Marion Area Chamber Human Resource Council - November 2020

if you all are able to join us uh here live and those that are going to be watching the recording later this is again the november edition of our um hr council and uh we are very happy to be joined today by logan lucas she's the human resource lead with vlasio uh based out of a couple different places but where where are you based out of dublin dublin uh they were they were actually a referral from the dublin uh chamber who was gonna have logan i think present to one of their hr council meetings and um and i don't think i don't know if that would happen or not but we're happy to have logan here today with us so um and of course it's going to be on supporting employee mental health during the covet 19 pandemic kind of a sort of a refresher or a different angle to uh somewhat of a similar topic we had gosh early on and uh i think it was back in may uh of this year and uh it's that's forever ago i guess uh and nowadays time um so with that i believe i'll hand it over to logan sure can you see my powerpoint i can beautiful okay um well first of all i just wanted to thank you all for spending a few minutes with me here this morning chatting about um something that's obviously very very important and very prevalent right now um as we are in and i promise i won't say unprecedented too many times because i know we hear that a lot but um but as we go through um the things that we've been going through over the past you know nine to ten months now um employee mental health is something that has really become at the forefront of a lot of our minds as as leaders as human resources professionals and so i thought this was a really relevant topic and just wanted to share um some of the some of the wisdom some of the tips and tricks that um i've come across over the past year or so um and hopefully be able to impart some um ideas for for you to take back to your organizations so um as we hop in here i just wanted to give a quick overview about me so you know why why i'm the one kind of facilitating and chatting with you today um i joined valacio back in november of 2015. so i just hit my five year anniversary with the company um and when i joined we were about 110 employees just to give you some perspective on size um and now we're about 350 and continuing to grow we've been very fortunate to be able to continue growing through the pandemic and through 2020 um we are are have very very high growth goals um and um so we're we're kind of in this nice um nice spot where our industry has not been incredibly affected by the pandemic but i'll touch on that in a few slides as well i graduated from my miami university um an undergrad with a focus in management and leadership as well as entrepreneurship um and i'm currently pursuing my mba at the ohio state university um and at valencia i've done a little bit of everything so i was originally hired to be a talent acquisition specialist and focus on campus recruitment um managing internship program managing college placement program mentorship those types of things and so with my new role i i actually just transitioned into a new title about a week ago as employee experience manager um and what that means for us is we've invested a lot of um resources and focus in the entire employee experience after someone gets hired and onboarded through their departure at the lacio so everything that fits in the middle there um is is gonna be um my responsibility and my team's responsibility so that's the talent management performance management engagement and culture and and those types of things so um just a super high level overview of velocio so you kind of understand the environment that i'm in and i'm working in at a high level we are a microsoft partner so we specialize in selling and implementing um the microsoft dynamics erp and crm solutions so we're a tech firm through and through um we really focus on i think this slide will give a better example we really focus on helping our clients build their businesses and grow their businesses in a meaningful way through technology um and we do that through a lot of different channels but um we have a really proprietary and cool methodology that we use to get our clients up and running on these systems quickly we try to make it easy through our project management um methodologies and the experts that we hire as consultants um and we also leverage you know obviously the technology and the data through business intelligence and a lot of really cool um techie things that our our consultants are really focused on so um you know as i mentioned we we've got just over 350 employees um we've been around for over 32 years uh velasio itself is a new name um that's only been around for about two but uh that's because of mergers and acquisitions but um you know we've we've got clients that you've heard of even though you may have never heard of us um we we work with a lot of mid-sized clients a lot of manufacturing and distribution but um these are just a few of the of the names you may recognize that um that we've had our hands in so um without further ado um you know when when matt and i were talking about some of the different topics that um i thought would be relevant for for this kind of group um i really thought that mental health was something that is uh is talked about a lot right now um but it's talked about in such a scientific way that i think it makes it difficult to translate from um from the science and from the psychology and the psychiatry into business and and how we as human resources leaders and as leaders in general can help support um mental health and why it matters to organizations so i found this uh hbr article that um i think that's the grad student in me that's been been really big into hbr this year but um there was a survey taken