Are you checking on your employees?
Mental health crisis real, shouldn’t be
Police officers are at a higher risk of suicide than any other profession. In fact, according to USA Today, suicide has been so prevalent in the profession that the number of police officers who die by suicide is more than triple that of officers who were fatally injured in the line of duty.
Because of these tragedies it was imperative for law enforcement to develop strategies to combat these preventable deaths. Although there is still much work to do, these measures have largely been effective at preventing suicides, and the lessons learned have value beyond law enforcement.
Per the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 U.S. adults experiences a mental illness each year; suicide is the second-leading cause of death among those aged 10-14 and the third-leading cause among those aged 15-24; and 155 million people live in a designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Area.
Is it any surprise to learn that the U.S. Surgeon General has declared mental health the top health concern in the United States? Those in anguish and pain are our family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors, all searching for a place to turn, all believing they are alone.
According to Forbes, mental health and substance abuse cost U.S. businesses between $80 billion and $100 billion annually. Another study showed that serious mental illness costs America up to $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.
Depression alone is thought to count for up to 400 million lost work days annually.
One way to address these challenges is by engaging Florida’s employers, and strategies learned from law enforcement would undoubtedly help businesses of all sizes address their employees’ mental health challenges.
As the associate vice president for public safety and chief of police at the University of Central Florida Police Department, my team and I established a multilayered approach to ensure that our officers, dispatchers and staff are able to maintain their mental hygiene.
This approach has been effective for us, and Florida’s employers can proactively use some or all of these measures to help their employees to be resilient and productive. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but Florida employers and business owners can adopt and develop processes and procedures to invest in and protect their most precious asset — their employees.
To help, I am sharing the layered approach we use at the UCF Police Department:
Developing resilience: There are many training programs and videos available to help employees develop resilience, which is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. We purchased a video series called the “Mental Hygiene Project,” which helped teach our staff the skills to improve their own resilience.
Peer-to-peer support: A peer-to-peer program provides a safe place for an employee who is struggling with their mental health to speak with someone in the workplace. Peer supporters encourage struggling individuals to reach out for effective help and promote hope, empowerment and recovery, allowing individuals struggling with a mental health crisis to know they are not alone.
Employee assistance programs:
If an individual is distracted by something going on at home, their workplace performance will also be affected, and vice versa. By implementing an employee assistance work-based program, employees have a free and confidential service that allows them to tackle personal problems that could be impacting them on a professional level.
Created by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Chamber Leadership Cabinet on Safety, Health and Sustainability serves as a resource for business owners who don’t have full-time safety and mental health professionals on staff.
With the average full-time employee spending half of their life at work, employers are uniquely positioned to not just invest in the mental health and well-being of their workforce but also to strengthen their organizations’ success by doing so.
Taking care of employees’ mental health is the right thing to do and is what leadership in 2023 looks like. It will also improve every aspect of your organization and lead to ever-greater success.