June 13, 2025 • 32 mins
The boundary between professional and personal life has never been more blurred. As Dr. Alexander Lovell, Research Director at the O.C. Tanner Institute, reveals in this compelling episode, employees worldwide are increasingly operating in "survival mode" rather than thriving at work, and the consequences extend far beyond productivity metrics.
Alex introduces guest host Dr. Bill Howatt to the "Survival Continuum", a framework that maps the journey from mere survival to genuine thriving. This isn't a simple binary state but rather a nuanced spectrum where employees can experience varying degrees of struggle or fulfillment. Through extensive research, his team has identified three critical pillars determining where employees fall on this continuum: compensation, healthcare access, and the often-underestimated power of belonging.
The financial reality for many workers is sobering. While executives might imagine employees dreaming of lavish vacations, Dr. Lovell's research reveals most simply hope for "not having an empty bank account by the end of the month." This disconnect between perception and reality represents a significant blind spot for leaders trying to address workplace wellbeing.
Perhaps most illuminating is the discussion around mental health stigma. Despite increased awareness, employees continue to mask anxiety and depression behind more palatable terms like "burnout" or "feeling tired". This linguistic substitution reveals how far we still need to go in normalizing authentic mental health conversations in professional settings. Meanwhile, the cost of presenteeism—being physically present but mentally elsewhere—exceeds absenteeism costs by 7.5 times.
For HR professionals feeling overwhelmed by these challenges, Dr. Lovell offers practical starting points. Begin by taking inventory of existing resources, then focus on creating genuine belonging through recognition and leader modeling of appropriate vulnerability.
Ready to help your team move from survival to thriving? Subscribe to the HRchat show and Dr Bill's new podcast, Exploring Workplace Mental Health, for more insights on creating workplaces where belonging and wellbeing drive sustainable performance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's
most downloaded and sharedpodcasts designed for HR pros,
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For hundreds more episodes andwhat's new in the world of work,
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Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome, alex Dr Lovell.
Did I say that right?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
That is perfect.
It's Lovell, Lovell.
I have been called so manydifferent things throughout my
life.
Everything works.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Okay, so good to have you here.
I'm providing a little bit of aguest host for us, my good chap
Bill, I thought perhaps to getus going.
Alex, if you wouldn't mindgiving us a little bit of an
introduction of who you are,Tell the audience a little bit
about what you would like themto know and kind of sets up
today so they kind of understandwho you are as an expert and
what we're going to perhaps leadinto.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Sure.
So again, my name is DrAlexander Lovell.
I'm the research director forthe OC Tanner Institute.
Oc Tanner is a rewards andrecognition company based out of
Salt Lake City, and at the OCTanner Institute we do a lot of
work around employee experienceand workplace culture.
And you might be wondering, okay, so that's interesting, what
(01:30):
kind of research do you actuallydo?
And I'm a political sociologistand kind of a cross with
political psychology too.
And now you're wondering whatthe heck are you doing there?
And it's because I do a lot ofwork around identity and what
fulfills us, and work is a bigcentral element of our lives and
it's also a big central elementof what can either make us
(01:50):
really fulfilled or make usreally miserable.
And so it's a great place forme to land because I can do a
lot of work around how we canfeel fulfilled and what types of
work really help drive ustowards purpose and meaning and
fulfillment, or what can reallydrag us down and exhaust us and
(02:11):
affect our mental well-being andaffect our physical well-being.
And I am really privileged towork with a team of researchers.
We have a clinical psychologist, a political theorist, we
actually have a physicist onstaff who's a data scientist,
sociologist, human behaviorist,organizational design.
(02:31):
We have quite a myriad ofresearchers at the OC Tanner
Institute also working with me.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazettecom.
And now back to the show Cool.
So the employee experiencematters clearly to you folks, so
it's interesting, with thatwork that you did to get to what
(03:02):
we're going to ask somequestions today about all your
work around the survivalcontinuum.
Is there a little story thatyou want to share of how you got
to the survival continuum andthen kind of explain what is the
survival continuum, to providecontext of the why and what and
how this stuff matters?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You know you would think that in the COVID years,
you know you would think that inthe COVID years that survival
was the thing that was going topop up more.
And it's interesting.
Since COVID, employee sentimenthas almost deteriorated and
what we began to really find outand uncover is employees are
(03:47):
becoming progressively worse.
Their mental health continuesto progressively deteriorate,
and part of that is related to,I mean, the outside world.
We cannot separate ourselvesfrom what is going on around us.
We like to pretend that once weenter the workplace that we
(04:08):
have a whole different life, butthat really isn't quite true.
We are our personal lives andour professional lives
altogether.
There isn't a clean break.
And so, as we have financialbut across the world where the
cost of living was just too much, and so people were making too
(04:48):
many sacrifices across thespectrum in their lives to just
get food on the table, to findeven a quiet space in their life
, to just exist without, withoutthe noise of the world creeping
in.
And that's where, when we askedthem what word was simply the
(05:11):
best word to describe theirexperience, it was survival.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, wow.
So the external adversity loadsare really starting to mount up
, and it's before people evenget to the workplace.
It sounds like your research isfinding they're very challenged
.
So explain what is your thesisaround the survival continuum
and why should employers careabout this thing?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, so survive and really thrive.
And I think that's theinteresting thing is we put them
on two separate poles butthere's kind of two spectrums
inside of them.
You have kind of on the surviveside, you have low survive and
high survive, and then you havelow thrive and high thrive.