in may that showed that 42 of employees have experienced a decline in mental health since the pandemic began um you know as we know that was two months after the world started to shut down 42 percent of people already experienced a decline so if we think about what's happened since may how much worse has it gotten how much more has it changed and and really what can we do to to reverse some of those negative uh effects that it's had on us and and help support our employees in that way you know mental health um i think has has had a stigma in a lot of ways where it seems to be a very personal thing where a lot of of employees have tried to segregate that side of their life from their work life you know the things that are happening at home and the things that are happening in your mental health um have been really really separate from what's happening at work but what we're finding is that poor mental health can affect not only our employees but also bottom line for our organizations through things like increased risk of workplace injury and accident depending on the type of environment you're in decreased performance decrease productivity increase risk of error high turnover i mean i think a lot of these things are are um they're not rocket science they're not new aha moments but there are things that we can do as leaders to help mitigate some of these risks so um i really really like this graphic because i think it shows a really good picture of all of the different factors that play into a person's mental health there's the genetics piece there's biology there's environment and there's lifestyle and of course we can't we can't really have an impact as leaders on all of these things what we can focus on is the environment and the lifestyle that our employees are um are experiencing and the small piece of their lives that is work we can really have an impact on so we'll dive into that just a little bit as well so um what can we as leaders do um you'll hear me say a lot of this we as leaders because i think that even if you don't have direct reports or if you're an individual contributor we can all lead by example and a lot of the tips and tricks that i that i have in here are um are able to be done by anyone in an organization um and i do want to preface this by saying i you know i'm not a psychologist i'm not a mental health expert i'm not a counselor um i am i'm a millennial who really cares about mental health who has experienced um you know a lot of friends going through things this year that um you know we've kind of had to work through um and i'm an hr professional and i'm an hr leader at a mid-sized company so um this is really important to me and and i you know for those of you who have joined us and are going to be watching this i'm sure it is important to so um i have six kind of topics that um as i'm thinking about what we can do as leaders have kind of popped up in in my head um and certainly there are others and at the end i would love to hear if anyone on this call has any other you know tips and tricks that you've used or what's worked for you and your organizations um because i think we learn a lot by sharing with others but the first thing that um we as leaders can do to help support um the mental health of our employees is to be a human you know i think one of the really good things about the pandemic is it's starting to normalize mental health challenges that again we've separated from work um for very good reason but it's really starting to destigmatize um the mental health issues and challenges that people might be facing um the second bullet point i threw in the word almost everyone has been challenged because i'm sure someone out there has has not even been affected at all um i can say that every single person in my life has been challenged in some way by this pandemic and whether it's something as simple as just not getting to see a loved one who might be in the hospital or having a baby or being furloughed or not being able to go you know to target and just roam around like they used to for for whatever reason almost everyone's been challenged and so it's important to remember that as humans we're all experiencing this in in some way i think the other really interesting thing is there's been a ton of forced transparency um that's come from having to work from home you know as i mentioned a couple of times already there used to be this separation of when i'm at work i am in work mode 100 and then when i go home i'm in home mode unfortunately when we're working from home that's not the case anymore um you know i'm sure everyone has stories of either um four-legged co-workers or underage co-workers popping into zoom calls um you know grocery deliveries interrupting a meeting whatever it might be there's this new transparency and there's this new human component of our co-workers that i don't think we ever really had before um you know i i work really closely with our ceo and i feel like every single week something gets more casual whether it's he's wearing you know a polo in may and now he's wearing an ohio state sweatshirt with you know his glasses on which he never used to do before um you know or i'm seeing his wife bringing him a cup of coffee in the middle of the day so um it's really just humanized i think a lot of our co-workers as well as our bosses and leaders and this graphic i um i actually found this a few weeks ago and i cut it out and it's in my office at work i'm in my home office now which is why there's a llama a giraffe polo behind me um but i i think that this formula is is really critical and something that we can all take with us you know authenticity and vulnerability are two pieces of just being a human that i think are understated in the workplace being authentic and real and being open and vulnerable and when you combine