Your Work Friends

New Week, New Headlines: Office Therapists on Payroll, Is Wellbeing Fixable & Don't Leave Teammates on Mountains

September 04, 2024 • Francesca Ranieri • Season 1 • Episode 39

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The work news just doesn't quit - here's what we're talking about....

WTF News: Two stories that had us going, WTF?! 

  • WellsFargo employee dies at her desk. Co-workers don't find her for four days. Four.
  • Teammate gets stranded on the side of a mountain during a work-sponsored team building event. Can we stop with the mountaineering already?


Office Therapists on the Payroll
Wall Street Journal reported on the latest employer to bring in the latest solution for mental health wellbeing - on-site, office therapists. Is this the cure for mental health in the workplace? We discuss. We referenced:
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/in-office-therapy-benefit-synchrony-financial-83ab814e


Is Wellbeing Fixable? 
US workplace wellbeing continues to decline according to the latest findings from John Hopkins and Gallup. We referenced

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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Speaker 1:

Oh my god. First of all, can we stop taking people in the woods for team building activities? Just, please, just stop already. What's going on, mel? Not much, not much. I, closing out the summer with a bang, got a pretty gnarly sunburn. How about you? How'd you do that? Because I am a dumbass and I thought I could go to the beach for one hour sans sunscreen and in in fact I can't, because I have very Irish skin.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're Powder the Friendly White Ghost.

Speaker 1:

I am Powder the.

Speaker 2:

Ghost, what are you doing? You getting some aloe vera up in there. How do we treat the sunburn these days?

Speaker 1:

Lidocaine, aloe vera you name it.

Speaker 2:

I got it. I like it In the fridge, though that's the trick. I don't think people understand the beauty of refrigerating your aloe. It's so good. It's so good. You know what? I, because I had my eyeball surgery and stuff like that. I refrigerate my eye drops.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it feels good. It's refreshing right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we have like cream cheese, butter, eye drops, eye drops.

Speaker 1:

That looks like ours.

Speaker 2:

It's our butter cabinet and it's like butter, aloe. Yeah, honestly, there's those fridges they have for all your beauty products and stuff like that, the little mini fridges. I just I can't. I love that concept, I just think it's. I can't buy any more shit you don't need because you can just put in your regular fridge.

Speaker 1:

I really want that for my eye cream though.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know that's so nice. It's not that hard to just walk to the goddamn fridge.

Speaker 1:

I can just go to my own fridge and put my eye cream in there, I know right, it's like you got a whole.

Speaker 2:

Is this your produce drawer? No, it's not. No, it's my eye cream drawer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, nothing wrong with it. Everyone should have an eye cream drawer.

Speaker 2:

Just in general. Just in general, yeah, workplace well-being is in decline, based on a few recent studies that sounds like a happy topic, right?

Speaker 1:

on. I do have some solutions, hopefully staying on the positive. How about you?

Speaker 2:

There's always a solution. Yeah, yeah, listen. Wall Street Journal came out with an article last week. The office therapist will see you. Now I want to talk about office therapists. And is this the cure for mental health in the workplace? Let's talk about it. I like it.

Speaker 1:

I like it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And I have two WTF stories, just some WTF work news I thought we could gab about at the end oh my gosh, all right, let's do the biggies, and then we'll do the WTF ease and we'll we'll call it I like it Biggies. And then we'll do the WTF-ies and we'll call it I like it.

Speaker 1:

Let's do it, let's do it. Scratch that. We're doing WTF first. Oh my God, two things came out. I'm sure you saw them the Wells Fargo employee Talk about RTO, the Wells Fargo employee who died at work and was in her cubicle for four days.

Speaker 2:

Wait, tell the story. Just tell the story Cause, just in case people missed it.

Speaker 1:

Cause I, yeah, yeah. Essentially, she passed away in her cubicle and people are coming into the office and they noticed an odd smell. Yeah, and finally did so. I don't know what a walk around. I don't know the layout of this building so I can't personally speak to it, but how was this not discovered for four?

Speaker 2:

days. You sent this to me. I think they found her body on Friday and she had been there for four days, which means she tagged in on a Tuesday, Apparently for the article. She sat on the third floor, away from a major corridor, and this was an office building that wasn't really used that much, and this was an office building that wasn't really used that much.

Speaker 1:

but I, yeah, it strikes me, and again from a I have no idea if she was required to be in the. It doesn't matter either way. I'm just. I have so many questions and was no one checking it, Speaking of wellbeing, like, were there no teammates checking in? Was no one wondering where she was or if she was okay after day two? If I was missing a member of our team, I'd be like, hey, is everything okay? I would be worried.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, by day two I'd be really worried, really worried. By day one I'd be like maybe something happened. And then by day two and not for like where are they? But oh my, are you okay.

Speaker 1:

Is everything okay? Yes, right, yes, is everything okay, yes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, like I'm the person that tells my friends text me when you get home, 100% Right. But and then, on the same token, I can see it. I can see it because I've been in office buildings, especially in sub-metro areas like a suburb of Phoenix or a suburb of Columbus, ohio, where these office buildings may be at a 10% occupancy. There were the cube farms that went to die, but they're open for people to use them and potentially she had a type of job where she was telling her asynchronously or something. I I can see that, but I also am like, yeah, with cameras and all this other jazz, I'm like, okay, this is, it's just it's very sad.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was one of the saddest things I've read recently. Yeah, and now I also want to talk about the employee retreat where the guy in colorado got left behind on the trail.

Speaker 2:

I didn't hear about this what I've been up on the mountain, what I think I heard is this the team building exercise thing that went totally wrong. What was this story? I totally missed it, oh my god, let's all right.

Speaker 1:

First of all, can we stop taking people in the woods for team building activities? Just, please, just stop already. I mean at a basic level one. I can bet you half that team didn't want to be in the woods. Some people have real fears about being in the woods, for good reason, clearly, or they might have a disability and then they can't participate. So you're already excluding people who might not be able to go on these long ass hikes. Right, give me a break. So 15 people allegedly went on this team building hike and apparently there was more challenging trail and then there was an easier trail. Okay, yeah, at some point the crowd splits.

Speaker 1:

This guy was stuck between these two crowds. He ended up getting lost or misdirected and they said two things happened. He was wearing all black and found himself between the two groups. They reached the summit at 1130 am. He became disoriented. They're in colorado, the air is weird. Who knows if that had impacts on him.

Speaker 1:

For some reason he became disoriented, tried to descend on his own but then, complicating that, his co-workers had picked up pieces of the gear that the team had left behind to mark the path to get back through the boulders. So, as he was trying to descend, he found himself in a steep boulder in a field on the northeast slope of this mountain and he used his cell phone to send GPS pins of his location to his co-workers who told him he needed to double back to regain the trail. So after four hours of texting his co-workers to say he thinks he might be close to the trail, he was still high on the mountain, but then a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rain, high winds. He again became disoriented, losing his cell phone signal as well. So luckily he's found alive and he was rescued.

Speaker 1:

So I just want to the good news for everyone in here. But essentially it was dark on the mountain, no one went back to get him. Just a travesty of events that occurred to end up in this situation. And again, luckily he was found alive. He was able to be rescued. But WTF, please, no more mountain retreats, only if it involves a cabin and a fire and hot cocoa please.

Speaker 2:

I also just don't understand how, from an HR perspective and then also just from a mountain path perspective, why are you going off of a path If you are?

Speaker 1:

disoriented air in Colorado. There is something to the elevation right In Colorado that affects people in a certain way, especially if they're not used to it.

Speaker 2:

If you're not used to the altitude, this is also okay. Can I, can we? This kid takes personal accountability and also, like you, should not, as a company, be doing a team building activity that's this risky. If people are not seasoned hikers and they're not used to the altitude, why the fuck would?

Speaker 1:

you take people up there also. Why wasn't it made very clear that you need to stay in teams? Or stay on the trail two, yeah, at least teams of two. You don't know. No, no one left behind. Stay in groups.

Speaker 2:

I think the kid was doing ayahuasca, that's my gut. Oh my God, he was also naked.

Speaker 1:

And we're not making any claims.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm joking, I'll cut that. That's fine, it's fine.

Speaker 1:

Two stories where I was like what is going on? What is happening right now?

Speaker 2:

Virgo season. Virgo season.

Speaker 1:

WTF.

