In the latest episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws sits down with Sarah Adler, CEO and Founder of Wave, to discuss the recent and undeniable decline in mental well-being, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah talks to leaders about how to address and adapt to evolving employee needs in the modern workplace. Tune in for insight on today’s most prevalent workplace matters, like screen time, effective communication, generation gaps, and leadership best practices, all through the lens of mental health.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Sarah Adler, the CEO and Founder of Wave, is also a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
THE FACTORS AT PLAY
In our recent discussion, Sarah Adler noted that the COVID-19 pandemic is a likely driver for a recent and undeniable decline in mental well-being. But while the pandemic intensified feelings of isolation and loneliness, Sarah highlighted that this decline was already a prevailing trend even before the outbreak. On top of that, the shift to remote work during the pandemic, followed by the return to in-person workplaces, has caused additional stress for employees readjusting to traditional settings, particularly those who enjoyed the perks of remote work.
According to our guest, mental well-being is undoubtedly a complex issue. Sarah went on to emphasize a crucial disconnect between evolving employee needs and the responses of corporations. To promote and prioritize mental well-being in the modern workplace, leaders must take a more adaptive approach to meet the changing needs of their people.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The Effects of the Screen
“There have actually been some great studies. A colleague of mine at Stanford really looked at brain structure and how being on social media and technology really can structurally change the brain because of the reward system, the dopaminergic system, in our brain. We’re getting so much dopamine — we’re getting sort of addicted to it — it kind of makes us function a little bit more like a typical person with ADHD: it increases impulsivity, increases reactivity, to your point, makes you feel a little crazy. And also because we’re engaging with it so much and so often, when we come off it, we’re actually suffering from withdrawal. […] Your body is basically saying, ‘Wait, you just gave me a loaded dose of dopamine nonstop all day in these little short-form bites, and now I don’t have it. What am I supposed to do?’ And, and that, that creates problems.”
Mental Health and Digital Natives
“All of those systemic factors that we just kind of talked about really, really are amplified in Digital Natives. […] They have higher incidence rates of depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health issues that are showing up in the workplace. And by the way, the workforce is going to be 30% Digital Native by 2030. So for any employers who don’t think this actually really impacts them, it really does.”
On Different Wavelengths
“Digital Natives have been brought up and trained to communicate through, to your point, short form. They text. They slack. They’re very, very comfortable. And then the minute you put them in an environment where long-form sentences, formal emails, or any sort of more traditional hierarchical communication strategies are at play, they flounder a little bit. They communicate poorly, which really annoys the Millennials and the Gen Xers who have actually adapted quite well to more of these like higher hierarchical communication structures. And then there’s a lot of miscommunication happening, a lot of annoyance, a lot of unclear expectations, bad management that can come from that.”
Leading Well
“Good Management 101 for any employee, regardless of their generation, is about setting very clear expectations and communicating around work style. I know when I hire someone new, […] I’ve had a lot of conversations about, ‘What is your preferred communication style? What are your expectations? What do you hope to get out of this job? Let me share you with, share you mine, and let’s ensure that there’s a goodness of fit before we actually even take this any further.’ So I think it should start in the job interview process even before we get to the point where we’re having our first day with an employee.”
The Wave: How it Works
“We have what’s called a ‘stepped care model,’ which […] sort of makes an assessment of where you are in your mental health space and then gives you what you need in real-time — so whether that be an app-only experience because that’s all you need or that’s all you want right now. But there’s always an opportunity to step up in care, if and when you need it, with a real human being. […] This is a solution that we really fundamentally believe is going to help you thrive in the workplace and out. And it’s also designed to fix corporate culture as well. So it’s a design to really interface with the systemic issue. It’s not marginalizing your employees by throwing a solution at them and saying, ‘Oh, you need a mental health benefit. That’s a you problem.’ So it’s really an integration of like, ‘No, this is an us problem. We’re a team.’”
The Future of Mental Healthcare
“I think I am building what I think the future is, which is this intersection of really using data to understand who belongs, who needs what right now so that we’re not wasting resources — because right now what we have is a very one-size-fits-all, very expensive model, and part of that is really being able to align the financial incentives of the stakeholders. So that’s something that we’ve built around and we really fundamentally believe is the future.”
LEARN MORE
Connect with Sarah Adler on LinkedIn, or find out more about Wave, an innovative mental health platform, here.