Good morning!
Yesterday, Oct. 10, was World Mental Health Day, which is focused on mental health education, awareness, and advocacy.
One panel at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit took the day to examine the connection between mental well-being and employee engagement, with insight from Walmart, Accenture, Levi Strauss, and Etsy executives.
Levi Stauss added mental health questions to its employee engagement tracking—and ditched its employee assistance program.
The company incorporated mental health into employee engagement, adding mental well-being questions to its standard internal surveys. Employees answer questions about their workload, whether they can balance all tasks, and what else is happening in their lives. Tracy Layney, executive vice president and CHRO, said it’s also important for executives to discuss their mental health candidly.
“I talk pretty openly about my own challenges with mental health, and other leaders do too,” she said. “By doing that, we do destigmatize.”
Levi Strauss also partnered with Lyra Health, a mental health services provider, instead of sticking with a traditional employee assistance program. With Lyra, employees get access to 17 sessions with a professional annually, a benefit the apparel company expanded to all global employees on Tuesday.
“All of our 20,000 employees, wherever they sit in the world, in places where there may be even less access to mental health resources than we have here in the States, have access to this,” said Layney.
Etsy collaborates with its mental health ERG.
“Our mental health ERG…is probably one of the more active ERGs that I’ve ever seen anywhere. And the conversations that happen on these calls, in these meetings, are extraordinary,” said CHRO Kim Seymour, adding that it helps her understand the expectations of her younger workers.
“We admire the fact that they will set their boundaries, and they’re not playing around about it,” she said. Collaborating with ERGs to understand employee sentiment also helps the e-commerce company act on shared concerns and be transparent about how it’s supporting employees based on acquired data. “I think that has been a game changer,” said Seymour.
Walmart uses AiRCare to support at-risk employees.
The retail giant uses AiRCare, a mental and behavioral health platform, to help at-risk employees get help when needed. The platform uses privatized data to reach individuals with high-risk factors proactively.
“We’ve directly received notification of individuals that were literally ready to end their lives, that were contacted by a professional, that got into counseling,” says Donna Morris, Walmart’s executive vice president and chief people officer.
Accenture prioritizes four determinants of mental health at work.
Accenture’s focus on employee mental health is part of its “net better off” people strategy, where the professional services firm looks at four key factors:
–Whether employees are physically, emotionally, and financially well.
–Whether employees feel connected and have a sense of belonging.
–Whether employees think their daily work is purposeful.
–Whether employees are building market-relevant skills.
“If you can fire on all four of those dimensions, you unlock two-thirds of an individual’s potential at work,” said Ellyn Shook, Accenture’s chief leadership and human resources officer. But she also thinks executives should shift their perspective from mental health to mental wellness.
“If you could get ahead of the mental health issues that people are experiencing, you can really change the course of people’s lives, [and] of company outcomes,” she added.
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Reporter's Notebook
The most compelling data, quotes, and insights from the field.
Following a summer marked by historic Hollywood strikes, in which generative AI's potential replacement of talent is a central dispute, Netflix’s top executive is downplaying the technology's role in content creation.
“There is not an algorithm in the world to tell you the next thing that’s going to actually connect and resonate with people,” said chief content officer Bela Bajaria at Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on Tuesday. “That’s not what we do. It really is always a creative business.”
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- Beware of that email promising Taylor Swift tickets or an end-of-year bonus. Your company might be testing you with simulated phishing messages to see whether you’ll click on uncertified links. Wall Street Journal
- Tech CEOs and employees based in Israel are leaving the office to fight for the country in its ongoing conflict against Hamas forces. Some are conscripted; others are volunteering. Insider
- Employment in the food and restaurant industry has increased to levels not seen since February 2020, according to the latest jobs report. Axios
- Walmart will start offering online access to primary care doctors to about 1 million employees enrolled in its health insurance plan. The company is optimistic that the plan will help workers avoid expensive hospital visits. Bloomberg
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Israel-Hamas conflict. Unsure of how to talk with employees about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas? Communication experts tell Fortune how managers can address the war in the workplace. —Lila MacLellan
CEO swaps. Executives at public companies are leaving for CEO roles at portfolio companies owned by private equity firms. They say distractions are fewer, and there is only one shareholder to please.—Geoff Colvin
Best of both worlds. Adobe senior vice president Ashley Still told attendees at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference that AI advancements and the need for new human talent can co-exist in the coming years. —Rachyl Jones
Millennials missing. Twice as many millennial men are missing from the workforce compared to male baby boomers when they were the same age. That's partly because many millennial men are still in school. —Laura Curtis, Bloomberg
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