Speaker 2:

WTF. This week, wall Street Journal came out with an article the Office Therapist Will See you Now, which is very exciting. Actually, I love that headline. I do too. It's a fun headline, chip Cutter. Kudos to you, or whichever editor wrote that headline. The story East Coast company Synchrony Financial added a psychologist at their headquarters at the behest of their youngest workers. Ie they're offering in-house therapy for employees that want it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I've heard of that before, though in some organizations, which I think it's nice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's exactly right. Onsitesite therapists is not new. It's not new at all. Delta, google, at&t all of these companies have been doing this for several years where they're offering a certain amount of sessions three, six, 12 sessions a year with a therapist that happens to be on-site at your company's headquarters or at your coach. Great, it's huge. Two questions that are brought to mind, though, is why is this becoming more popular? So I want to talk about. Why is this, as a benefit, becoming more popular, not only for employees, but for companies, and also to think about is this solving the mental health issues at companies? So I want to talk about both of those things. Okay, let's do it All right. Why is this happening? There's two main reasons. One, it's freaking hard to get therapy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is. I advocate for therapy for everybody. I've been in therapy my whole life. I think it's super helpful, yeah, but finding a therapist have you ever been on this journey? Yes, I have. I have many times. What a pain in the ass it is to find a therapist, and one that accepts insurance.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let alone, one that you like, one that you like, one that accepts insurance, because it costs a lot. Typically you can get reimbursed through your insurance. It's a whole thing. But imagine someone who's stressed or struggling with anxiety or depression or whatever, and now you're adding an extra step of them having to put in reimbursements, wait 30 days to maybe get refunded. The big upfront investment, it's a lot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, here's the deal. Younger generations want it. When Mel and I were in our twenties, this is not something that was offered at the workplace, right, we're part of the generation where you didn't really talk about going to therapy.

Speaker 2:

Suck it up, that's what we were told which was the dumbest piece of advice ever. Because therapy to your very good point. I am such an advocate of therapy and I think most people could really benefit from talking out whatever, with somebody coming up with great strategies to cope with something at some point in our life. If you're like me, at multiple points in your life or I have friends that they have a therapist just like they have a like a fitness coach, like they are, that is that's ideal. I think it is ideal, right? How are you thinking about your brain and your emotions and your mental health Phenomenal. Why wouldn't you want an awesome coach for that? This is something that's a pro for younger generations. I think it's a pro for a lot of people that understand the value here, especially when you have things like major life events, like deaths or losses or financial hardships or just the schmutz of life.

Speaker 2:

Life can be hard. It really can. Here's the issue and why a lot of companies are capitalizing on it. It's a want that younger generations want. Younger generations want Employees believe. Study that came out that said 77% of employees think that their company has a responsibility to support their mental health wellbeing Okay, 77%. So this is an opportunity for companies to do this. The reason why onsite, as opposed to just saying, hey, it's part of your insurance because, like we said, it's freaking hard to find therapists. 60% of therapists have no openings for new patients and a 2022 survey from the American Psychological Association noted that 122 million Americans live in areas with a shortage of mental health care providers. Basically, in this country, we need to add about 6,000 therapists to close that gap.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in the report we covered a few months ago around the biggest growing industries and jobs, and therapists was one of the top needs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what companies are trying to do is make it as easy as possible for employees to get mental health care because, A they want it, B it's solving a problem for their employees and C it makes them more productive. It makes them happier. Yeah, right, Mental health can affect workers' personal lives. It absolutely you better believe impacts their professional lives as well, right? So this is a kind of a win-win solution. I want to go back to that 77% of workers believe their employers have a responsibility to support their mental well-being. Okay, here's my question for you, Mel. Okay, Does this solution of offering on-site mental health care do?

Speaker 1:

it. That's one thing. That's not going to solve everything. It's just one thing Because, as we know, it isn't one program that solves well-being issues at work. That's a culture issue. Yeah, super fair. Culture, culture systems, processes, all need to support wellbeing. It isn't a programmer policy, necessarily Fair.

Speaker 2:

Super fair. Here's what I love about this. I love seeing this percolating more, because to me this signals investment from organizations that we know mental health is incredibly important. We see the monetary and, the more importantly, the human value of it, knowing that literally these companies are putting people on their payroll just to do this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's a huge green flag.

