Revisiting Depression in the Workplace and Helping Employees

All mental health professionals conduct assessments and/or treat people for depression from time to time.

Some who suffer with this illness may experience such chronic long-term sadness that they barely understand any more what it is like to feel normal.

When depressed employees find relief, it is not unlike those who are able by a medical procedure to hear or see for the first time.

You probably have employees on payroll right now who suffer with chronic depression. They function with depression, but they are not firing on all cylinders. Productivity losses for this group of employees is enormous.

Employees with depression may not look "depressed", sulk at their desk, or behave sluggishly. Still, depression is one of the most costly illnesses to employers at a whopping $75 billion in lost productivity and absenteeism alone.

Consider educating employees about depression periodically so those who suffer from it have the chance to self-diagnose, rally with motivation, seek help. This is easy to do, and the payoffs can be great.

Here's a tip: Educate employees about depression in an article, and refer to a term called "bottomless sadness" associated with depression, and normal sadness. Google this term, and wrap a 150 word article around it. Put it in your health and wellness newsletter (or wait until March when I will do it in Frontline Employee.) You will be surprised at the impact this article has employees. Some who need help right now may reach out.

Don’t do a one-shot educational presentation or brown bag on depression. Instead trickle the information out in chapters with your newsletter, fliers, or another wellness tips program. You will see people move toward getting help after awareness builds after about six messages.

Consider this reproducible and editable tip sheet called “Understanding Depression.” Or Google for one like it somewhere on the Web. There are many. But, begin educating employees about this brain disease if you have not done so in a while.

Note, the tip sheet above also is available as a Video, Web Course, DVD, and PowerPoint. All have professional narration.

Begin an EAP-driven Proactive Injury Recovery Program to Support Employees Injured on the Job

The research is clear--better empathetic communication and engagement with injured workers can reduce workers' compensation costs associated with their recovery.

HR and EAPs should collaborate on this construct to get employees back to work sooner, reduce lawsuits, help prevent related employment claims, identify more troubled employees at risk of re-injury, and address secondary personal problems of injured workers that sabotage recovery.

This is not rocket science. Get excited, man! Follow 25 injured workers in 2018 and engage them in an "EAP Proactive Recovery Program." Then, compare your results--using 6-8 metrics--absences, treatment costs, re-injury rates, legal claims, reduced HR hassle time, speedier return to work, employee turnover, reduced overtime, etc.--to the same costs associated with the last 25 compensable injuries that were not similarly followed.

You should see a powerful return on this program. Then show up at an EAPA conference or share your results at a SHRM conference. Even better, attend a insurance or risk managers conference and promote employee assistance programs for the management tools they actually are, and should be, to help more workers and reduce costs. You might spark a needed true-to-the-spirit Core Technology EAP renaissance. 

Here are a few ideas to consider for your project:

1. Consider having injured workers engage with the EAP. A self-referral, or even a formal referral after injury is appropriate because the referral is based upon a job-related issue--injury. Another source of referral for such a program is the workers' compensation managed care nurse--get this individual on board with the program. 

You will discover this to be relatively easy because you are actually making their job easier and giving them improved stats. (I have done it, or I would not be writing about it.)

2. Have the EAP assess the psycho/social and environmental issues, and intervene with those that could contribute to a prolonged absence. This is a research-proven cost driver for WC injuries--the longer out, the less likely the return to work.

3. Institute EAP follow-up with medical doctors. They often have information helpful to a better EAP assessment.

4. Identify workers affected by depression and resolve employee concerns and complaints related to communications with the boss, HR, etc. (This reduces the likelihood of employees involving attorneys and suing the organization See: http://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/2013/07/injured-workers-hire-attorneys-due-to-lack-of-employer-communication/)

5. Provide assertiveness training to help injured employees avoid peer pressure to engage in prohibited work activities that can cause re-injury when they return to the job.
Return to work programs are great, but many include risk of re-injury if they are located near the environment associated with the original injury. ("Come'on Joe, help lift this lumber! Your back is fixed by now! Gimme a break!")

6. Conduct an EAP assessment for untreated alcoholism. (WC injuries are three times higher for alcoholic workers.) Also have the EAP discuss opioid use issues because many of these folks are at risk for addiction, especially those with back injuries.

These few activities require trust, a commitment to confidentiality, and services that only an EAP with its core technology and legally-backed confidentiality assurances can offer. (Think again if you still believe #800 insurance EAP hotlines can engage to this degree with employees and key stakeholders.)

So, "who you gonna call" to reduce workers' compensation costs? Try an effective EAP with a programmatic approach to WC injury and recovery--or get one in place for 2018.

Increase your supervisors referrals free for the next three months, no catch. No invoice, No Bill, no hassle, no nothin'. - Fax this form, and cross out the price on it. And mark "Give it to me free, Dan."  Put your email on the form. I don't need your name.

Sign up for free EAP resources at WorkExcel.com

Free Holiday Stress Tip Sheet for EAPs

Okay, everybody has been waiting for this. Here is it.

There were at least a few national news stories this year discussing the health effects of loneliness. Researchers see it as a growing problem, and some believe it is the new "obesity" issue because of its adverse impact on health--both physical and mental health. Given the strong association between the holiday season and family get-togethers, a tip sheet topic on being alone for the holidays looked like a good one to send to you. Go to this page to download this year's free, reproducible, editable, and Web usable workplace wellness tip sheet on holiday stress entitled, "Alone for the Holidays."

WorkExcel Tip: When we create a Web course, we take a document you might have or a PowerPoint, separate all the text into separate moving parts for a slide program, animate it, professionally narrate the text, time it with images, and add handouts, test questions, and certificate or course validation element. When this is completed, we can then create a DVD format, a video that will play on any device, and of course the Web course.

This brochure provides more information. Finally, create your own library of web courses, engage employees and family members more effectively, add to your capabilities, make a bigger impact, brand everything with your logo, never pay another licensing fee, own your library, have no off-page links to a provider/vendor customer go off and explore, and compete more effectively.

I could go on, but what it is on your computer right now that would be awesome outreach in the form of a Web course. Fax this form to 843-884-0442 for a quote.

Daniel Feerst, BSW, MSW, LISW-CP

Publisher, WorkExcel.com

P.S. If you place a link to WorkExcel.com in some isolated location on your Web site, it greatly helps keep this free service going. Thanks in advance.