WFM Unfiltered

Mental Health in Contact Centers, WFM teams and more with Craig Fearn

August 06, 2024 • Craig Fearn • Season 1 • Episode 5

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🚀 The latest episode of WFM Unfiltered is live, featuring the amazing Craig Fearn!

Craig and I delve into

the mental health challenges in contact centers and WFM teams. We discuss strategies to combat burnout, the importance of supportive work environments, and why mental health needs to be a priority in the workplace.

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Thanks for listening.

If you'd like to contact me about the show, you can email me HERE.

If you have questions about working with me on WFM projects and Consulting, you can find The RightWFM website HERE.

Please remember to subscribe and leave a review of you've enjoyed the show!

Irina:

Hello, everyone. Happy Tuesday. I'm your host, Irina, and welcome to WFM Unfiltered, a podcast by RightWFM. What a guest I have today, one that I am getting goosebumps and chills because he's absolutely brilliant and we're traveling all the way to Cornwall, and we have a very special topic about mental health. But before we kick off with it, let me tell you about the sponsors of this episode Community WFM. You know that a good tool comes with automated forecasting, scheduling agent app, and no way to make the life of all of your employees easier. Well, the key is in the name of that tool Community WFM. It makes the life for everyone across the organization much easier. So if you are on the lookout for a WFM tool. Look no more, reach out to them, secure yourself a demo, and you can also find more information in the show notes. And with that, we're kicking off with the topic for today. Hi Craig, how are you doing?

Craig:

Very well. Thanks for having me.

Irina:

No, thanks for agreeing to sit on that conversation with me. And just to give everyone a little bit of an idea about Craig is, I am hardly able to remain calm for hours. We actually Calm, quiet. It's not my day. I'm getting very excited, Craig, for this recording, but I am rarely able to be quiet for hours. And just before this recording, we ended up chatting for a good two hours now because he's absolutely brilliant and genius. And I just needed to bring him on the topic for mental health. So tell me, Craig, tell me what's your story. What's your background?

Craig:

So I've worked in mental wellbeing now for about 20, 22 years. So I started off well before I suppose you could say the word wellbeing was cool. And I was I was the guy running around. All that time ago, telling people that they should be looking after their staff, even then. So, I I worked in the industry for a while ended up then moving to work with university students for a little bit before coming back to my First love, which is which is corporate wellbeing. Done that now for the majority of of my working life. I now sit as the wellbeing ambassador for the Institute of Directors in the UK which is a real privilege to be able to talk to directors and aspiring directors on such a really important topic. And I also talk to businesses All over the world regarding well being issues well being within their workspace advice, guidance, consultancy you name it, I've probably done it.

Irina:

I don't know what to say. I'm honestly usually not speechless. I'm rarely being in a situation where I cannot say much, but we ended up talking about mental health and different situations and different type of corporate environments and how mental health is being treated in different regions and in different cultures. And you have so much to say and so much to offer that even before we kick off with the topic, I really want to make this huge favor to everyone that's listening to this one. Please follow Craig because you're gonna be so excited about everything that he has to say, everything that he has to offer and put on the table. Great guy, absolutely incredible. And I cannot say. Two good stuff about him. And I feel privileged, actually, that you agreed to join me for the conversation of mental health about WFM professionals. And my rant towards you started with, Working in contact centers is very difficult. A lot of time is very shitty. It's a difficult job, it's a job that's not usually very rewarding, you end up being screamed at from different people, different groups, clients, internal stakeholders, and so on. And luckily, we recently, in the last couple of years, at least, we started with the conversation about Taking care of our agents because they're the face of our business. However, we don't talk at all about WFM deals at teams and what they're being subjected to. And I actually ended up sharing a little bit of a more personal information with Craig because I. Have seen what happened to me, which is I did have a burnout to so many WFM professionals out there because we're often in a situation where you just can't do enough and you end up bringing your work at home. You're being screamed at by different parties. Agents are not happy. Team leads are not happy. Senior managers are not happy. And you end up in that circle where You're trying your best, and you get not much in return, shall I say, which often leads to a burnout. And it doesn't help with the fact that our kind of profile is often of I wouldn't necessarily say overachievers, but overthinkers, focusing too much on perfectionism, how can we do most out of the situation. And that it's often not in our benefits as people. So I know that you have your own experience with contact centers, but I want you to maybe shed a little bit of light. What can we do to combat that situation?