(05:55):
Where you can be high survive,you can feel like you are
starting to get it together, butyou're not thriving yet.
And I think that was animportant distinction'm finally
starting to make ends meet.
Just because I'm finallystarting to feel okay doesn't
(06:32):
mean that you've even helped mehit the mark in terms of my
ability to thrive.
It's a multifaceted and verynuanced picture.
And so, on the survive side, wefound that there were kind of
three elements that were mostimportant to employees and
(06:52):
you'll be unsurprised to hearthat compensation was a big
component of that, you know andorganizations.
And as we shared some of thisresearch and as we shared some
of this research, I get eyerolls when I say that, but I'm
sorry that finances are aconsiderable part of living in
today's world because, you know,money is what helps us pay rent
(07:18):
, it's what helps us buygroceries, it's what helps us
pay for gas, it's what helps usbuy our, like you know, do all
those things.
And when we talked with HRstakeholders it was interesting
the different visions of whatmoney meant.
They almost glorify to someextent and senior leaders too
(07:40):
lavish vacations and a verydifferent standard of living
that they think employees arewanting.
And when you talk to employees,the most common types of things
that we get is just I don'twant my bank account to be empty
by the end of the month.
I would like $100 from month tomonth.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
And I think across North America the literature in
two constructs is pretty clear.
Food insecurity is around 25 to30 percent and typically
between 55 and 60 percent of thepopulation can get their hands
on $1,000.
So I'm not surprised that youhad that finding.
I'm fascinated when you talk tome a little bit more, if you
(08:22):
wouldn't mind.
Around the I like the survivalcontinuum Is the upper end of
that continuum.
Putting my kind of mentalhealth hat on, is that similar
to languishing the upper part ofit, like I'm feeling I'm still
functioning a little bit.
Things are a little bit blah I,I'm doing okay.
(08:43):
Where, if you move down thecontinuum and yours, you're
losing more functioning is.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
perhaps you could round that out a bit for me yeah
, you, the the further down yougo, the I think the closer to
hopelessness you get.
I, I think that's.
I think, um, hopelessness isprobably one of the bigger
emotions that we linked to that.
(09:10):
You know, if you want to godown your more, I would say,
typical fight or flight types ofmentality and those types of
vocabulary vocabulary Also thatyou, when you look at our
(09:30):
qualitative, those types ofwords are often used to describe
.
You know, the the further onthat side of the spectrum that
you go, that is what happens.
People get into that fight orflight and that tunnel vision.
You can, you can see thattunnel vision happen for people.
They can't see anything butgetting out of that.
You know that financial issue,but it's not just financial.
(09:53):
That's where I say that's oneof those three components we
have people talking about.
Well, I could make ends meet,but my health insurance was just
so bad that I had to goelsewhere.
I had to take a pay cut, butthis other place had better
health insurance and I was ableto take care of myself better.
(10:16):
Or I have this healthcareproblem that this other place
helped me access betterhealthcare.
Or like I couldn't take daysoff to go see my therapist and
so I needed to be able to dothat Like.
So.
It's interesting how people youknow really prioritize their
(10:37):
access to healthcare or theirability to pay for healthcare as
part of that survival need, andthat has even changed right.
When I look at some of the workthat we did back, even in 2018,
I think something shifted forpeople during the COVID years in
terms of the prioritization,even on physical and mental
health in a good extent.
(10:58):
I think that's a good thing.
I think that's a really goodshift Terrible thing to go
through, but a good shiftnonetheless in terms of our
prioritization of health.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So let's keep pulling on that thread now.
So, as we talk more about thesurvival continuum and what
you're finding in this generalthematic that you're talking
about, the interactions now withmental health, you know, how
can organizations start toleverage this type of thing,
(11:32):
measuring it and that part of itand why they and I guess I keep
I liked how you're putting itYou're helping them.
Hr folks often need to know thewhy.
So this is a part of it.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, and mental health care.
I mean, I think mental healthcare is going through almost a
renaissance in terms of like.
We are starting to realize itdoes matter, just like physical
health care matters, and we'restarting to become more willing
to care for our mental health.
But an interesting part of ourresearch last year was this
(12:08):
finding that we're still notwilling to talk about it as much
.
We're masking terminology andwhat we found is that we're
substituting words to make themmore palatable to talk about in
the workplace, and so we foundphraseology of being tired or
(12:29):
burned out to really actually besubstitutes for anxiety and
depression and all sorts ofsymptomology of those two.
Our clinical psychologistactually did some really
interesting matching componentsof people's qual and quant
responses and found interestingmatching of the symptomology of
(12:56):
depression and anxiety and thewords people would use in the
workplace and they mappedtogether in really interesting
ways.
But people won't actually talkabout anxiety and depression in
the workplace.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
They'll focus on burnout, yeah yeah, because it's
socially acceptable wherestigma is still a major, major
barrier.
And the thing that I think alot of people sometimes forget
too, alex, is that the you knowwhat comes first metabolic
syndrome or depression and Ithink a part of where your
thesis is the employeeexperience can have a spillover
(13:32):
effect on both.
I'd like you to kind of keepbuilding on the thematic before
(13:57):
we get to what employers can dois how does employees going
through this adversity andchallenges and we're seeing an
erosion by your thesis andyou're starting to see more
folks are spending time insurvival and there's higher
intersects, where they'reimpacting their physical health
and their mental.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
How does that all show up in productivity and the
engagement and and theemployee's potential?
Yeah, there's two.