that with being a credible and successful and determined leader it creates a trust that our people need from us especially during these tumultuous times where um there might not be stability and there might not be you know an end in sight but having the trust that um that they can have with their leader i think will really allow them to remember how we're acting right now once this is all over and hopefully you know create some some loyalty in the organization so that's the human the second thing that we as leaders can do and this is way easier said than done so just bear with me here is demonstrate healthy behaviors ourselves um it is so easy to suggest to our team members to prioritize self-care and to log off and to unplug at night but if we're not doing it ourselves they're not going to feel like they can do it either so um you know i think it's super important that we allow and encourage our employees to prioritize their self-care in whatever that looks like for them these next few ideas are just things that i did this summer with my team um to show them that it was important to me that they prioritize themselves um for example i would be on a team call and i would make sure that i scheduled like a 15-minute break in between meetings and i would say hey team i'm gonna go take a walk or i'm gonna go grab a cup of coffee and sit on my porch should enjoy the sunshine for a few minutes um and those really small things that that we can do show our team that again we're human we're trying to be healthy too and it's okay for them to do that another big topic that comes up a lot is pto um and the fact that some organizations have a use or lose it pto policy right um well if you're not going on your typical summer vacation or we're not traveling to see family as much um employees are scared that they're going to lose this this time off but that time off is still important so just encouraging employees to take a friday off or or take a wednesday go you know go to the park go for a walk go do your grocery shopping in the middle of the day or whatever you know you need to do to unplug for a little bit is really important and then um for what it's worth this is something that my team has loved um i've specifically stopped scheduling meetings and blocked off the 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock hour every day um for lunch whether or not i work or if i have an interview or a meeting i take it of course but um the importance of logging off is so important when it comes to mental health and knowing that we can separate work and life a little bit even if we're home all the time um and and my team has really appreciated that appreciated that um because they know that you know that they're able to step away and and make themselves some lunch or run out and get food or do whatever they want to do without feeling like they have to be you know tethered to their desk all the time and then a few other little things um you know my we just hired a new chief hr officer and i haven't shared this with her yet but um one of the things i've seen a lot of other companies do is offer yoga and meditation services to their to their team members and this is such a cheap and easy way to show your team that you're prioritizing their mental health and personal well-being throughout all of this um there are yoga studios in central ohio that i know of that are doing a lot of remote yoga sessions and so um it's very very cheap it usually ends up only being eight to twelve dollars a person per session um and they do them throughout the day they do them after hours and um i think that would be a really cool thing to offer to um to your employees just to show them that you know we're in this as a team but here's a really cool way that you can you know you can kind of move your body and get your mind right throughout the day and then this kimchi yoga i was actually sent this um screenshot by by a colleague at a different organization um and and this organization does they specialize in remote yoga and meditation um the cost varies depending on the the size of the organization and and kind of what you're looking for but really cool way to just show your team again that this is a priority for you um and that you really want them to you know to be mindful and and to get through this with with good positive mental health all right number three what we can do as leaders um is foster connectivity you know a lot of people are experiencing this pandemic with families um and with kids and with a lot of people in their homes but there's others who are living by themselves and they're they're alone all of the time and so having that intentionality with how we're connecting with each other is really really important um i personally worked in an environment where i worked in the office three days a week and i worked from home two days a week prior to coveting um but i still had those three days where i was with my team with my boss i could pop over and say hey i could you know walk to the restroom walk to the water cooler together um but we don't get that anymore and so you have to be really really intentional when it comes to meeting with your team and having that regular cadence to make sure they know that you're there and you care about what's going on with them you know remote work i think this is this is a really big key few and and being remote makes it harder to see the signs that somebody may be struggling with um with their mental health so if you think about a co-worker that you may see down or you may see you know is looking like they're not getting enough sleep or they're not eating well um you know you can kind of see those things when you're you're in real life but when you're behind a screen it's a lot easier to hide those things so um having the the connectivity and having it