Craig:

Well, that's a really small topic to start the discussion with. It's think if we break it down into smaller Bitesize chunks. And actually that's probably one of my first recommendations in the first place. They say that to to eat an elephant, you do it one chunk at a time. And in this particular case, certainly in the sort of areas that you're talking about everyone wants everything yesterday and they want they want you to have produced and got it sorted and put it through and they want, they want the whole elephant today rather than piece by piece over a period of time. And actually, I I've written recently about the sort of concept of the white elephant effect. So, we talk in terms of sort of acceptance and ignoring things. And the white elephant effect is from Carl Young, who basically said, look, if you've got a white elephant in the corner of the room, you've got two choices. You can either ignore it and hope it goes away or you can accept it's there. and actually try and do something about it. I think certainly most businesses, let alone most call centers, are pretending things will go away. I actively believe there's no company that goes out of its way to hurt and harm its staff. That's just my fundamental belief. But, ignoring the issue is pretty close to that line. In, in many respects, because, there's a problem, it needs fixing. So you just let it go. It's like the car that drives along the road and you start hearing that little knocking noise in the corner and you're like, Ooh, okay. Do I go and have it looked at and you take it to the garage and the garage says, well, it'll take. 10, 20 pounds to fix it. Or you could leave it. But I don't know what will happen if you leave it. And so, to save a bit of money, you go, okay, well, I'll leave it then. And then three, four months down the line, That knock becomes a bang and then you've got to spend three, four thousand pounds to replace the engine. I think this whole sort of concept of actually looking at what's going on, accepting that people will have problems. It's all well and good, certainly from a business point of view, to look at a scenario and go, well, it's never happened before. Cool. It will never happen again. I think the interesting part is if you're trying to tell me that no one in your workspace has ever had any mental ill health I think you possibly need to go back and check your books a bit better. Or there's a larger underlying problem where your staff are actually quite worried about telling you that they've got mental ill health. Because, as we know through the statistics and everything else, a vast majority of the world's workforce are suffering from mental ill health in some form or another and for a business to lock itself down and say, no, this definitely won't ever happen to us I think is is a little bit I suppose short sighted in the respect that actually what we want to do is put something together so that if it does ever happen to somebody they can be supported, we can look out for them, we can manage the situation, we can mitigate the risks, and actually we can have the best. Outcome for the individual, because remember, that's what this is all about. If we're looking after the individual then thinks of us in a very different way, they want to stay with us. They talk to other people about how well they've been treated by the company. They work their way up internally. They're loyal rather than moving ship to ship. as people towards the higher end of their careers do. I'm much more likely to stay with a company that I feel values me and wants to support me than I am with a company that I feel is just not interested in me or anything about me or supporting me. And I'm just taking a wage, I think we've got to accept that gone are the days of, I pay for your time and therefore, in some respects I own it for this period and actually recognize that there's more to employment. And more to bringing people into our workspaces than just a financial reward.

Irina:

I have so many questions for you, and I've been reflecting on what you mentioned about mental health, and I've been trying to bridge it with my own experience. and My first question towards you would be Why is it still such a stigma? Why do we still think about mental health like some kind of a weakness that should not be talked about and you shouldn't admit under no circumstances because people are going to be looking at you like you're contagious with something. And I reflect on my own journey that, and I mentioned this to you before we kicked off with the recording, that I've been brought up as a very strong front, very strong personality. And for me, everything that was deviating from that was perceived weakness. So there was no crying, no showing emotions, not anything you're supposed to push through. Or you might be having. A fee, a fever, and you might be dying at the workplace, but you need to do your job because that's what's expected of you. You should be that machine. And when I started having symptoms of burnout, I didn't know it's a burnout. I started going to all sorts of doctors because I was convinced that there is some kind of a very weird, very rare disease that's happening and nobody can. Basically say what it was and ended up going to probably 10 different professionals, blood tests, you name it. I've done it all until they said, you know what, we actually believe that you might have pushed yourself over the limit, over what your body and mind now is capable of coping with and why is it that such a Bad thing to be addressed and why do, why are we so scared to raise it as a question in the corporate world in fear of being judged, in fear of being terminated and so on. Mm

Craig:

it's interesting because burnout is a work related condition. So you don't get burnout from anywhere else but work. So, if I remember correctly, it was discovered by a doctor dealing with nurses in Scotland. And I may be wrong, but I think I'm right. And the idea is that, it is the work effects or the sort of negative aspects of potential work effects. So, if we rewind to the sort of start of the question and start looking at the way society looks at us and how effectively, I'm 48. I've been brought up my entire life to be a productive member of the workforce. So, effectively that's okay. I want to earn money. I want to work. I feel better when I'm working. I enjoy my work. I enjoy doing what I'm doing. I'm one of the few people. in the world, that can actually, hand on heart, say, I love what I do. But, the thing is that, and again, I was having this interesting conversation with someone the other day, and I said, look, why is it that we try and make people more like robots, but with AI, we're trying to make robots more like people? And, they didn't have an answer. And I was like, it seems really strange to me that, ultimately, people are people, and that means they're all individuals. And they all handle individual issues and problems, but it also means they have individual levels for everything. Some people can cope with more stress. Some people can physically lift more weight. We've got the Olympics going on at the moment. Everybody who's there is different. And they're all good at what they're doing, but wouldn't be necessarily good at someone else's event. And it's the uniqueness, the individuality of people that makes us who we are. Now, unfortunately, through being unique, it makes it very difficult to quantify or qualify. People to a certain extent, we can say X amount of people did this because we see that a hundred people went and bought something, but actually, we, without going and asking them, so doing the qualitative stuff, we don't know why, so we know that they did it, one to a hundred. But every one of them might have a completely different reason. And because of that, when we move that further again into the corporate space, if we start treating everyone the same, and by the same one size fits all. So, yes, we have universal truths. We have things that have been proven to help. And these are the first line that people go to. And they go, okay, fine, we're going to try this first and see where we are. But the actual ability to have a look further to look into what's going on with the individuals. And when you get into the realms of the high earners, high achievers, corporate high flyers. Every single one of them is different and every single one of them will respond differently to the type of things that you're putting out. But the one thing they all share is that they need to present in their heads a bulletproof exterior. And the reason for that is that anything else shows weakness, And if you want to be at the top of your game and you want to be doing all these things and you want to be, viewed as being the most productive person in the room and the person who's worth the most money and everything else, you've got to see, you've got to walk the walk. You, you've actually got to go through and present an image. There's something called Enclothed Cognition within psychology, where, if you see somebody walking around in a doctor's coat and everything else immediately assign them all the rights and privileges of a doctor. You don't know if they are, they could be someone out on a fancy dress party going down to see their friends, but, because we have become so used to people presenting themselves in a certain way, That's the way we look at it. So, effectively the persona that's being coined by industry of high achiever looks a certain way. And because of that, we have to, or we feel that we need to squeeze ourselves into that mold. However, I go back to the Olympics. And, you look at Simone Biles, you look at Adam Peaty. Two people who undoubtedly are at the top of their game, absolutely at the top of their game. However, both have struggled and suffered severely with mental ill health. And both have come forward and been very open and honest about it. And people have supported them through that sort of scenario. Now it could be argued it's because they're celebrities. In inverted commas, rather than actually at a cold face in a, in an office job. But I think there's an awful lot to be said for the perception of what we feel people will do against the action of what it is they will actually do. And because we don't test that boundary by coming forward and saying, look, I am having a problem. We believe that there's going to be this issue if we do come forward. So we cover up when we, I think was it Smokey Robinson saying, tears of a clown? We put the mask on with a big smile and the laughy face and everything else and actually behind it, we cry every day. And it's that sort of, actually, are we in a scenario where if we do go and ask for help, people will judge us? Or do we just feel that people will judge me because this is the way it's always been? And I think this is the, in many respects, we can distill an awful lot of workplace issues in that area down to these sorts of scenarios. Yes, there are workspaces where you're actively discouraged from going to talk to anyone about mental health. They still exist. We know they still exist. There's wonderful spin and media and adverts and articles and everything else that come out of business every day telling you exactly how great they are at looking after their staff. I call that, to a certain extent, well worship. So it's like greenwashing, but for wellbeing. So if we're putting out loads and loads of stuff, telling you how great we are we actually that great? We've got a lot of stuff that's happened in the past where companies have put out, I've given my staff the week off. But what they don't tell you is for the three weeks previous, they've had them work in treble shifts to meet an order. So there's a consequence and a sort of outcome and output based on what's going on now, giving them the week off, absolutely great. But is it, is it proportionate to what's gone on before? I think the other thing is when you look at burnout and people take time off through burnout, people get burnt out because of burnout. Policies, process, culture, lots of different reasons. Now just because you're giving them three weeks off, or four weeks off, or however long it might be, if you do nothing to change what's there, when they come back, they're just coming back to the same problems that they had before they left. So in actuality, you're not changing anything. Doing anything to long term put the situation right. It's the sort of concept behind the short term bandaid over the long term fix where, somebody goes off for a long period of time through burnout. Now rather than actually looking at what the workload was like, what the management was like, what they were involved in, what adjustments could be made for them if they come back into the workplace, how they would want things to change. Talk to them, negotiate, how do you want these things differently, within reason. The flexibility and everything that goes with it. We do nothing. And then they just come back and you repeat the cycle. So, you've had a whole a whole month off, which is good, puts you right for 12 months. And then at the end of 12 months, you have another month off because nothing's changed in the working environment that you're in. You're all pushed really hard. So I think that's my sort of take on certainly high achievers and people pushing hard and pushing high is a, you never know what's there for you unless you ask for it. B, asking for it isn't a sign of weakness. And there are ways of asking for it when no one will ever know, you can approach your HR teams, you can approach the things that are put in place. You can, if you're doing well enough, you can always employ somebody to work with you. There are many different. options available to you. But again, I go back to this sort of ignore and accept equation. If you continue putting it to the back of your mind and ignoring it, and we continue going down the sort of white elephant route, in the end, the white elephant gets up, stomps over everything and walks out anyway. Whether you've tried to hide it under a bushel or a tarpaulin or whatever it might be. So accepting the fact that there is an issue. And then actually working towards putting it right is not only the first step for the employee, but also the employer. So if someone's going off sick, or there's a problem, what can we do as a company to make sure this doesn't happen again? How can we change? What we're doing to ensure that we've got the best outcomes for the people who are working for us, because if we do that, we keep them, they don't leave, we don't have to spend tens of thousands of pounds or euros to replace them. We don't have the knowledge gap when we have to train somebody up, and we don't end up with a poor reputation for people running away from our company all the time.