There's two fundamental thingsthat we found right.
One is in in more presenteeism,where you're there, but are you
there?
Right, you'll show up, but areyou doing the work.
And so so many stories ofpeople being like, well, I'm
(14:23):
there, but can I actually do myjob?
My mind is elsewhere.
My mind is on all the manythings.
My mind is on all the manythings that I need to get done,
or all the things that I'mworried about, or how I'm going
to care for my aging parent thatis at home that I can't
(14:44):
actually help and I don't havethe money to put into a home or
to pay for care.
I mean, there's so many facetshere that we just don't have
answers for, and so presenteeismis a really big drain on our
system and, in terms ofproductivity, presenteeism is
(15:07):
probably one of the worst things, because you are paying for
people to be present but notworking?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Oh, 100%.
Our research in 2012 found thatpresentism was 7.5 times the
cost of attendance on average,and we were pretty clear in how
we defined it as the involuntarymotivation to come to work to
attempt to do your minimalstandards.
Seldom ever can.
Root cause can be mental health, can be chronic disease, can be
mental health, can be chronicdisease.
Can be respectful workplacefear, other types of things.
(15:37):
But a part you're bringing up Ithink that's important for the
audience to be mindful is theamount of distraction that's
happening and the energy it'srequired when you're feeling
discouraged and when humanbeings are feeling discouraged
because the construct ofhopelessness I've seen patients
for nearly 40 years and thething that's fascinating to me
(15:58):
is around that hopelessness.
It increases people's risk forautomatic suicide ideation, and
automatic suicide ideationdoesn't mean they're actually
suicidal, it's just their crazycreativity system is providing
them options.
They perhaps are prettyoverwhelming and shocking to
them.
So, while this is stopping,this is pretty heavy stuff for
(16:19):
the average hr practitionersitting there is going wow, you
know I, I, you know I got hired.
You know, my job is to hirethem.
Bring them in now.
Am I supposed to become apsychologist?
What am I supposed to become apsychologist.
What am I supposed to do?
Like, what's your coaching toHR folks Like this is like you
and I.
I mean it only took me 40 yearsto get to where I am, so but I
(16:41):
mean you know someone who caresand really wants to try to be
helpful.
Like, what's your coaching?
What can HR teams do?
How can they start to moveBecause they can't control
payroll my all of a sudden saywe're gonna give everyone ten
thousand dollars raise raises.
Like what can they actually do?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
that that's that you're seeing in the evidence
that small things matter yeah, Ithink part of the I mentioned
three pillars in the survivespectrum the.
The third one was belonging,and that one's an interesting
one, but it has a reallyfundamental part of survive too
(17:19):
is we are more likely to feellike we can survive when we feel
like we belong, when we feellike we're part of something.
And that's not going to fixcompensation issues, right, and
this isn't going to glorify, youknow, deficiencies in mental
and physical health care, but itcan still help us feel safer,
(17:41):
yes, and it can help us at leastfeel like we have a place to be
.
And that can go a long way.
And there's a lot of ways thatwe can help people lean into
belonging.
One is recognition.
We know that peer-to-peer basedrecognition can really help,
and we know, probably morepowerfully is leader to employee
recognition and leaders justtaking a moment to say hey, I
(18:04):
see you, I value you, what youjust did is meaningful.
This is how it's meaningful.
This is how it creates impact.
This is how it's meaningful.
This is how it creates impact.
The other thing, from a leaderperspective.
You know we don't want leadersbecoming therapists that's way
out of their job, responsibilityand they're not going to be
good at it.
But leader modeling on talkingabout harder stuff when leaders
(18:30):
can be a little bit morevulnerable about their own, like
, wow, I just really struggledwith that.
Yes, and this is how I overcamethat.
Right, you know.
And creating a culture, orinjecting into the culture,
because I hate creating culture.
Culture is there, but injectinginto the culture more
(18:51):
vulnerability from the top andthen letting that trickle down
that it is okay to be human andthat humans have emotion and
that in this culture we actuallywelcome emotion and that we can
talk about the hard things,that we're not just robots, that
we can work through hard thingstogether and that when you're
(19:15):
having a hard time, there'sresources and support here.
I love mental health awarenessmonths, but it's not just about
the month, it's actually allabout the year.
This is a great opportunity tosurface all the different
programs that maybe we'reforgetting about that and really
(19:36):
connect people back to allthose rich resources that I
trust most organizations alreadyhave um employee, you know,
employee access points or thosedifferent eaps um, a lot of
people haven't used they're veryunderutilized.
A lot of health insurance inthe United States and a lot of
(19:59):
other countries have a lotbetter, more robust mental
health access points now thanthey used to.
How do we get people back intothose?
Can we use this month as areorientation to those new
(20:22):
resources?
I think this is where HR canactually do a lot to reconnect
people back to how we can reallyhelp.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
What's for someone sitting back and saying, okay, I
like this, what are one or twopractical things they can do?
To start, let's say they justlisten and they go.
Oh great, you know, becauseit's interesting when you talk
about an emotion.
You know all an emotion is is aneurochemical.
You don't pick them, but youcan learn how to react to them,
(20:53):
and so it's fascinating that,the concept that, as you start
to make this shift, I like whatyou're talking about shift and
adding to the culture.
And what are you going to doand adding these micro decisions
or intentional steps?
Because I'm getting that your,your coaching is going to be you
.
You don't eat an elephant allat once.
(21:14):
You're going to eat it one biteat a time.
So, what's one or two things?
