Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome everyone to the culture profit podcast today. You’ll notice I’m here running solo by myself without Crista, our host and my wife. She’s just prepping to go down to Salt Lake and take our recently born son to a doctor’s appointment. So I’m here but I’m welcome and sharing the stage here with two exceptional professionals Lisa and Angeline Clayson (Guest) who will introduce here in a moment but to kick off the episode. As difficult as tragedies can be, they are an unavoidable part of life. This topic hits close to home for me, especially with our son that was recently born with a lot of challenges. And in fact, Lisa and Angeline Clayson (Guest) were so gracious to rearrange some things with the recording of This podcast and the timing that they’re so, they’re living what they’re preaching here.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So you can definitely trust what they have to say on the topic. So how should a company respond when a tragedy impacts a team member or the workplace as a whole joining us today is Lisa Leishman (Guest) and Angeline Clayson (Guest) Clayson from Utah State University who both have a wealth of experience in this area. So thank you both for being with us.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Thanks for having us.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Thank you.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So we’re gonna go ahead and read some of the background for Lisa and Angeline Clayson (Guest) So Lisa, Leishman is a passionate professional with a wealth of experience both in the public and private sectors where she directed usu’s parking and transportation Division and led at elitech group. As a graduate of Utah State University receiving a bachelor’s in arts and marketing and a Masters of Science in Human Resources. