IMS Insights Episode 60: Employee Assistance Programs & Career Balance

Organizational psychologist and author Melissa Doman, MA joins IMS Client Success Advisor and podcast host Adam Bloomberg for a special series in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. In this episode, they discuss employee assistance programs and balancing mental well-being with a stressful career. (Part 3 of 3)

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IMS has delivered strategic litigation consulting and expert witness services to leading global law firms and Fortune 500 companies for more than 30 years, in more than 45,000 cases. IMS consultants become an extension of your legal team from pre-suit investigation services to discovery and then on to arbitration and trial. Learn more at imslegal.com.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the IMS Insights Podcast. I’m your host, Adam Bloomberg. Today we are concluding our Mental Health Awareness Month series and speaking with Melissa Doman about employee assistance programs and balancing mental well-being with a stressful career.

Melissa Doman is an organizational psychologist, author, and former clinical mental health therapist. She works with clients around the globe—including Google and Dow Jones—and has partnered with IMS since May 2021. Her goal is to equip companies, individuals, and leaders to have constructive conversations about mental health in the workplace.

Adam Bloomberg: 

Can you talk to us about Employee Assistance Programs?

Melissa Doman, MA: 

I can, and I am actually a former Employee Assistance Program counselor, so I can talk right about that. So what I really love about EAPs, having been a counselor for one myself, is that it is literally giving on-demand access to a licensed or provisionally licensed therapist 24/7. That's what people don't realize is that the Employee Assistance Program, now granted, it has lots of different services: there's financial wellbeing, there's caretaking services for kids, there is legal advisement. There's lots of different services. But one of the main reasons that people called the EAP, is to talk to a counselor. But what most folks don't realize is that there are limits on confidentiality, and protections as well. So every time I would start a call for the client who would call in, and I spoke to anywhere from 50 to 75 people a week.

I would always say everything we talk about is completely confidential, except in cases of harm to self, harm to others, child abuse, or elder abuse. And the first thing they say to me, despite me sharing that is, “Wait, you're not going to tell my boss? You're not going to tell HR? You're not going to tell, you're not going to tell?” and I go, “No, I legally can't. As a mandated reporter, I can't. I can't tell them anything.” And so, people don't really understand that it is a protected service, except in those 4 cases. And so I always try and remind people, a lot of people don't even know what the EAP does. They don't know that they can get access to a therapist. They don't know that they can call the EAP in case of a mental health emergency, and they can alert local emergency services based on where you are. I had to do that a number of times, where I had to get emergency services to somebody in another state. So people, they’re so afraid to use the EAP because they don't want the EAP to tattle on them, which is illegal, but they don't use it at all. And they're just not getting access to free therapy. 

Depending on the plan that your company has, you can get access potentially to multiple sessions, and the whole point for a mental health perspective is you get this short-term bridge, where they do more solution-focus counseling. And then, if you need to get connected to a therapist long-term in your area, an EAP counselor worth their salt will do that for you. Say, hey, here are some numbers of people you can call locally, but just making sure to make that person feel heard, or get stabilized in the meantime. And so the EAP is such an underutilized resource, in my opinion, for lack of knowledge about what it does, because lots of people don't read the benefits emails. But companies don't really talk about it.

Melissa Doman, MA:

They don't talk about, not only just what the EAP does, but the benefits of using it, and really just stressing that confidentiality, I think that people don't use it a lot based on that. And it's really a shame, because I would even tell the people who would call in, and it's almost like they didn't believe me. And I was like, “Well, there are legal precedents around what I am saying, as a mandated reporter, I have to do this, so you're good unless you bring up those 4 things, and then things have to change.”

Adam Bloomberg: 

So unfortunately, it’s underutilized. Do you think that’s just across the board in all industries or does it vary?

Melissa Doman, MA: 

Yes, I think it’s underutilized across all industries. And granted it's going to be, it's going to look different in each industry, even each company. But every time I meet somebody I rarely hear, “Oh, I love the EAP, or I've used it before.” Most of the responses I get are, “What's that? Or what does it do? You know I saw it was in the email I didn't read.” That's the typical response. And so, I find I’m often educating people. And actually, more recently, a lot of my clients are asking me to educate their businesses, as a previous EAP counselor, about why to use the EAP. It's like they'll believe me more because I’m external to the organization.

Adam Bloomberg: 

The American Bar offers a Lawyer Assistance Program that provides confidential services and support to lawyers, judges, and law students who are facing mental health or substance use issues. What might prevent them from utilizing this program? 

Melissa Doman, MA: 

It's really; I would say it's the concerns around confidentiality. Because if that is a employee assistance program that is just specific to the legal field, the same laws of confidentiality should apply. Now, granted, I don't have a deep knowledge of lawyer assistance programs in particular. But if it's EAP for legal professionals, those same confidentiality rules apply. And so I would think that what would prevent people from using it would be, what if their firm finds out? What if HR finds out? You know, what if XYZ finds out and deems me as being incapable of doing this work? So I think it would be centered more around confidentiality concerns, and less about not really knowing what it does, although of course that's possible.

Adam Bloomberg: 

How can law firms encourage participation and really help to alleviate any of the stigma or the fear of it? 

