t. And then when you look at, like, employee engagement and advocacy, you know, we talk about that. Well, obviously, if I'm depressed and I'm not happy about what's going on at work because I'm too, like, you know, I have my mental health challenges, whatever those may be, and there's a lot of different challenges there that, you know, I'm not going to be, like, all hurrah for work. Right. And my engagement level is not going to be there because my brain is somewhere else. Right. And the advocacy for the company, especially if they're, if we're not talking about it or we're not effective about being able to support employees with mental health, then why are they going to be advocates for our company?
[00:11:41] Speaker A: And I think, and I think that, you know, and I don't want to take leaders monolithically. I think that, you know, but you, I think any of us who have, you kind of, when you enter the workforce, you, you develop a set of expectations and the way the world works, and sometimes you carry that forward. And, you know, I've been, I've been in the working world now for, you know, 30 years.
So, so part of, part of the way that my perception of the working world, how it works and how it's put together is based in that sort of late 1980s, early 1990s mindset that feels more like a parody of office space than it does reality. But my point being is that you have people who are in leadership positions who have entered at all sorts of different entry points. And some of those points of entry into the workforce, they were trained perhaps to not address personal issues. Do you know if someone having, if someone's having.
Look back on this sort of attitude with a little bit of disbelief in my own professional career, but I can think of examples where oh, so and so is having trouble. Oh, okay. That's their personal life. Stay out of it. If they're late, we're gonna, we're going to write them up for being late. Focus on the actions that affect the workplace, not, and we were told, leave their, their personal life out of it.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: So, so when we're talking, when we're retraining leaders now in the current, in the current moment, part of what we have to break down then, is to say, look, it's okay to cross that line, the line that some of us were taught never to cross.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's imperative, I think, in today's world because our world today isn't what the world was back in the eighties or nineties like, but some of us.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Are still half a leg back in that era, unfortunately or fortunately, you know, people don't just appear in the current era.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: No, I'm absolutely agreeing with you. And that's where I think the whole training component and awareness for leaders is so critical, right. Because if you look at it, like, when you get to, like, Jen's ears or they're really the people who are really quite open about getting counseling or getting support, you know, they're more likely to do probably virtual type counseling experiences or things like that. But, you know, compared to someone such as myself of the boomer generation, who'd be like, you know, we don't talk about that stuff. Right. You usually didn't talk about it, or you just kind of like, it's okay. Like, you're talking about as a leader, you didn't, like, cross boundaries of personal and work. There was a very clear divide there.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: But, you know, but now I think the other thing to think about that's a very important barrier for leaders is not just generational, but it's also bias. So you bring up how someone who was like, from that, like, like the old school world of business, right, that.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: We'Re talking about, it's okay. I'm okay being in the old school camp sometimes, if the shoe fits, you know?
[00:14:42] Speaker B: But I definitely like to think that I'm on track with the newer ways of working in the world. Right.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: We can try. The fact is we can learn. And that's maybe where we come back to the mental health awareness for leaders program that we're talking about really at the root of this topic.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Right, exactly. But a big thing. And you've talked about it before about inclusion and belonging. Inclusiveness and belonging. When you look at mental health awareness in the workplace and we have this generational impact, but there's also situational impact. So people bring their biases into work. Right. So you could still be young, but maybe you grew up in a family as a leader that had some, like, very, maybe they had mental health illness in their family, you know, and so. And nobody talked about it. And you were sort of raised to believe that that was just sort of a taboo topic. We just didn't discuss it. So those are things that I think leaders also have to explore about themselves. What are their personal biases about mental health as a leader? Because that will impact how they show up for employees. Right.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a good point. Because not to harp on this point, but there's a split of opinion, and I have an opinion on this. I'll get to that in a second. But employers who talk about we're family and using the family term as something, and I know it's well intended, but I think what can be missed in that framing of a workplace as family is the understanding that not all of your team members might have positive family backgrounds or experiences. And so what you think of as a positive may not be perceived equally as a positive depending on where people are coming from and what they've been raised in and what they've experienced. So diversity of life experience is so important.