Speaker 2:

Huge green flag. I would love to see more organizations really capitalize on this kind of stuff. It's a signal to say we're giving a shit about mental health. I think it's a pretty massive signal to take this even further, even though we know that these therapists are therapists first and foremost. Right, they are following the same privacy laws, the same ethical codes, the same confidentiality, yada, yada, yada that you would externally right. That goes without saying 100% yeah. However, I or in addition to, let me just say I think what an awesome opportunity for organizations to have this type of expertise in-house and to invite these experts to the table when they're thinking about culture initiatives outside of mental health, right, when they're thinking about how do we right?

Speaker 2:

Because they're sitting on such great intellectual capital Right. So I'm excited by this. I'd love to see more organizations say hey, we know it's buried in your benefits package over here, but let's make something that you really want and you really need. That's a win, easy to access, absolutely no charge here for it, all day, every day. What's up with wellbeing? So it sucks, huh.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think this is just an ongoing topic because there's always something to talk about here. So I read something and then I attended a report out recently by Gallup and WorkHuman. But the article that I read was by HR grapevine, ronnie Dungan covered an annual study that John Hopkins conducts in partnership with A Great Place to Work. They gathered info from 1.5 million individuals and more than 2,500 US orgs between the years of 2019 to 2023. So this report's kind of reflecting the findings of those studies and it measured things, the element. They measured these elements of well-being in this study mental and emotional support, sense of purpose, personal support, financial health and meaningful connections. So that's what that Johns Hopkins study measured Gallup and WorkHuman.

Speaker 1:

The five elements of well-being that they define are community so you like where you live. Financial, you manage your money well. Career, you like what you do every day. Social, you have meaningful friendships in life. And physical, you have energy to get things done right. So these are the elements of wellness and being what they're tackling. Here's what they found. Here's the big things that came out of it. In the Johns Hopkins study, workplace well-being has regressed since the pandemic, contributing factors to that being RTO and the loss of work-life flexibility. Surprise, we've been talking about that for the past.

Speaker 2:

how many months now? Not surprising. It's like loss aversion theory you can't take something away. You can't go back. Genie's out of the bottle. Keep talking, keep talking. I'm fascinated.

Speaker 1:

Also what it adds to people, like commute cost. There are real costs to RTO that are hurting people. Leadership, they're finding, is potentially out of touch with their employees. Shocker, they found that execs and mid-level managers reported higher levels of well-being compared to employees who are individual contributors and frontline managers and supervisors. They're reporting much lower well-being. So there's a big disconnect between these two groups of people and those at the top are making a lot of people, policies and decisions right, but if it's based on personal experience then it's going to be really skewed. I also found that women, african American or Black employees and younger employees are scoring lower on well-being compared to males, white folks and older colleagues.

Speaker 2:

Do you think it all goes back to the RTO, like the lack of flexibility, lack of autonomy here, or are they finding other things?

Speaker 1:

I think it's a combination of a lot of different things.

Speaker 2:

It usually is, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And we just covered how horrible the workplace is for women, like the studies being, women are dropping out because it sucks for them right now. This Johns Hopkins report is also in line with the Gallup report. This Johns Hopkins report is also in line with the Gallup report. Gallup did a state of the global workforce report in 2024 in partnership with WorkHuman, and in 2023, employee well-being saw a global decline to 34%. The most impacted employees are under 35 and managers 35 in managers and 53% of us workers noted hey, I'm thriving in life, but only 33% are thriving at work. Meaning engaged.

Speaker 2:

It's a huge disparity, right yeah, because here's the deal. I just do the numbers of your waking hours. Almost half of them are working over your lifetime. That's assuming you're working a 50 hour work week, 45% of your time is spent at work. How you feel at work, I don't care how disconnected you can be or whatever, it will absolutely impact your life. So when I hear numbers like in the thirties no, bueno, it's really bad.

Speaker 1:

And there isn't this separation. You're a whole person when you show up to work. You have to manage and regulate your emotions around things, but you can't shut it down Well, especially when so much of work is meetings texts, slack messages, right.

Speaker 2:

It's interpersonal communications. It's seeping into. It's not just on your laptop. You can be like literally at the target and someone texts you something snarky and that's going to ruin your whole next hour, right. Just how this shit goes.

Speaker 1:

I have a friend who, for the past seven years at their organization, every single time we were just talking about it, every single time they're on PTO except for one time that they went out of the country and could just didn't have wifi Every single time their leader has sent them a text message over something like hey, I was thinking about this, but we could catch up on it when you get back. So now like their whole day's shot because that's all they can think about. Anyway, that's just one example.