be intentional is key um i thought this was a kind of a sad statistic but one that's really important to show and almost half of workers in that hbr article reported that no one from their company asked if they were doing okay and i think this is different than saying you know how's this project going or how's this report coming along it's really saying you know how are you doing how is this affecting you is there anything i can do and i think the other thing to mention is it's okay to not know what to say um it is a little i think different approach from the old school hr mentality where we are compliance officers we have to be very you know strict and there's black and white i think that covet has shown us that there's there's got to be that more human element to what we're doing um and if you don't know what to say it's okay sometimes just asking the question and letting someone talk is enough therapy for them they just want to know that someone cares what they're going through cares what they have to say and there's gonna be an active listener and try to help in whatever way you can so um the intentionality you'll hear me say this a couple more times i think is is really key um and being proactive and getting people connected so the next couple of slides are just ways that our organization personally has um has tried to foster this connectivity and this connection one is pre-yammer so i'm sure a lot of your organizations have some sort of internal either intranet or yammer or um yammer for us is kind of like an internal facebook page where we can post wins um sales wins new employees um that sort of thing so this is just one way we've started to use it for welcoming new employees to the organization um this is our new chief hr officer liz welcoming um one of our new team members katherine um just give us a quick little bio through her picture up there so that everyone could see kind of put the face to the name um and as you can see there's a lot of really great comments and and it really made catherine feel welcome um but it also allowed folks from all over the country and all over the company to welcome her personally um and and make her feel like she you know she made the right choice to join us the other thing we've done and i'm sure some of your organizations have done similar things is connecting through happy hours and just really casual um get togethers so we've done you know small group happy hours we've done you know virtual book club meetings we've done um you know the traditional where you just grab a drink and chat for a little bit after work um but we've also done some more active like activity-based uh connections so um draw eyes is really fun kahoot is a trivia game and and the scavenger hunt um we did that as an hr team which was which was really cool um but essentially everyone gets a gal inside as the black bag and they have 10 minutes to go around their home and find items that start with every letter of the alphabet but the catch is is that all 26 items have to fit in that ziploc bag um that's really hard you know at first i was like oh well a for apple obviously well you can't fit much more in a gallon-sized bag if you have a big apple in there and um you know so you kind of have to be creative but it was really fun to kind of see what what everyone could find in their houses um so the fourth thing we can do as leaders is to offer flexibility where possible um you know i know that there are folks on this call and and that are going to be watching this that work in every industry and every environment possible i'm very thankful that i work for an i.t company where everything can be done remotely but certainly manufacturing distribution hospitals you can't necessarily offer the same sorts of flexibility but i would challenge everybody on this call that there's something you can do to be flexible with your people um so that's gotta be something you kind of think about in in your own environment um but i think the really important thing to remember is that everyone's needs are different and those needs may change and we just kind of have to roll up the punches and be okay with that um i also think it's important to not make assumptions of what your team needs um you know we have one individual on my team who has two small children and all of a sudden had to switch from being you know she still works full-time but she has to take two hours off twice every week in the afternoon to homeschool um her and her husband kind of have to switch back and forth and so um i never made an assumption of what she needed i just asked her i trusted that she would you know get her work done and um and she has not had any issue with with you know starting early on those days and getting done a little bit later so that she can carve out the time that she needs to to be with her kids um i also think it's really crucial for us to be as proactive as possible with the flexibility um you know i know that a lot of our team members are very gun shy to ask for flexibility because they think it's going to be like a mark on their record or they think that um we're going to assume that they can't do their jobs right anymore or whatever that might look like so as much as possible as we can proactively offer flexibility or offer um solutions or options i think is is a really good thing for us to do just from an employee morale perspective um and be as generous as you can you know obviously not every environment can operate flexibility and and that's okay um but there may be something you can do whether it's um you know take a couple out if if you can't have flex hours um maybe they get an extra day off in the month if you work in a hospital which may not be able to happen or maybe um you know maybe you're able to give them a little bit more of um a home internet stipend or whatever