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I so appreciate your point of view on that topic because, you know, I've been working on an inclusive leader program, too, that I'm creating. And that's one of the things is really looking at that, like, people's different dimensions of diversity, now they have the five dimensions of diversity. And really looking at that and saying, what is this person's experience? And, you know, it's just so varied that, you know, people really have to be very cautious about what they paint in their mind is what is like, to your point, family, you have a happy view, someone may not have a happy view.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. What does normal look like? Maybe ask ten people, you'll get ten answers.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Exactly. You know, so I think that. I think that's really one of the big things. Why the training specifically for leaders is really critical, right. Because these are skills that they're going to need. I mean, they know what to do in case of emergency if, like, you know, you have a, like a crisis event or something like that. But what happens if you have mental health challenges in the workplace and leaders have to do that, too. And, you know, I often worry that leaders think, oh, no, here's something else you're going, now I have to be a counselor. You know, all this stuff that I have to do as a leader, it's a lot, you know, leadership is hard, but if people are coming from a place where they're really very focused on, you know, building their own skills and competencies in these areas, about. Around awareness, around inclusion, around being able to explain to their own biases about this topic so that they understand how to better approach people. Right. And continue to learn. And there's so many different ways that people can learn this. And it's not just like, I took this training, so now I can do it. This is like anything else. You have to build that skill and muscle, you know? So I think, you know, where leaders are concerned, I think to be more effective is really around areas of awareness of employee behavior and physical changes and knowing the resources that they can offer. Because, remember, they're not there to diagnose. They're not there to make that diagnosis. They're there to make that, that recommendation. If the employee is open to having the conversation and they can't force themselves on the employee about that, you know, if there's work, if there's work degradation or they have to talk to them because, you know, the productivity is low or whatever. Sometimes, you know, sometimes people aren't productive or don't get things done because they may just want to hang on and they don't trust other people. Like, maybe I am overtaxed and I need to take off for a leave of absence for a month because I have to sort out what I'm going to do with my aging parents so that I can actually get back to work and have my head and work right. And a lot of times, you know, people are like, they don't want to say that and they don't want to do it. So on the part of the employee, they can also be a barrier to being effective there because they're like, no, no, no. And even if the leader's saying, we'll take care of you, but, you know, last time people didn't do that, then they're trying to manage everything instead of trusting the group. So there's a lot of team dynamics that go into being effective leader as it relates to mental health in the workplace. Yeah.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: And you meant, you used the word trust. And that is, that's really so critical because, you know, from, from, from a leader's perspective, it's sometimes easy to forget that there's an anxiety on behalf of your team member when you're talking about something that could be, seems potentially punitive. And, you know, at the end of the day, we're talking about people's livelihoods and their lives and their paycheck and, you know, with, you know, and again, you don't know any individual's background or how, what they've been able, what their savings account looks like or what their life circumstances are. So when you're, when you're addressing, when you're, when you're starting to peel back the layers of this onion, you have to rely on a trust. Hopefully you rely on the trust because there's a lot of potential risk to the team member to open up and be vulnerable.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So, and it's like you said, if you're a good leader. I mean, I kind of go back to what are the actual competency areas where this stuff falls? And it's under emotional intelligence, it's under communication effectiveness, leadership presence, like just being, you know, instilling in people a sense of psychological safety and calm. And it's also around teams and culture building. And, like, you know, you can't, you can't go in and all of a sudden be asking your employees questions when you really may not know anything about them to begin with. So that's where that understanding your team and being a good leader with that part of being a good mental health, like, you know, leader for your, for your employees is really knowing who your employees are to begin with. Right.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: So I wanted to ask you a little more specifically about the mental health awareness for leaders program that you've been working on, just to understand how that works in practice. So, hypothetically, if you're, well, maybe this is a question. Is it best, quote unquote, to do it with an individual leader, or do you want to do it with a leadership team for an organization? Maybe pros and cons of those two approaches, individual versus group. But in either case, or perhaps in both cases, where do you start? What's the process look like?
Are we talking about weeks or months or what's the experience, really?