Someone would start to say, hey, I get the joke around mental
health, I get all the thingsthat are happening, but what can
we do?
What are a couple?
What's some coaching?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Well, I think first is just simply take an inventory
of what you have.
My guess is that you probablyhave forgotten everything that
you actually have, so reorientyourself to just what you
already have.
I think that's a very simpleplace to start.
Then you're remembering, thenyou realize.
(21:54):
Ask your peers, because theyprobably know even a couple
other ones that you're not eventhinking about.
I think that's the perfectfirst place to start.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, I like that because I think what happens is
is you do your inventory andthen you can determine what the
level of engagement is, becauseit's kind of the I find often
doing this the low-hanging fruitis actually trying to make sure
people are aware of it.
And one of the things that itseems to me I don't know if you
(22:21):
found this in your data is thatthe conversation around having
access to programs createsconfusion around the word access
, and what I mean by thatspecifically is I'm getting?
When am I allowed to accessthese programs?
So my employer might have abunch of programs, but you know,
I'm driving, I'm eating mylunch and I'm not having any
(22:41):
time to stop.
I'm in survival mode.
I need my paycheck.
I may not feel I have a lot ofpurpose.
What's your coaching aroundmaking sure we also pay
attention to giving space forpeople to discover this stuff?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
You know, two years ago, when we looked at this
population, we called them the80%.
And it's the part of thepopulation that doesn't have
ready access all the time to allthese organizational tools.
They often work offline or justpart of the time offline.
And so we looked at access andthe second word was enablement
(23:17):
Okay.
And because what we found isthat organizations made a big
access push but they forgotabout okay, so great, people can
access it.
Sure, you have all thesemanufacturing people, for
example, that now haveorganizational email addresses.
So what have you done to makesure that they can access their
(23:38):
email, that they can actuallyaccess their email?
Great, you gave them a password.
How have you enabled that?
And so it's all about buildinginto the flow of work really
organic ways to be able to dothat.
You know, in our kind oftechnology, in our flow of work
(24:00):
right, we do employeerecognition as a technology how
do you actually buildrecognition into that flow of
work in a way that makes itpossible?
So, making sure that there'skiosks.
If you're in a fully offlineenvironment that doesn't have
any space for anything else,kiosks matter and they're
(24:22):
actually very effective.
Mobile apps matter, becausesometimes people need that
Integrations into your payrollsoftware, because if that's
where people are because theyhave to submit a time card you
can integrate with that type ofthing.
You can get creative with howyou build different types of
structures in when you look atwhere people actually spend
(24:44):
their time.
You just have to look at wherepeople spend their time, because
my guess is that people spendtheir time somewhere they have
to.
So it's about building theexperience around where people
already naturally are.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's a great point.
I think, alex, sometimes weforget to change management.
When listening to you, I thinkabout the at-care model.
You have to have awareness andthen you have to have your
desire, and then you have tohave your knowledge, then you
need the ability, which is yourpoint, and then you need to
reinforce this and kind of keepgoing that.
Well, this has been amazing.
(25:20):
We're coming down to almost theend of our chat.
I want to make sure I give someopen space to something or a
couple of points, as you reflecton this conversation, that you
really want to make sure theaudience hears that's important
from you to them that you thinkcould be helpful as they start
to hopefully move more towardsthriving than surviving with
(25:42):
their workforces.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, I think I mean.
The first thing that I wouldjust love to reinforce is that
mental health care and mentalhealth conversations are just
still stigmatized.
That's something that, as wecontinue to study mental health
in the workplace, the stigma isstill there.
(26:04):
No matter how much our opennessto those conversations
continues to be open, thatstigma still remains a big
barrier.
So, as we reinforce to HR andas to leaders, to senior leaders
, to frontline leaders, that weneed to have these conversations
(26:25):
, we just need to realize thatthere is a barrier.
Still, it's uncomfortable andit's okay.
We need to just continue thatjourney.
Um, we are about to release ournext report in september and
it's interesting we're going tohave kind of a continuation on
the mental health component.
Uh, and it's really excitingbecause we're tiny, we're tying
(26:46):
it to, uh, organizationalperformance management and some
really interesting.
We pulled some from somepsychological components, from
parenting almost, because whatwe were interested in is how do
you balance mental health andreally supporting mental health
(27:09):
with also a high performanceculture?
How do you kind of have yourcake and eat it too?
Right, because I think a lot oforganizations have been
struggling with supportingmental health but also wanting
high performance.
Can you get both?
And I think we have an answerfor that you can, so I'm really
(27:30):
excited about that.
I think the answer lies in, youknow, having high expectations
but also marrying that with highsupport safety component, and
(27:54):
it's not really what you'redoing.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
when I'm listening to you, it's focusing more on the
how and starting to move it, andyou know it's interesting.
I'll reflect on your thinking.
I think one of the things thatresonates from the conversation
that you said to me today that Ithink is really important for
people is around belonging.
We have a scientific studywe're publishing through SMU
coming out and we have foundthat low belonging to high
(28:19):
belonging is predictingdisability claims, lost time, et
cetera, and it's amazing thatit doesn't take a whole lot for
a person to feel welcomed orvalued.
And it's that intentionalbehaviors, as you were saying.
I think that's really important.
You don't need reallycomplicated superstructural
(28:40):
systems.
You just need human beings whoare slowing down and paying
attention to other human beings,one interaction at a time.
So that's awesome.
I really enjoyed thisconversation, alex.
