Human-First HR: Innovative Mental Health Approaches with Heidi Carlson from RDO
At Goodpath, we are fortunate to work with passionate, dedicated benefits leaders building innovative strategies that advance the well-being and happiness of their employees. Our new interview series, Human-First HR: Navigating the Evolving Work Landscape, features these innovators and how they are helping their companies build programs that adapt to the changing needs of their workforces.
In this interview, we spoke with Heidi Carlson, Benefits Manager at R.D. Offutt Company (RDO). RDO is a family-owned and operated company comprised of business entities in agriculture and construction equipment, farming, as well as food and food processing. RDO is committed to the health and wellness of its 5,000 team members across more than 12 states.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A new, critical initiative: empowering managers as advocates for wellness
One of the biggest things that we have realized and changed over the past few years is that we need to get our managers more involved and advocate for the benefits that we offer and the available programs. For so long, it was just the wellness team trying to get programs or initiatives out to our team members.
The managers are the ones on the front lines, getting the questions from the employees, and having the conversations about what they're going through at that time. And then they're the ones that at that moment can say “Hey, did you know that we have X program?”
At first, it was the realization that we needed to get our managers more on board with our programs. But then it had to go beyond just letting them know what benefits we have to offer.
The training program has managers examine their own lives and well-being - examining what’s going on with you, what's going on with your wellness, how are you doing, how are you feeling and what benefits can you take advantage of so that you can be a better manager for your team members.
This is important because if they're not doing it for themselves and if they don't believe in it for themselves, they're not going to be inclined to talk to their team members about it.
The training then goes on to talk about ways that they can help their team members with our wellness initiatives at work. Through that training, they're getting more comprehensive information about our wellness offerings, with the hopes that when the time comes, they can talk about those things with their team.
Since we have started manager training, we have seen a lot of success, and the utilization rates of our wellness benefits increased.
Championing mental health within teams helps break down stigma
We are a predominantly male population. Our employees work in agricultural and construction equipment stores, on farms or in food processing facilities. And it can be hard to get employees to really take some of these things that they might be experiencing seriously and know that they can get help.
There's a lot of stigma for men, and they think about mental health a little bit differently. Fortunately, it's changing, but part of it changing is people getting help and then talking to others.
I really have seen a change in the male population because their managers are mostly men too. And so when their manager is talking to them about getting healthcare and says “Hey, you know what? I've actually used it too,” those guys are taking it more seriously and thinking “Well, if he can, then I can too.”
Streamlining mental health support with immediate, accessible resources for employees
Like most other employers, the need for mental health benefits has become increasingly apparent over the past couple of years. We've had more leaves of absence due to mental health issues than we've ever had before. And just generally more people hurting since the pandemic. And then, together with the fact that it seems like there are fewer mental health therapists out there and longer wait times to get in to see them, that doesn't leave team members in a very good spot if they really need help now.
We came to the decision probably two years ago that we needed to be the ones to try to put something into place for those team members. Instead of leaving them out there to figure something out on their own, we wanted to provide them with something that they could utilize rather quickly instead of having to wait or do all this searching for a mental health provider in the first place. If you are really in a bad spot at that point in time, you just can't be waiting that long.
I'm not going to say that they expected it from us. It's not like anybody ever came to us and said, well, why aren't you providing this for us? I mean, that was never the case. It was just us looking at it and realizing, you know, we need to try to do something here.
If employees need mental health support, they can go and find a counselor, run it through the medical plan, can go see somebody in person or through telehealth. Or if they want, the EAP will help find somebody in person or via telehealth. We also have Learn to Live, which is online at your own pace. And then we've got Goodpath, which is virtual counseling and not even just for mental health.
By implementing Goodpath, it couldn't be any easier. All [someone] really has to do is go to this site, do this assessment, and they can be in a program rather quickly.
If you realize you need help, we need to get people help right then instead of putting hoops or hurdles for them to jump over.
Evaluating benefits program success through utilization, feedback, and the importance of offering diverse options
To gauge the success of benefits programs, we definitely look at the utilization numbers. Another way I look at it is whether or not we’re hearing complaints about an area. It’s good when I’m not hearing complaints, and better if, at the same time, I’m hearing good things about a program.
For example, when I hear about our financial wellness benefit and how the team has benefited so much from connecting with a coach. When I hear those stories, those are the biggest things that can drive other people to use the benefit.
One of the things that we've always tried to do here is to give people choices. We know that not everybody's situation is the same.
We offer four medical plans, two different dental plans, and two different vision plans. We want people to be able to have options and to be able to choose what's going to work best for them and their families at the time.
We don't hear a lot about things that are missing from our benefits package because we offer a pretty robust benefits package that has lots of choices. We've always taken the stance of offering a variety of benefits and choices for our team members.
Balancing data and listening to pick the right benefits for your team
You need to listen to your team members. Think about what you are hearing, and also what you are not hearing. Listen to your team members, but also take a look at the data that you can get from your medical carriers. For us, we could see that MSK and mental health were big needs.
In finding Goodpath, we were able to feel good that we were offering something that our team members would utilize and see results from because of the MSK and mental health parts of the program. And then, we don't hear a lot about sleep problems because I think people just think they're normal. And well, they're really not. It’s good to help people discover something else might be going on.
Approaching mental health differently can engage more employees
One of the big benefits of having Goodpath is that it offers mental health even for conditions like MSK.
I might not have guys call in specifically for mental health, but I bet you they'll call in for their sore knee or their sore back or their neck that's been hurting. It's very obvious when your knee is hurting, but it might not be as obvious when you're too stressed.
By way of them calling in and going through the assessment and even talking to the coach, they're going to end up getting some mental health help that they might need.
It works because if you go at them with “this is a mental health benefit” we hear “I don’t need that.” But, they might realize “Oh I have a sore knee” and they call in, and then end up maybe finding out they could use help with other stuff that they didn't know before.
Disclaimer: RDO is a Goodpath client.