Cisco, for example, was working with Stanford University School of Medicine’s Dr. Mira Zein on their mental health strategy, which included training modules for managers and efforts to de-stigmatize the conversation around this important topic.

“That foundation, I think, allowed us to have felt like we were addressing the stigma for over a year and a half before we stepped into the pandemic,” Francine Katsoudas, executive vice president and chief people, policy & purpose officer at Cisco, said on the panel.

Katsoudas noted the advantage it gave the company as it sought to address worsening employee mental health during the pandemic.

“When you introduce the conversation of mental health, you are being real and your people see it and you are then creating an opening to talk about everything that’s going on, both for your people but also within the business,” she explained.

The last 18 months have shown us that most companies are playing catch up, but that’s okay. The important thing to remember is how these times are affecting employees.

“People who had pre-existing mental health diagnoses were worsened in the course of the pandemic,” Dr. Zein said. “So we had people coming in, for instance, the emergency room who had higher severity of their disease but we then also have people coming forward with new diagnoses.”

Zein adds that leaders should be looking for signs of mental health decline, but not be surprised if they are more prevalent. Mental health may be worsening, but people are also more comfortable discussing it.

At Salesforce, the company had invested a lot of time in providing mental health support including “moments of joy” and meditation offerings, but they needed to adapt their approach once office workers were all remote. The software giant’s chief people officer led virtual townhalls, featuring outside experts and people from all over the company sharing their vulnerabilities and experiences in dealing with mental health.

If companies are working through their plans around remote or hybrid work, they should also consider the ties between this decision and mental health. 

“We believe that mental health and health equity and workforce development are all connected, you can’t separate them,” Cristina Jones, chief marketing and engagement officer at Salesforce.org, said. “If team members are facing mental health challenges or family challenges or whatever, it absolutely impacts their ability to excel at work and there is no one size fits all solution to this issue.”

Katsoudas shared that Cisco “decentralized” the decision around remote work, allowing individuals and team leaders to decide how they would set their working models and try out anything for 90 days. This ensured the company addressed the decision on a customized basis and also developed trust with employees.

“We have an opportunity here to engage with people in a more intentional way,” Jones said, adding that Salesforce is taking a similar approach. “I felt a lot more connection, recently, through this pandemic by people being more open to connection, and it’s something that I hope that we continue to model.”

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