Final thoughts for the audiencebefore we say our goodbyes.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Well, actually I want to echo your thought on
belonging, because what a simplethought it is and what a
reality that it's so easy tomake somebody feel like they
belong.
You just have to lean in andshow that they're valued, and
then that can start with asimple thank you.
I see what you did there.
(29:16):
Recognition is just so simple,so why is it so hard to do?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, sometimes it's just people forget the value, I
believe, is when they get caughtup in their own thinking and
that appreciative inquiry offinding good in other people can
actually release nice oxytocinin your own brain by
acknowledging and acts ofkindness for other people.
(29:42):
So I like what your, your folks, are on to and it's it's
fascinating work and I'm supergrateful.
Bill gave me the chance to havethis conversation with alex and
I know your organization isdoing some great work, so keep
up all the good stuff you'redoing.
So thank you for your time, sir.
Thank you I had a great time,thanks.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show.
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Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome, alex Dr Lovell.
Did I say that right?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
That is perfect.
It's Lovell, Lovell.
I have been called so manydifferent things throughout my
life.
Everything works.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Okay, so good to have you here.
I'm providing a little bit of aguest host for us, my good chap
Bill, I thought perhaps to getus going.
Alex, if you wouldn't mindgiving us a little bit of an
introduction of who you are,Tell the audience a little bit
about what you would like themto know and kind of sets up
today so they kind of understandwho you are as an expert and
what we're going to perhaps leadinto.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Sure.
So again, my name is DrAlexander Lovell.
I'm the research director forthe OC Tanner Institute.
Oc Tanner is a rewards andrecognition company based out of
Salt Lake City, and at the OCTanner Institute we do a lot of
work around employee experienceand workplace culture.
And you might be wondering, okay, so that's interesting, what
(01:30):
kind of research do you actuallydo?
And I'm a political sociologistand kind of a cross with
political psychology too.
And now you're wondering whatthe heck are you doing there?
And it's because I do a lot ofwork around identity and what
fulfills us, and work is a bigcentral element of our lives and
it's also a big central elementof what can either make us
(01:50):
really fulfilled or make usreally miserable.
And so it's a great place forme to land because I can do a
lot of work around how we canfeel fulfilled and what types of
work really help drive ustowards purpose and meaning and
fulfillment, or what can reallydrag us down and exhaust us and
(02:11):
affect our mental well-being andaffect our physical well-being.
And I am really privileged towork with a team of researchers.
We have a clinical psychologist, a political theorist, we
actually have a physicist onstaff who's a data scientist,
sociologist, human behaviorist,organizational design.
(02:31):
We have quite a myriad ofresearchers at the OC Tanner
Institute also working with me.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazettecom.
And now back to the show Cool.
So the employee experiencematters clearly to you folks, so
it's interesting, with thatwork that you did to get to what
(03:02):
we're going to ask somequestions today about all your
work around the survivalcontinuum.
Is there a little story thatyou want to share of how you got
to the survival continuum andthen kind of explain what is the
survival continuum, to providecontext of the why and what and
how this stuff matters?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You know you would think that in the COVID years,
you know you would think that inthe COVID years that survival
was the thing that was going topop up more.
And it's interesting.
Since COVID, employee sentimenthas almost deteriorated and
what we began to really find outand uncover is employees are
(03:47):
becoming progressively worse.
Their mental health continuesto progressively deteriorate,
and part of that is related to,I mean, the outside world.
We cannot separate ourselvesfrom what is going on around us.
We like to pretend that once weenter the workplace that we
(04:08):
have a whole different life, butthat really isn't quite true.
We are our personal lives andour professional lives
altogether.
There isn't a clean break.
And so, as we have financialbut across the world where the
cost of living was just too much, and so people were making too
(04:48):
many sacrifices across thespectrum in their lives to just
get food on the table, to findeven a quiet space in their life
, to just exist without, withoutthe noise of the world creeping
in.
And that's where, when we askedthem what word was simply the
(05:11):
best word to describe theirexperience, it was survival.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, wow.
So the external adversity loadsare really starting to mount up
, and it's before people evenget to the workplace.
It sounds like your research isfinding they're very challenged
.
So explain what is your thesisaround the survival continuum
and why should employers careabout this thing?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, so survive and really thrive.
And I think that's theinteresting thing is we put them
on two separate poles butthere's kind of two spectrums
inside of them.
You have kind of on the surviveside, you have low survive and
high survive, and then you havelow thrive and high thrive.
(05:55):
Where you can be high survive,you can feel like you are
starting to get it together, butyou're not thriving yet.
And I think that was animportant distinction'm finally
starting to make ends meet.
Just because I'm finallystarting to feel okay doesn't
(06:32):
mean that you've even helped mehit the mark in terms of my
ability to thrive.
It's a multifaceted and verynuanced picture.
And so, on the survive side, wefound that there were kind of
three elements that were mostimportant to employees and
(06:52):
you'll be unsurprised to hearthat compensation was a big
component of that, you know andorganizations.
And as we shared some of thisresearch and as we shared some
of this research, I get eyerolls when I say that, but I'm
sorry that finances are aconsiderable part of living in
today's world because, you know,money is what helps us pay rent
(07:18):
, it's what helps us buygroceries, it's what helps us
pay for gas, it's what helps usbuy our, like you know, do all
those things.
And when we talked with HRstakeholders it was interesting
the different visions of whatmoney meant.
They almost glorify to someextent and senior leaders too
(07:40):
lavish vacations and a verydifferent standard of living
that they think employees arewanting.
