How’re you doing? And how’s your team? Your clients? There’s a lot of emphasis these days on wellness, and certainly in our business, financial wellness—this week we asked readers about mental health and its implications.
In fact, one of the compelling workshops at the upcoming 2022 NAPA 401(k) Summit features Melissa Doman, MA – Organizational Psychologist, Former Clinical Mental Health Therapist, and Author of Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why And How To Do It Really Well), who spoke at last year’s Summit—and this year will again focus on the important topic of mental health—how it may impact your team, your clients and yes, you. But let’s go to the survey.
Much has been said about the importance of financial wellness, and its impact on physical wellness. In fact, according to the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, poor finances often lead to stress and anxiety that can further impact finances. We asked readers how, if at all, they thought mental health factors into that equation.
Mental Health Impact
Not surprisingly, the vast majority—91%—saw it as being integral not only to overall well-being, but to financial well-being as well. The rest saw it as important, but beyond the realm of something that advisors could do anything about. As one reader commented, “We are not miracle workers and financial wellness seminars offer good tips but do not directly impact holistic outcomes.”
On the other hand, we got a number of comments from readers—here’s a sampling:
I spend significant time with plan participants. These sessions are part advisory and part therapy sessions.
Mental health affects decision making that could negatively affect their financial savings.
I think mental health is equally as important as financial and physical wellness. It’s almost like a 3-legged stool.
I believe questions about stress or happiness should be integrated in any financial wellbeing assessment tools that are being leveraged. Stress / happiness survey check-ins would be a valuable tool as well. Financial wellbeing outcomes metrics should account for moving the needle on mental health, stress, happiness.
If you are depressed and stuck in that hole so to speak, taking care of yourself each day is a chore. Worrying about poor finances, stress and anxiety and increased depression will only make things intensified.
We asked readers about their personal mental health (generally):
45% - Pretty good
27% - Have good days and bad days
16% - Things are good
11% - “I’d really like to break out of this funk I find myself in most days.”
Now, one reader commented: “Why nothing better than ‘Pretty good’? Seems like a biased set of answers.” Well, maybe—that wasn’t intentional. But here are additional contextual comments:
People keep telling me I should meet with a therapist, that I will love it. I am not there yet MENTALLY
I believe it was worse late 2020/early 2021. I had to work on it and still do... thinking about what I’m thinking about. Making sure I am not stuck is difficult at times, but necessary to not get hung up in the weeds of the moment. I’ve read some outstanding books that have given me a better, more long-term view of my life that have made me not want to waste time in the minutiae of this time. Live here and now in the present time. I can’t change the past nor control the future (although I can put intentionality into today’s actions to hopefully improve tomorrow). And, there is much that is out of your control. Control the things I can control, Let go of all else... especially worry. Prayer, time alone, keep away from media, exercise regularly, etc.
I didn’t realize how poor my mental health was until I final and fully began to come to terms and improve it. The pandemic impacted me more deeply than I ever could have imagined.
Had lots of therapy to become mentally healthy. It was a long climb.
But... I had to take 2 mental health afternoons last week. I’m running at 110% often, being aware of how business dynamics and covid are affecting me and leaning into taking care of myself mentally is of high importance right now.
By nature I’m a pretty glass half full person so I don’t have loads of ‘down’ days. However, I have a lot of totally ‘overwhelmed’ days!
But it takes work to “reduce the noise” in order to stay in a good mental space.
The isolation of remote work and constant video calls is getting very old. I miss the travel and in person meetings that are not coming back as quickly as I would like.
It is a miserable circle you find yourself in and sometimes working just brings back lot of pain but other times it makes things better and helps with your mental anxiety.
Diet, exercise, and cold showers go a long way
And then we turned to the issue of their teams, and readers told us:
49% - We’ve got good days and bad days—and more of the good than bad.
24% - Things are good.
20% - Pretty good.
5% - Things are getting ugly…
2% - We’ve got good days and bad days—but more bad than good.
Some comments:
Not sure if it’s because the staff is growing, pandemic, internal strife what...
Most of our team manage themselves very well. I believe there are a combination of reasons why we are all doing well: we are a small group (11 people); good internal communication and culture; we work in an area of the country not so densely populated so there seems to be more opportunity for social events without the tenseness; everyone on the team has a balance of autonomy and accountability which creates healthy interactions.
I don’t know we don’t talk about it
You can’t average health! It is individual. Just because one team members is healthy, it isn’t possible for that person to undo other team members level of un-health. While duct tape can fix most anything, it can’t fix crazy, but at least it can muffle the sound.
But... I really wonder if the overall team would answer this question similarly. We use Tinypulse to keep our eyes on the state of affairs with our team I’m going to pulse this question out in Feb.
I would choose an “I don’t know.” We are all working from home now, permanently, and our interactions via voice or in-person are very infrequent—less than once every 2 months. Hard to know how folks are doing without that connection.
Definitely starting to see a shift... about 6 months ago I would have answered more bad than good. I am hoping we are doing better at dealing with things and making sure our team has the support they need every day!
Varies from person to person, obviously. Oddly enough, the recent market and economic turmoil makes our people feel more needed and more important in what they do for their clients. And I would like to believe that seeing a steady, practical and non-worried leadership instills some sense of calm and stability.
Members on the team are visibly stretched and at times stressed. We are all working harder than we ever have as our clients are needing us in different ways. aiming to work smarter not harder as the goal.
Hard to say for sure, as we try not to take out “bad days” out on others.
I really don’t know people seem to keep their pain and depression to themselves and out management doesn’t do much to change it.
‘Pain’ Points
We then asked readers to pick three “pain points” that they’d like to see their organizations address. Here they are, ranked:
46% - Lack of acknowledgment and understanding of how the trauma and stress of the pandemic has impacted mental health
46% - A fear of judgment from others at work for sharing about mental health or mental illness
43% - A culture of ‘dismissing’ the importance of prioritizing mental health
31% - A lack of understanding of mental health and mental illness
28% - The family or relationship stress people bring into work
24% - A culture of ‘well-being shaming’: when staff are ‘guilted’ for trying to draw time boundaries between work and their personal life
20% - Lack of buy-in or role modeling from senior leadership in the business around mental health at work initiatives
9% - The expectation that financial advisors must always ‘keep it together’ for their clients
Workshop Focus
As for the focus readers say they’d like covered at the workshop at the NAPA 401(k) Summit:
63% - Understanding the influence of the pandemic, social division, grief, and loss on mental health at work conversations
56% - How to create a culture of acceptance and understanding around mental illness at work
52% - The specific do’s and don’ts of mental health at work conversations—tips for ‘in the moment’
50% - Understanding the emotional and neurological impact of chronic pandemic stress and trauma on mental health
28% - How and why to assess if you’re really ready to talk about your own mental health at work
One reader commented: “This is a great topic to cover because some people are really hurting and work at home and have no outlet. I appreciate it personally and hope we as a community continue to appreciate topics like this being discussds. Thank you NAPA.”
Still another said, “I can’t wait to attend this session.” I couldn’t have said it any better…
See you at the 2022 NAPA 401(k) Summit—April 3-5. https://napasummit.org