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think to begin with, it's like introducing the concept of mental health for leaders in the work and really setting kind of the groundwork for them to understand their role as leaders. And because of the impact of mental health on the workplace and their business results and performance, it's so important that they kind of see the bigger picture of mental health and how it's impacting organizationally. And then you really have to take it to kind of the human level of, like, the context of these things. And I think we also talked about really being able to understand what is like, we talked about the differences. One is like, obviously, I'm burnout and I'm fried and I need time to step away and I need help, and I need to know that I'm still going to have my job when I get back. Or, you know, how do you have those conversations? How do you approach people? And, you know, there's really, we built in, like, case studies and scenarios for them to be able to practice it. But really, as with anything, training is a component of it. It takes practice, practice, practice. Right? Just like when you're doing anything to get really good at it, you have to kind of really continue to learn about it. And aside from like the mental health for leaders in the workplace. I think there's a lot of programs that support that and there's ones like the, that support from like an individual level that you can go to. But they also do it for like organizations. But it's being certified for adulter adolescent mental health first aid in the US. And this is through the National Council for Mental well being. And I got certified for it because I really started seeing around, you know, like this. They're talking about scenario based things and the approach that you need to take, really reinforcing that. You're not a clinician, you are not diagnosing, you are aware and you approach non judgmentally and see if they allow you to make a recommendation to get support. But you can't force anything on them save being ready to take their life or something like that, where you can dial 988 or something like that. Or the suicide hotline for instances like where you're just noticing like maybe severe depression or things like that. You know, it's how are you prepared to be able to offer resources to people and just let them know that you care and you can take that, not just as a leader in the workplace. What about your neighbor, what about your family member? Other things like that. So for me, I did this program because I just felt like it was so important. And they offer one for adolescents as well. That is also equally good. So I don't think it's one thing that helps, but I think it's multiple things. But I think it's really kind of setting context for what are we talking about? What is the scope of the leader's responsibility in mental health, leadership in the workplace? What are the resources and those, that is where you really tailor it for the Organization. Right. So as we have this put together, it depends if I'm working for this Organization, they have different EAP policies or you have this Organization, they have different ones, you know, so you have to kind of understand what resources does the organization offer, because really that's the place to start with what they have. And then, and then how do you have the conversation? And I think for leaders, that's the hardest thing ever, right? So how do we take these case studies and see how we approach them? And I think, and also it's really exploring what are my biases around mental health. So that's something else that we also explore. So it's a little bit of inclusive leader and mental health leader kind of mixed together, I guess you could say.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: But as you mentioned earlier, we were talking about sort of the culture and what we're describing here is it's an important building block of the culture of how the manager approaches those conversations with members of the team. But it's also, again, as you said, it's what are the structural supports? What are the policies? Because I think probably fair to say that you can have as a manager or as a leader, all the best intentions, but if you don't have something on a piece of paper to reinforce that our organization is committed to support the health and wellness, the mental health, inclusive of our staff, you're going to have a harder time building that trust and having that conversation and having it be meaningful and really having it be accepted.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. And for leaders to know that, again, those policies and plans are there for a reason. Right. Because we as an organization care about our employees. We understand that employees have this challenge at times and we're offering the benefits if they're able. Right. That can help them. Right. And it's not only in the moment of what's that policy and plan, which is really important for the leader to know how long are they going to be out or maybe they're not going to be out. Maybe they'll just be in and really understanding where's their boundaries of being aware, approach recommend and then just being supportive but not badgering people about it. It's kind of like you sort of go to a place where you have to allow the individual kind of take ownership of their journey that they're going through. And it's not the mat, leaders job to be every day checking in on them.
How you doing today? You feeling good? You know, like, you definitely want to check in, but, you know, there's boundaries there that you have to be aware of, you know, and those will be in the organization's policies about things like that as well.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
And there's, you alluded to this, too, but there's a emotional intelligence factor to it as well. You want to be able, I imagine, too, you know, to reach out and periodically check in, you know, be open to feedback, but, but also be cognizant that, you know, well, you know, like, you know, never ask someone how they're, how they're doing in a, in a, in a, in a group setting, for example.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Actionable tip, you know, but, but it's, it's, it's having the emotional intelligence to read the room and understand the context that you're. That you're, that you're in the.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And how. And how to set that up with the rest of the team, if someone is going out on a leave for a little while, you know, like, what are the boundaries for there? And again, those are things where your human resource department and things like that in organization, they always, those policies and procedures for that always take precedence. Right. Because that's within the organizational structures.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: So, so I wanted to ask you, in terms of your, you know, just in your survey of the, of the, the landscape of the workforce landscape right now, are there any companies that you could think of or you want to hold up as examples of organizations that are kind of on top of this who are doing this well right now, maybe examples to learn from?