Speaker 2:

But that's the thing. So you're breaking someone out of their break.

Speaker 1:

Now they're thinking about work and it's time to disconnect. It's a whole thing, yeah it's a whole thing. So they also found here that less than half as many employees believe their org cares about their well-being as they did early in the pandemic. So, to give you a sense, 49% of people in 2020, felt that their org cared about their wellbeing. Want to guess what that number is today?

Speaker 2:

Want to take a guess. I'm going to go like 23. Ooh, you were so close. 21. Oh gosh, cause I was doing praise is right rules, so now I'm over, I don't get the showcase, okay All right, come on down 21%.

Speaker 1:

Okay, it's 21%. That's how much it has dropped in just four years.

Speaker 2:

That's a significant, going from 49 to 21.

Speaker 1:

That's a huge drop, I think, of the news we've covered in just the short time we've had the pod and on all of that we've seen the changes and it's moved away from caring. I don't think it's necessarily subjective. There's proof they're moving away from caring about you.

Speaker 2:

I think it's also just. There's also okay, you've had the pandemic, you've had RTO, you've had this wave and continual waves of layoffs and this idea of trust, loyalty, all that it's being yeah, it's being destroyed. Yeah, the aftershocks are there.

Speaker 1:

It's that. Here's why it matters. I I love the predictive index. I took their talent optimization certification and one of the things that I really love about what they say is that business issues are people issues, which is always true. If you have a business issue, it's because you have a people issue, not a meaning your people are bad. You have a people policy issue. You have something going on with your people and that's why your business is hurting. There's something broken that you need to pay attention to right and to have better business and better bottom lines, you need to get into the business of caring about your people.

Speaker 1:

Gallup found that when employees strongly agree that their org cares about their overall well-being, they are 52% less likely to be actively watching for or seeking a new job. They are 33% more likely to also be thriving in life no duh. As you mentioned, they are 4.4 times as likely to be engaged at work. They're 6.3 times as likely to strongly agree they would recommend. They're 6.3 times as likely to strongly agree they would recommend their organization as a great place to work for other people, and they are 75% less likely to feel burned out at work very often or always, Because right now everyone's operating on that. Everyone's operating on a level of burnout right now.

Speaker 2:

Here's the deal. We've been talking about this for months. We know it. The numbers are actually getting worse.

Speaker 1:

It gets worse.

Speaker 2:

Huh, it gets worse. There's a new study. It gets worse.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So I was reading all of this and then I was like oh, what else is happening in the news? Us News from Health Day News recently noted that work stress brings on a fib like the heart. Yep, it was published in the journal of american heart association. We'll link to all of the stuff in the show notes for anyone who wants to do a deep dive.

Speaker 1:

So for anyone who doesn't know a fib, it increases a person's risk of stroke and heart failure. That's's what that is. What they found is low paid employees under crushing work stress have a nearly doubled risk of developing AFib, and those with high stress jobs have an 83% increased risk of AFib. Those who feel poorly rewarded at work and, by the way, rewards for anyone isn't just your boss tapping you on the back and saying good job, it's things like fair compensation, right? So those who feel poorly rewarded at work had a 44% increase risk of AFib compared to those who felt work was treating them fairly, and white collar workers that have a combination of high stress and low rewards have a 97% increased risk of AFib. You have to care about people. There are real impacts to not supporting well-being in the workplace.

Speaker 2:

Every month, gallup's coming out, gartner's coming out, the stats get worse and worse and we can say six times 30%, 50%, 21, drop, blah, blah, blah, and then it comes down to what does good look like now. Now the stats get worse and worse and we can say six times 30%, 50%, 21, drop, blah, blah, blah, and then it comes down to what does good look like now. What do we do about it? So I would absolutely love a who is getting this right and what do we do about it? Because we got to get off the pot on this, because we're perfect.

Speaker 1:

Listen, I'm not. That's why I'm an advocate for therapy, all right.

Speaker 2:

That's why I admit it, because I think I'm just kidding, just kidding, I'm totally kidding.

Speaker 1:

Oh my god all right so who's getting it right I'm not going to name names, although gallup did give some really cool use cases in their report is who prioritize well-being, not just as a program, but it's truly integrated into the work culture, how they work, their values. It's closely anchored to org culture, management practices, hr processes. They're getting it right.