And when you talk to employees,the most common types of things
that we get is just I don'twant my bank account to be empty
by the end of the month.
I would like $100 from month tomonth.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
And I think across North America the literature in
two constructs is pretty clear.
Food insecurity is around 25 to30 percent and typically
between 55 and 60 percent of thepopulation can get their hands
on $1,000.
So I'm not surprised that youhad that finding.
I'm fascinated when you talk tome a little bit more, if you
(08:22):
wouldn't mind.
Around the I like the survivalcontinuum Is the upper end of
that continuum.
Putting my kind of mentalhealth hat on, is that similar
to languishing the upper part ofit, like I'm feeling I'm still
functioning a little bit.
Things are a little bit blah I,I'm doing okay.
(08:43):
Where, if you move down thecontinuum and yours, you're
losing more functioning is.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
perhaps you could round that out a bit for me yeah
, you, the the further down yougo, the I think the closer to
hopelessness you get.
I, I think that's.
I think, um, hopelessness isprobably one of the bigger
emotions that we linked to that.
(09:10):
You know, if you want to godown your more, I would say,
typical fight or flight types ofmentality and those types of
vocabulary vocabulary Also thatyou, when you look at our
(09:30):
qualitative, those types ofwords are often used to describe
.
You know, the the further onthat side of the spectrum that
you go, that is what happens.
People get into that fight orflight and that tunnel vision.
You can, you can see thattunnel vision happen for people.
They can't see anything butgetting out of that.
You know that financial issue,but it's not just financial.
(09:53):
That's where I say that's oneof those three components we
have people talking about.
Well, I could make ends meet,but my health insurance was just
so bad that I had to goelsewhere.
I had to take a pay cut, butthis other place had better
health insurance and I was ableto take care of myself better.
(10:16):
Or I have this healthcareproblem that this other place
helped me access betterhealthcare.
Or like I couldn't take daysoff to go see my therapist and
so I needed to be able to dothat Like.
So.
It's interesting how people youknow really prioritize their
(10:37):
access to healthcare or theirability to pay for healthcare as
part of that survival need, andthat has even changed right.
When I look at some of the workthat we did back, even in 2018,
I think something shifted forpeople during the COVID years in
terms of the prioritization,even on physical and mental
health in a good extent.
(10:58):
I think that's a good thing.
I think that's a really goodshift Terrible thing to go
through, but a good shiftnonetheless in terms of our
prioritization of health.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So let's keep pulling on that thread now.
So, as we talk more about thesurvival continuum and what
you're finding in this generalthematic that you're talking
about, the interactions now withmental health, you know, how
can organizations start toleverage this type of thing,
(11:32):
measuring it and that part of itand why they and I guess I keep
I liked how you're putting itYou're helping them.
Hr folks often need to know thewhy.
So this is a part of it.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, and mental health care.
I mean, I think mental healthcare is going through almost a
renaissance in terms of like.
We are starting to realize itdoes matter, just like physical
health care matters, and we'restarting to become more willing
to care for our mental health.
But an interesting part of ourresearch last year was this
(12:08):
finding that we're still notwilling to talk about it as much
.
We're masking terminology andwhat we found is that we're
substituting words to make themmore palatable to talk about in
the workplace, and so we foundphraseology of being tired or
(12:29):
burned out to really actually besubstitutes for anxiety and
depression and all sorts ofsymptomology of those two.
Our clinical psychologistactually did some really
interesting matching componentsof people's qual and quant
responses and found interestingmatching of the symptomology of
(12:56):
depression and anxiety and thewords people would use in the
workplace and they mappedtogether in really interesting
ways.
But people won't actually talkabout anxiety and depression in
the workplace.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
They'll focus on burnout, yeah yeah, because it's
socially acceptable wherestigma is still a major, major
barrier.
And the thing that I think alot of people sometimes forget
too, alex, is that the you knowwhat comes first metabolic
syndrome or depression and Ithink a part of where your
thesis is the employeeexperience can have a spillover
(13:32):
effect on both.
I'd like you to kind of keepbuilding on the thematic before
(13:57):
we get to what employers can dois how does employees going
through this adversity andchallenges and we're seeing an
erosion by your thesis andyou're starting to see more
folks are spending time insurvival and there's higher
intersects, where they'reimpacting their physical health
and their mental.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
How does that all show up in productivity and the
engagement and and theemployee's potential?
Yeah, there's two.
There's two fundamental thingsthat we found right.
One is in in more presenteeism,where you're there, but are you
there?
Right, you'll show up, but areyou doing the work.
And so so many stories ofpeople being like, well, I'm
(14:23):
there, but can I actually do myjob?
My mind is elsewhere.
My mind is on all the manythings.
My mind is on all the manythings that I need to get done,
or all the things that I'mworried about, or how I'm going
to care for my aging parent thatis at home that I can't
(14:44):
actually help and I don't havethe money to put into a home or
to pay for care.
I mean, there's so many facetshere that we just don't have
answers for, and so presenteeismis a really big drain on our
system and, in terms ofproductivity, presenteeism is
(15:07):
probably one of the worst things, because you are paying for
people to be present but notworking?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Oh, 100%.
Our research in 2012 found thatpresentism was 7.5 times the
cost of attendance on average,and we were pretty clear in how
we defined it as the involuntarymotivation to come to work to
attempt to do your minimalstandards.
Seldom ever can.
Root cause can be mental health, can be chronic disease, can be
mental health, can be chronicdisease.
Can be respectful workplacefear, other types of things.
(15:37):
But a part you're bringing up Ithink that's important for the
audience to be mindful is theamount of distraction that's
happening and the energy it'srequired when you're feeling
discouraged and when humanbeings are feeling discouraged
because the construct ofhopelessness I've seen patients
for nearly 40 years and thething that's fascinating to me
(15:58):
is around that hopelessness.
It increases people's risk forautomatic suicide ideation, and
automatic suicide ideationdoesn't mean they're actually
suicidal, it's just their crazycreativity system is providing
them options.
They perhaps are prettyoverwhelming and shocking to
them.
So, while this is stopping,this is pretty heavy stuff for
(16:19):
the average hr practitionersitting there is going wow, you
know I, I, you know I got hired.
You know, my job is to hirethem.
Bring them in now.
Am I supposed to become apsychologist?
What am I supposed to become apsychologist.
What am I supposed to do?
Like, what's your coaching toHR folks Like this is like you
and I.
I mean it only took me 40 yearsto get to where I am, so but I
(16:41):
mean you know someone who caresand really wants to try to be
helpful.
Like, what's your coaching?
What can HR teams do?
How can they start to moveBecause they can't control
payroll my all of a sudden saywe're gonna give everyone ten
thousand dollars raise raises.
Like what can they actually do?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
that that's that you're seeing in the evidence
that small things matter yeah, Ithink part of the I mentioned
three pillars in the survivespectrum the.
The third one was belonging,and that one's an interesting
one, but it has a reallyfundamental part of survive too
(17:19):
is we are more likely to feellike we can survive when we feel
like we belong, when we feellike we're part of something.
And that's not going to fixcompensation issues, right, and
this isn't going to glorify, youknow, deficiencies in mental
and physical health care, but itcan still help us feel safer,
(17:41):
yes, and it can help us at leastfeel like we have a place to be
.
And that can go a long way.
And there's a lot of ways thatwe can help people lean into
belonging.
One is recognition.
We know that peer-to-peer basedrecognition can really help,
and we know, probably morepowerfully is leader to employee
recognition and leaders justtaking a moment to say hey, I
(18:04):
see you, I value you, what youjust did is meaningful.
This is how it's meaningful.
This is how it creates impact.
This is how it's meaningful.
This is how it creates impact.
The other thing, from a leaderperspective.
You know we don't want leadersbecoming therapists that's way
out of their job, responsibilityand they're not going to be
good at it.
But leader modeling on talkingabout harder stuff when leaders
(18:30):
can be a little bit morevulnerable about their own, like
, wow, I just really struggledwith that.
Yes, and this is how I overcamethat.
Right, you know.
And creating a culture, orinjecting into the culture,
because I hate creating culture.
Culture is there, but injectinginto the culture more
(18:51):
vulnerability from the top andthen letting that trickle down
that it is okay to be human andthat humans have emotion and
that in this culture we actuallywelcome emotion and that we can
talk about the hard things,that we're not just robots, that
we can work through hard thingstogether and that when you're
(19:15):
having a hard time, there'sresources and support here.
I love mental health awarenessmonths, but it's not just about
the month, it's actually allabout the year.
This is a great opportunity tosurface all the different
programs that maybe we'reforgetting about that and really
(19:36):
connect people back to allthose rich resources that I
trust most organizations alreadyhave um employee, you know,
employee access points or thosedifferent eaps um, a lot of
people haven't used they're veryunderutilized.
A lot of health insurance inthe United States and a lot of
(19:59):
other countries have a lotbetter, more robust mental
health access points now thanthey used to.
How do we get people back intothose?
Can we use this month as areorientation to those new
(20:22):
resources?
I think this is where HR canactually do a lot to reconnect
people back to how we can reallyhelp.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
What's for someone sitting back and saying, okay, I
like this, what are one or twopractical things they can do?
To start, let's say they justlisten and they go.
Oh great, you know, becauseit's interesting when you talk
about an emotion.
You know all an emotion is is aneurochemical.
You don't pick them, but youcan learn how to react to them,
(20:53):
and so it's fascinating that,the concept that, as you start
to make this shift, I like whatyou're talking about shift and
adding to the culture.
And what are you going to doand adding these micro decisions
or intentional steps?
Because I'm getting that your,your coaching is going to be you
.
You don't eat an elephant allat once.
(21:14):
You're going to eat it one biteat a time.
So, what's one or two things?
Someone would start to say, hey, I get the joke around mental
health, I get all the thingsthat are happening, but what can
we do?
What are a couple?
What's some coaching?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Well, I think first is just simply take an inventory
of what you have.
My guess is that you probablyhave forgotten everything that
you actually have, so reorientyourself to just what you
already have.
I think that's a very simpleplace to start.
Then you're remembering, thenyou realize.
(21:54):
Ask your peers, because theyprobably know even a couple
other ones that you're not eventhinking about.
I think that's the perfectfirst place to start.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, I like that because I think what happens is
is you do your inventory andthen you can determine what the
level of engagement is, becauseit's kind of the I find often
doing this the low-hanging fruitis actually trying to make sure
people are aware of it.
And one of the things that itseems to me I don't know if you
(22:21):
found this in your data is thatthe conversation around having
access to programs createsconfusion around the word access
, and what I mean by thatspecifically is I'm getting?
When am I allowed to accessthese programs?
So my employer might have abunch of programs, but you know,
I'm driving, I'm eating mylunch and I'm not having any
(22:41):
time to stop.