Irina:

I have so much things to say, and you sparked me going into multiple different directions, but one thing that I want to make clear for all the people, like, you and me, who has been overachievers or who have some underlying issues, no matter what, when you get to a burnout, or when you're dealing with whatever type of issues, So if you have a mental health issue that's being primarily caused or accelerated by your work environment, the people that are ultimately paying the price is you and your family. And you never know how much time it will take you to bounce back, to be productive again. I know people who have been out of the game for years after burnout. Is it worth it? I would say absolutely not, because this is the human aspect. We, we only live once, life is short, and you need to make sure that you're living it to the best of your capabilities. And for me, it's very important for people out there who are already Seeing those signs of going home, being anxious crying, being short on temper, being unable to sleep, can't switch off and constantly think about work and what happened at work and conversations about work, something needs to change because burnout and all related health issues happens at once. The buildup is for a long time, but when it hits. It's there, and you're not going to bounce back in the next day, in the next week, and so on. And one thing that you mentioned, even prior to our recording, was about companies tend to be reactive than proactive. Because, to be honest, for myself, I'm a strong advocate that people should in companies, I'm sorry, should invest into Never get into the situation where their employees have a burnout or declining mental health, well being. Rather than, okay, we spotted that 5%, 1%, 10 percent of our people are going into long term sickness. What can we do now? Well, for me, that is not good enough.

_1_08-06-2024_121525:

Okay, folks, that's a wrap for today and I know, I know, I'm also desperate to bring you the full conversation with Craig, but we realized that mental health and well being is too big of a topic to be covered at once, so join us next time because we're only scratching the surface with the first episode. So, see you next week!

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