you can do as an organization to really make this time a little easier i think is is really helpful um okay so for this one i i really wanted to um you know just kind of address the fact that i know not everyone can work remotely right now i'm personally going into the office a couple days a week just to get out of my house um because i do live alone and it is nice to see people a couple days a week so um certainly the in-office dressers are a whole different beast than the stressors you may have when you're working from home so you know certainly i think the number one stressor is just coming to work and getting exposed right um you know that is something that every organization has to deal with in a way that makes sense for um you know for the the guidelines of the governor sending out to the um the different health organizations that we're getting or getting feedback from and i think the thing that's important to remember is that our employees are getting information overload from the news from the media from social media from friends and family um whatever it might be so we really need to think about how we're approaching this as an organization and just spell it out how are we handling contact tracing how are we handling um the different precautions specifically to our our building um what are we doing to make sure that our employees are safe and i i don't think it's enough anymore to say you know here's this sign that says all employees need to take your temperature and um whatever but how how are you managing that like how is it actually being done in your organization um is there someone walking around and just double checking to make sure that all the hand sanitizer stations are filled or making sure that there's wipes and making sure that there's people are wearing masks where they're supposed to be um and are we making it intentional are we specifically laying this out for our employees to so so that they know we're doing everything in our power um and going above and beyond just what the what the government and the the governments our governor and the government is recommending and then this last one again not rocket science guys but i think that we just need to over communicate um more than we think we need to and it's it's an expectations thing um you know a perfect example for communicating expectations is i have a um i have an hr coordinator who works for me who is about half office admin half hr admin and one of her core roles is that she gets um the mail every day gets all the checks that our clients send us and scans them into the finance team because our finance team spread out all over the country and at the beginning of the pandemic she was going in every day and she was scared she did not want to be there she didn't feel like the office building was um necessarily doing what everything they could do um and so she brought that up and what we were able to figure out is she really only needed to go in twice a week and she goes in before hours so she goes in at 7 30 and there's no one else there um and and really that's all that we needed to do was figure out what that expectation needed to be and communicate that with her um also very important to share any resources we have whether it's safety guidelines or mental health resources proactively and talk about them i mean in team meetings on the internet post guidelines around the office if you're in an office and over communicate what your organization has that can be helpful to the employees um this is a really big one too sharing updated policies and practices things have changed um you know we've changed how we do performance reviews we've changed um how people are traveling to client sites we've changed a lot of different policies and practices and so we're not expecting our employees to come to us and ask those things we're proactively providing that information so um really go above and beyond to um to share any updates with your with your team members um whether it's through a town hall or on those internet sites whatever you've got and make sure that they know what's expected of them i think this is you know this is me being an hr person but i think it's really important we communicate celebrating each other um you know it's really important right now to focus on accomplishments we all know it feels good to get a kudos or a thumbs up and um you know and over share what's going well with company if if there are positive aspects if you guys are doing well to share that um one thing that we've really focused on and i think this um is something that everyone can can take back with them but tying accomplishments to company values um is really easy way to reinforce organizational identity um right now we really want to make sure that our teams are feeling cohesive that they're feeling connected to the organization's mission vision values and so one way we do that is with every meeting we pull up our values and this is just our value statements here and so when i'm looking to give praise or looking at something good that my team member has done i try to tie it to one of these five values so that they see okay what i'm doing actually does fit into what's important to the company and i fit here and this is where i belong um and and right now you know that's a that's a huge way to boost someone's morale and mental health um another slide that we share with all of our employees and i just wanted to to remind everyone of is eaps um our employee assistance programs um i know a lot of organizations have different types of programs that are available um this is just our our policy um and i if you can see on the i don't know where my pointer is but um our eap offers five face-to-face sessions with a counselor uh per issue and that's free to our employees and so this is something that we've been we've been sharing out a ton um historically our eap doesn't get a lot of use but it has definitely increased since the pandemic um and this is something that i mean we we offer to our employees and we want them to use paying for it um but it's a really great way to just again re-share some of these programs that you may already have that your employees don't know about um so as i i've kind of wanted to just put together some final thoughts just kind of one slide take away of of what we again as leaders can do to to help support this mental health um i i think it's a crisis in some ways that that's going on right now um the second bullet point here i i haven't mentioned yet and that's talk space and better help um for those of you who don't know what talkspace and betterhelp are are they are um they are apps they are apps um or cell phone apps that you can download and um it's it's text and face-to-face video conferencing with certified licensed mental health providers um even if you don't live in an area where there might be counselors or mental health resources so um one of my best friends is an attorney uh in pittsburgh and her her company actually has partnered with better health and is providing all of their employees three free months of better help services um so something again that you know i'm not sure what what the priorities for your guys organizations are but um certainly doesn't need to be provided to every employee but as hr professionals maybe that's something that we think about you know budgeting for maybe for 2021 is is memberships to things like this that can um can be another resource for folks who are in distress or who need it um again i think the last bullet point also drives home but i'm just asking your employees how you can support them often goes a long way um they may not need anything and that's okay but knowing that you're in their corner is is a really really positive experience and will will help bridge you know this gap as we kind of get through um you know what typically tends to be some some worse months for mental health anyway with the winter time so um you know i guess with that i i there may be questions i'm not sure but um i also just want to encourage if anyone that's live on the call has other resources or ideas or what's worked for for you guys i think um this is a really good time to share those types of things um and i think it's important to just talk about you know different um industries and different types of organizations and what works for you so um with that that's my presentation but um i guess i'll open it up logan thank you so much some great information in there um i do have one question but uh while i'm asking my question if if they're like logan said any i was interested in any examples of flexibility at the workplace depending on your industry that might be interesting to share here if you can and any examples of flexibility that you provided some of your employees but uh the question i had though is you mentioned sharing mental health resources across your team do you have any um specific examples of some of the i guess organizations you're plugged into or or resources that you would share yeah yeah so i can certainly get a list of those together and i can shoot them over to you maybe when you send over the the link to the video um i was actually just a part of um the ohio state university uh grad i'm trying there's like a whole acronym but grad council where they shared a ton of resources that were available in central ohio so let me let me get a list together for you um a lot of them are are free if not very very reasonable um and are available remote of course with with video conferencing so um from from a flexibility perspective though i will say a lot of it for us has been revolving around work hours and needing to take breaks for for mostly child care and schooling with with remote learning um i think the the key that we've noticed is just working as a team um certainly if our you know if our receptionist or the person who who handles our main phone line needs to be off for a couple hours um our team has been amazing about about pitching in and kind of helping out with that um from a from a flexibility perspective i would also say that we've been able to leverage these types of communications um and face-to-face a lot more than we ever have before um you know we've we've always had a very remote workforce um but i think a lot of times people just get so used to the phone that they don't um they don't want to do you know the face-to-face conferencing but we've done our our board meetings remotely we've done our 2021 leadership planning meetings remotely um and we've just it i think it's cheaper first of all it saves the company a ton of money with travel but it's also given people the opportunity to not have to leave their families and not have to make childcare arrangements and and that sort of thing um i'm trying to think so we also um have been able to shift some job duties so things that um you know for i'll i'll just give you an example one of our recruiters um we had just a small hiring freeze from you know i would say like late april early may um we never had to do a furlough which we were super super thankful of and never had to to let anyone go but we were on a hiring freeze and so one way that we were able to be flexible and keep him and and help the company is we actually trained him on collections so getting in cash was really important for the company at that time um so so we trained him on collections and were able to kind of you know justify not having to do a furlough on a role that we didn't need at the time um because he was able to cross train and be flexible and was really willing to help organization in whatever way he could so um those are just a few examples that come to the top of my