Melissa Doman, MA: 

I think that it's really about having conversations about the EAP itself, as opposed to just sending emails telling people to use it. I think that seeing people talk about it is far more potent than just a benefits note. Now granted, HR departments are doing what they can when they can with what they have. They have a lot on their plates. But I do think that it's useful, even if you have a 15 or 20-minute discussion that could even be transcribed and sent out for people who don't have the time to attend for something like that. I think it's important to highlight the potential concerns upfront, not just telling people to use it. There's plenty of companies that do it, and people are still terrified.

But what I would say is really drilling down into what can you get from this service? What are some of the reasons to use it? What remains confidential? What doesn't? You know, answering those objections upfront, early, so people have that information to make an informed decision. Now keep in mind, there will always be people who don't believe it. There will always be outliers saying, “No, there’s no way. Of course, they're going to find out.” You can't reach those people. There's nothing that you can do, and they've made their minds up. What you're trying to do is to reach the majority. Not just telling people to use the service, but telling them why to use it. What are the concerns not to have, and just really laying out exactly what that can look like, so people can get that information upfront. And whether you do that in a Town Hall setting, or again is like a transcribed quote-unquote interview that you send out to people, or both. That is typically the way is, you know, knowledge is power and telling people what they're getting as opposed to just why they should use it.

Adam Bloomberg: 

Do you have any examples of success stories, maybe, about people who have successfully managed mental health while maintaining a, boy, a high-powered, high-stressful job?

Melissa Doman, MA: 

I do, I do. And it actually comes down to doing those “Mental Health Well-Being Non-Negotiables”, to be honest with you. There is one person in particular that I’m thinking of, who deals with a great, great, great, great deal of, they're in a very interesting hybrid kind of law, finance, sort of situation, and they meditate every single day. Every day. And have told me, verbatim, “I will lose my ‘bleep’ if I don't meditate every single day.” This person also exercises a number of days a week. They also try to, you know, prioritize occasionally when they can travel, getting away from work. And the stakes that are for this person's job and the caliber of clients they deal with, that are extraordinarily unforgiving, is absolutely mind-boggling. I don't know how he does it, but he does. And so I think what it really comes down to is consistency.

I think consistency and individual accountability is key, because what I often hear from people in very high-pressure positions, especially in law, again, medicine, finance, all those places, “I don't have the time.” That’s the chief complaint. And that is true, but again, you have to adapt what you can, and it all comes down to consistency and personal accountability, so it doesn't feel like it's happening to you, but rather you're also doing things to maintain yourself. Because what's the alternative? Doing nothing? And then you just see where the chips fall? So, I would really take it down to what equals success. Managing mental health and high stress, particularly in the legal profession, is doing things in a micro-goal way to support your mental health consistently and being responsible for that. 

Adam Bloomberg: 

Yeah, I was just sitting here thinking, as you said it. The idea of meditating is super appealing to me, but I think about the time, I’m like, “When am I going to fit that in?” So, I am guilty as charged. [Melissa Doman: Five minutes. Five minutes.] I love to hear about the success though. Is there kind of a common denominator across industries for maintaining well-being and a successful career?

Melissa Doman, MA: 

That's not a loaded question at all. I would say that, well, a successful career is quite subjective. I think that really depends on the person in terms of what they determine to be success, whether that is growing their role horizontally, whether it's getting promotions, whether, there's so many factors that play into a successful career. So, I really encourage people to think, what does that look like, based on what I want it to be? Not based on what others dictate to me that it should be. And also, what does it look like to actually, not just survive and feel okay, but actually feel some form of contentment? What does that look like? And there are some people who have to ask themselves the question, you know, can I remain in this career and maintain my mental health? That's an unpopular question to ask. But it is a question that needs to be asked, because if you, for example, feel that you can't maintain your mental health in a certain career, this is any industry, by the way, is the cost of your mental health too expensive? That's what it really comes down to, because for some people, they can manage both and others can't, and that is not a criticism. It just might not be the right fit.

So, when it comes down to the success stories, I think there's two things. One is finding what works for you. What's your baseline for your general mental health, and this includes, you know, lots of different variations and outliers as you go and surf through the waves of life. But then being individually responsible enough to attempt to use those “Mental Well-Being Non-Negotiables” and other things to maintain your mental health consistently to try to keep yourself from going to the outliers where you start falling off the page. Again, consistency, individual accountability. Where those folks feel they can take the edge off on the days when it's tough. Or making the decision that, if it's not the right career for you, regardless of profession, what does that mean? Where do you go next? If that means you can maintain your mental health a little bit easier. So I think that those are really the two quote-unquote “successful” ways of doing it is, if you're going to stay in it: being consistent and responsible to manage your mental health, or if it means you need to go a different direction, and that can be success too.

Adam Bloomberg: 

Well, Melissa, thank you so much. You've spent a lot of time with us here, and you know mental health, clearly, is very important for everybody's success, and I’d just like to say I think I am going to look into meditating now. 

Melissa Doman: 

Five minutes a day!

Adam Bloomberg: 

I appreciate your time with us.

Melissa Doman, MA: 

Thank you so much for having me.

Adam Bloomberg: 

Thank you.

Thank you to Melissa Doman for speaking with us, and a special thanks to our listeners. Please join us next time, and don’t forget to subscribe to the IMS Insights Podcast.

IMS has delivered strategic litigation consulting and expert witness services to leading global law firms and Fortune 500 companies for more than 30 years, in more than 40,000 cases. IMS consultants become an extension of your legal team from pre-suit investigation services to discovery and then on to arbitration and trial. Learn more at expertservices.com.