Why trust is the most overlooked mental health benefit

There are few things in life that are both utterly heartbreaking and a complete privilege, but being with someone you love as they transition from life to death is one of them.

I have experienced this privilege twice, first with my grandmother and recently with my uncle.

Reflecting on these moments, it is not lost on me how lucky I am to work at a company that gave me the freedom, space, and support to be where I needed during those times.

Even as I assured them that I would have my computer while I sat in hospice and be fully available, I was told to do what I needed to and it was ok. I still worked but it was because I wanted to, not because I felt obligated.

Approaching Mental Health Awareness month differently

May is Mental Health Awareness month.

I anticipate an uptick in the ongoing conversation around mental health days – a great benefit – or increased accessibility to mental health professionals (a must), or breathing exercises to manage stress (it works – I do it all the time).

All of this is vitally important, but even if you offer all the benefits and tools that help a team thrive, without a culture that allows people to take advantage of those resources guilt-free, they’re useless.

People sometimes allude to this when discussing work-life balance, yet I find most people define work-life balance as strict boundaries – for example, ending at exactly 6pm and not looking at email until 9am. More rigid personal boundaries may be what some people want or need, but at KCSA we look at it a little differently.

I have always believed that most people want to be great at their job, but don’t want to feel they are sacrificing being great at the things that fulfill them outside of the workplace. That might be being a great friend or mother, or maybe a great runner or musician. We believe work life balance is about trusting our employees to know where their focus needs to be and when.

Sometimes that’s on a client call at 8pm working through a crisis communication, and other times, it’s sitting with a sick child (or dying uncle) in the middle of the day.

When you trust people to make those important calls in life, they aren’t doing mental gymnastics to try and justify their actions. They simply do what they need to so they can show up fully for the other. For KCSA, this is what supporting mental health actually looks like.

Mental health benefits are ineffective without a culture of trust

The power of trust…

I’ve seen this work not only in my life, but also in the lives of those that I lead. I once had an employee who was a living example of when it rains it pours. He was the main caretaker for a parent who was battling a rare disease, navigating a messy divorce and working through the loss of his nanny all in the span of months.

He needed a lot of support and flexibility, and we gave it to him. Throughout that time, while he wasn’t able to show up at the 110% that he normally did, he was present and focused when his clients needed him, and continued to provide them with the excellent guidance and care that he always did.

When things settled, he called thanking me and the company. He said that the support we gave him and the fact that he didn’t have to feel guilty about it allowed him to survive. He doesn’t know what he would have done if he’d had to worry about his job every time he needed to shift his schedule.

Shortly thereafter, he was back to performing at his previous level and I believe in my heart that he was even more dedicated to his team and clients than ever before.

…And what happens when it’s missing

On the other hand, I once worked at a company where the head of a department would step out at 9am and again at 6pm to see who was still at their desks. Salespeople were expected to come back to the office, even if their outside sales calls ended at 5:15pm and they were 30 minutes away. They were expected to return and sit at their desks working until 6pm.

When one employee's childcare fell through, in a role that could easily be done from home, she asked to work remotely until she secured a new situation. Rather than granting this accommodation, the manager insisted that she take PTO. I remember how panicked she was: if she burned through her PTO now, what would she do when her new nanny got sick or needed time off?

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In refusing to trust the employee to contribute from home, giving her the freedom to ensure her children were well taken care of, he didn't just affect her mental health, he lost a great employee.

Six months later, she found another job.

KCSA chooses trust

The reality is that we are all one phone call away from our world shifting underneath us. We can’t control it and we can’t always plan for it.

As a company, you have a choice to build a culture that trusts the talented people in your organization to manage everything they care about, including their job, or micromanage them out the door and spend your energy on constant recruitment.

KCSA will always choose trust. Because I know I show up better everywhere in my life when I'm trusted, and I know my employees do the same.

Katie Roland is the Chief Human Resources Officer at KCSA Strategic Communications, a mid-sized agency delivering a unique brand of integrated communications that combines passionate, persuasive storytelling with pioneering strategies.