Speaker 1:

You and I say this all the time it's got to be part of your culture. It's a cultural thing that needs to be addressed right. Management level folks are at the very heart of fostering this through systems processes in the day to day. Why do managers struggle though? They're sandwiched. They're sandwiched between all the responsibilities and not getting the support they need. But it's where that needs to be addressed too, so that managers are supported enough to then support this in the day to day. Going back to culture how are we giving managers support? There's so many things that need to be addressed to support wellbeing in the workplace.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, most of the time we're just drop, kicking a individual contributor into the manager deep end and seeing if they can swim.

Speaker 1:

I hate that term sink or swim. I really do. You want everyone to swim, help them.

Speaker 2:

We're not setting people up to swim, though we're not even teaching them how to swim they them. We're not setting people up to swim, though right.

Speaker 1:

Companies who recognize the positive impact for people. I'm trying to see those who recognize that poor wellbeing for the workforce leads to reduced productivity, retention issues, turnover, increased healthcare costs, those CEOs and boards who recognize the impact this truly has on the bottom line and want to do something about it. They're getting it right because they actually aren't separating people from business results. Companies who allow flexible and remote work options surprise experience higher levels-being because you're supporting people in their real life needs here. Companies who involve employees in the decision making process they're experiencing higher levels of well-being. Companies who have well-recognized employees by recognition they mean being told they're top performers, receiving fair pay, getting meaningful feedback. Meaningful feedback, in case you didn't hear that, gallup shared that meaningful feedback is actually more impactful for engagement than return to office. 80% of employees who said they received meaningful feedback in the past week were fully engaged, regardless of the number of days that they worked in the office.

Speaker 2:

And you can give meaningful feedback.

Speaker 1:

Anywhere, yeah, anywhere, anytime.

Speaker 2:

Feedbacks to me in general is just such a duh thing. Yeah, the amount of organizations that just don't do it, don't have the DNA around it, don't have the artery around it. It's one of the number one things like manager development and feedback. Get on it. Get on it now.

Speaker 1:

Managers and leaders some advice, because we know you get the brunt of the bullshit and of the stick here. But hey look, I think, francesca, you and I say this often Please do not wait for your org to handle it. They absolutely should. It is 100% their responsibility. But pulse your team on well-being, what their needs are, coactively work with them to define what that looks like for the team.

Speaker 1:

Pick one to three things that you are going to prioritize as a group for how you'll work to support the needs of the full team. Pick one to three things that you are going to prioritize as a group for how you'll work to support the needs of the full team, including your needs as a leader. You need to communicate that with your team, so everyone's supporting each other, and then regularly post hey, is this still working for us? This is not a one and done activity, but if we can give any advice for managers, leaders stuck in the middle here, please that's one thing you can do. Don't wait for your org. And then Gallup proposed 10 best practices for implementing well-being in the workplace.

Speaker 2:

There are always options. I love the idea that, even if you're a manager or a leader like your, create your own amazing neighborhood in the city that you live in Right, that is your responsibility and there's always a responsibility on everybody. But I find when you make some of these moves, even one we're going to commit to really double tapping into the financial wellbeing right by offering 20% over market, or we're going to really double tap into the agency of folks. Our whole ethos on how we treat our workers is based on trust, mutual trust yeah. The decisions you're going to make on how you work, where you work, when you work, all this shit and just on one lever yeah, but it takes some balls to do that. I will tell you when I see people do that. Holy shit, is that cool it really is.

Speaker 1:

Also it. The trust thing is so big to me because with rto it feels like such a huge, weird control play. We covered the story about amazon telling people if they didn't get their scanned badge it was going to make them ineligible for promotion. And when you think about that, treat people like adults. You hired them for a reason. So if you don't trust them, then why do you hire them? And if it's a true performance issue, then that's a different story. But trust your people to do the job you hired them to do.

Speaker 1:

Michelle Barton is the associate professor who coauthored the study at Johns Hopkins and I loved her quote. The challenge will be to integrate those wellbeing practices into everyday work life rather than simply using them as a crisis response. And to me that really sums up this last four years, because when you go from 49, at the height of the pandemic, what had to change? You had to recognize the human, the humanity of it all. To now you think it's like, oh, the pandemic, the pandemic's over, so nevermind, this isn't a crisis response, this is just how you should treat people.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, friend.