mind um but i certainly you know for for those of you who are in offices i think offering flexibility and physical workspace is really an easy way if possible um you know if there's someone who doesn't feel comfortable in a cube but you have an empty office or you have um an opportunity to reconfigure office space so that maybe people's backs are to each other rather than facing each other or um are those types of really small things that can can make a world of difference okay any other comments from from those on the call on that topic or on child care uh travis please so logan when you're doing your flexibility obviously uh depends on the business where we're social service agencies our flexibility is dictated by our individuals more than our employees we have to serve those individuals so that's where our flexibility really comes to play however we with pandemic we are trying to be flexible as far as staff goes now when you when you are have staff that's typically in office possibly going remote do you offer stipends or anything like that to those that are making that transition to ease that transition or is that something that is just a benefit that you're offering and um you know they're they're just being able to work from home so i'm just curious yeah that's a great question so are our employees who are remote don't live within a commutable you know distance to an office they do get cell phone and internet reimbursement so we are we actually just had this conversation yesterday with our ceo um what i think we're gonna end up doing and i'm just gonna i'll just tell you guys our plan is we're gonna offer all of our employees an extra hundred dollars a month as a reimbursable amount so it's not taxed it's not you know it comes in their paycheck but it's a separate you know little doodad um for selling internet and they can do with that what they want and and part of that is because you know we are we're closing we just closed our atlanta office because we hadn't had anybody in there for a year and none of them wanted to go back so we're saving some costs there um we may downsize a couple of our other offices because we're not anticipating many people are going to want to go back to them so that cost savings we're planning on putting right back into our employees and i think that the way to think about it for us is that you know when i was working from home one or two days a week i you know if i had you know a um a contractor coming to look at the house or whatever i could easily just grab my cell phone take a call walk outside whatever um but now if someone's working from home full time we really need them to have better bandwidth we need them to have reliable internet and so we can't expect our people to um to pay for that extra on their own um especially when they have to do it for work if that makes sense you know i think that it's pretty safe to say that most people nowadays have a phone and they have internet but if we're going to expect them to use it for work purposes and to be um i guess at their a game for our clients and for our customers then we certainly are are gonna reimburse that and the number i threw out was a hundred dollars a month i know that's not a ton it's not going to cover full sell and full internet but i think that it would it will supplement enough to make it you know to to kind of offset that for the for the employee thank you yeah you're welcome you're welcome and i think the other thing to think about too is um you know what what are you saving without having the folks in the office you know that's just kind of the way that that my mind goes is um you know we're certainly saving on the snacks and those the supplies and whatever you might you might offer in in the office um you know and it is but on the flip side how much money are we saving in gas and and you know clothing and you know haircuts and all these things that we're not doing as much because we're not in in work so um that's just kind of what we're doing um there was a comment from jamie hawkins and i was actually going to make this comment myself but it is referring to our love we have a local um network through our mary manners which is our bridges out of poverty uh folks that they're doing an employee resource network and to jamie's point it is in some ways similar to uh an eap uh type of uh referral system where you have one on one connection to your employees i know there's a number of uh businesses here in in this community that are using the ern and it's working well for them and natalie and heidi over there are doing a great job so i'm glad that jamie mentioned them uh and i do believe they have connections to mental health experts and counseling yeah she's suggesting so that's cool yeah any other comments these are good ways just for us to have in our pockets just in case an employee does come to us with um you know with a need we're able to just refer them pretty quickly and easily excellent any any other comments from some of the folks on what they're maybe what they're used doing or to kind of accommodate their employees if not um i think we'll we'll come to a close here logan thank you so much again uh for the presentation and we of course share this video uh your slides if if abel and the resources that you mentioned mentioned to everyone uh in our council here uh today and of course our entire council uh group as well great great i thank you for listening to me today and and letting me share something that you know matters a lot to me so thank you thanks logan and happy thanksgiving to everyone everyone be safe and we will see you all next month thank you thank you

Channel: Marion Area Chamber of Commerce

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Id: nlPT_2F9Azw

Length: 44min 15sec (2655 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020