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Well, I would tell you that I think that before COVID and definitely after the issue of mental health is now, I think, one of the greatest issues of our time. And I think that we're at the beginning of that journey of how do we impact workplace mental health within organizations. And I think, you know, there's such a shortage of mental health resources in our communities and even within, you know, where people would be able to go to get support. I think integrating it as a business strategy is something that businesses really need to think about organizations. So how do we make mental health and wellness a strategy for organization? Because if it's impacting things like productivity, retention, absenteeism, those are things that hit us hard, right. As organizations from our profitability, from our, you know, and so it's important. It's really important. It's just as important as the sales of products. Right, or services. So I think that that's the first thing that I would say. And I. And, you know, what really got me, like, going on this whole thing for me was a Harvard Business review, and it was in the September October issue of the Harvard Business Review. And the article was helping an employee in distress by Kiran Boddy and Thomas Roulette. And they really had this concept that they wanted to bring about, about cognitive behavioral therapy right, in the workplace. And really, how could you leverage that framework that's used in, you know, and counseling and mental health counseling? How could you use that to be able to teach leaders how to do it? Because even people who are non clinicians and things like that actually leverage the framework for that, because it really looks at, like, kind of four states. It looks at, like, the person's cognitive state, their mood state, their psychological state, and their behavioral state. So it's kind of, you can anchor it around these four areas. And so what we're seeing is apps are getting created or different plans and programs that employees can access online that they can use to kind of like self, even like help themselves with this CVT approach to continue how to manage their depression or their anxiety or things like that, by being able to understand what are my trigger points? What are things like that? So one thing that I found, I was just, I was really like, so intrigued by this concept because I thought, you know what? It's like, this is amazing because it's like if you look at it from these different facets of an individual, there are different areas where mental health issues surface, right? So I called my clinician friend, Alicia Allen, and I said, look, I really think that we should look at creating something together that would be able for leaders to be able to kind of leverage this type of concept in the workplace, right. So that they become more aware. But that's where I really got triggered to put this together as a need. And so, but in the article, what I wanted to call out to you is that it called out, like, some companies that really are doing a great job with this. And KPMG was one, believe it or not. Uber, bank of America, they called out Microsoft, Salesforce was another one. All of these are offering these cognitive behavior therapy based tools to their employees. That's pretty cool, right?
[00:32:48] Speaker A: It's all you mentioned. That's a Harvard Business review article, and I'll have to get the link and we'll put it on the episode page.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, definitely after the production here. It's fascinating. And they tell it in like a case study. So I was just. I was just so impressed with the approach and the concept of it that it got me thinking we should do something with this for leadership, because we offer a lot of leadership development training programs for our clients, the most recent being the crisis leadership that we're doing a lot of focus on right now given hurricane season for us. But the mental health piece was really something. I felt that was just as important that it really needed to be there.
I think it's more of a hands on piece then other organizations experimenting with things like AI chat bots to deliver this type of therapy to people. So this is where we see AI converging with the mental health, you know, kind of counseling approach. And I think it's just fascinating, actually.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: You know, and I think it is. You know, we're talking about trends, the awareness and acceptance and the ability and the willingness to have a conversation about mental health in the workplace, you know, means that what we're talking about here is increasingly a required piece of the leaders tool set. Toolkit.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: And I think that as much as we are interested in AI and interested in new technologies, there is not a business that exists that doesn't have people at its core. And so leading our people and supporting our people is a competitive advantage. Has to be.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Well, I was like, I like to say when everybody gets hyped about AI, I'm like, it's just a tool.
It's a tool that some people will go, no, it's not. It's taken over the world. But for me, it's a tool. And I kind of put it in its proper place because I agree with you, there's no substitute for the human connection. A lot of companies, and also in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, are already offering mental health first aid training to managers and employees. So there's other places that offer off the shelf training, but, you know, like, there's more than 3100 companies that offer this type of training, right? Which more than 3 million people have completed. So. And this is according to the National Council for mental well being. So people are paying attention. Organizations are really starting to recognize that it is a critical competency for leaders to be able to do this. And there's a, there's so many avenues for it. Whether you do it organizationally, as a leader, whether you do it individually as a person, it's just, it's worthy training to take because you'll be able to help someone.
[00:35:42] Speaker A: You know, this is mania of Manaya Learning global solutions thank you for coming on the podcast. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
And I'll have a link to the Manaya Learning Global Solutions website as well as to some of the resources that we were just talking about on the Axiom Learning solutions podcast page, the episode page this, which is axiomlearningsolutions.com podcast. So Susan, pleasure talking to you and thank you so much.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Thank you. I love this topic. Thank you so much for having the conversation.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: This has been the Axiom Insights Learning and Development podcast. This podcast is a production of Acxiom learning solutions. Acxiom is a learning and development services firm with a network of learning professionals in the US and worldwide, supporting l and D teams with learning staff, augmentation and project support for instructional design, content management, content creation and more, including training, delivery and facilitation both in person and virtually. To learn more about how Acxiom can help you and your team achieve your learning goals, visit axiomlearningsolutions.com. and thanks again for listening to the Axiom Insights podcast.