I'm in survival mode.
I need my paycheck.
I may not feel I have a lot ofpurpose.
What's your coaching aroundmaking sure we also pay
attention to giving space forpeople to discover this stuff?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
You know, two years ago, when we looked at this
population, we called them the80%.
And it's the part of thepopulation that doesn't have
ready access all the time to allthese organizational tools.
They often work offline or justpart of the time offline.
And so we looked at access andthe second word was enablement
(23:17):
Okay.
And because what we found isthat organizations made a big
access push but they forgotabout okay, so great, people can
access it.
Sure, you have all thesemanufacturing people, for
example, that now haveorganizational email addresses.
So what have you done to makesure that they can access their
(23:38):
email, that they can actuallyaccess their email?
Great, you gave them a password.
How have you enabled that?
And so it's all about buildinginto the flow of work really
organic ways to be able to dothat.
You know, in our kind oftechnology, in our flow of work
(24:00):
right, we do employeerecognition as a technology how
do you actually buildrecognition into that flow of
work in a way that makes itpossible?
So, making sure that there'skiosks.
If you're in a fully offlineenvironment that doesn't have
any space for anything else,kiosks matter and they're
(24:22):
actually very effective.
Mobile apps matter, becausesometimes people need that
Integrations into your payrollsoftware, because if that's
where people are because theyhave to submit a time card you
can integrate with that type ofthing.
You can get creative with howyou build different types of
structures in when you look atwhere people actually spend
(24:44):
their time.
You just have to look at wherepeople spend their time, because
my guess is that people spendtheir time somewhere they have
to.
So it's about building theexperience around where people
already naturally are.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's a great point.
I think, alex, sometimes weforget to change management.
When listening to you, I thinkabout the at-care model.
You have to have awareness andthen you have to have your
desire, and then you have tohave your knowledge, then you
need the ability, which is yourpoint, and then you need to
reinforce this and kind of keepgoing that.
Well, this has been amazing.
(25:20):
We're coming down to almost theend of our chat.
I want to make sure I give someopen space to something or a
couple of points, as you reflecton this conversation, that you
really want to make sure theaudience hears that's important
from you to them that you thinkcould be helpful as they start
to hopefully move more towardsthriving than surviving with
(25:42):
their workforces.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, I think I mean.
The first thing that I wouldjust love to reinforce is that
mental health care and mentalhealth conversations are just
still stigmatized.
That's something that, as wecontinue to study mental health
in the workplace, the stigma isstill there.
(26:04):
No matter how much our opennessto those conversations
continues to be open, thatstigma still remains a big
barrier.
So, as we reinforce to HR andas to leaders, to senior leaders
, to frontline leaders, that weneed to have these conversations
(26:25):
, we just need to realize thatthere is a barrier.
Still, it's uncomfortable andit's okay.
We need to just continue thatjourney.
Um, we are about to release ournext report in september and
it's interesting we're going tohave kind of a continuation on
the mental health component.
Uh, and it's really excitingbecause we're tiny, we're tying
(26:46):
it to, uh, organizationalperformance management and some
really interesting.
We pulled some from somepsychological components, from
parenting almost, because whatwe were interested in is how do
you balance mental health andreally supporting mental health
(27:09):
with also a high performanceculture?
How do you kind of have yourcake and eat it too?
Right, because I think a lot oforganizations have been
struggling with supportingmental health but also wanting
high performance.
Can you get both?
And I think we have an answerfor that you can, so I'm really
(27:30):
excited about that.
I think the answer lies in, youknow, having high expectations
but also marrying that with highsupport safety component, and
(27:54):
it's not really what you'redoing.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
when I'm listening to you, it's focusing more on the
how and starting to move it, andyou know it's interesting.
I'll reflect on your thinking.
I think one of the things thatresonates from the conversation
that you said to me today that Ithink is really important for
people is around belonging.
We have a scientific studywe're publishing through SMU
coming out and we have foundthat low belonging to high
(28:19):
belonging is predictingdisability claims, lost time, et
cetera, and it's amazing thatit doesn't take a whole lot for
a person to feel welcomed orvalued.
And it's that intentionalbehaviors, as you were saying.
I think that's really important.
You don't need reallycomplicated superstructural
(28:40):
systems.
You just need human beings whoare slowing down and paying
attention to other human beings,one interaction at a time.
So that's awesome.
I really enjoyed thisconversation, alex.
Final thoughts for the audiencebefore we say our goodbyes.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Well, actually I want to echo your thought on
belonging, because what a simplethought it is and what a
reality that it's so easy tomake somebody feel like they
belong.
You just have to lean in andshow that they're valued, and
then that can start with asimple thank you.
I see what you did there.
(29:16):
Recognition is just so simple,so why is it so hard to do?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, sometimes it's just people forget the value, I
believe, is when they get caughtup in their own thinking and
that appreciative inquiry offinding good in other people can
actually release nice oxytocinin your own brain by
acknowledging and acts ofkindness for other people.
(29:42):
So I like what your, your folks, are on to and it's it's
fascinating work and I'm supergrateful.
Bill gave me the chance to havethis conversation with alex and
I know your organization isdoing some great work, so keep
up all the good stuff you'redoing.
So thank you for your time, sir.
Thank you I had a great time,thanks.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show.
If you enjoyed this episode,why not subscribe and listen to
some of the hundreds of episodespublished by HR Gazette and
remember for what's new in theworld of work?
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hrgazettecom.
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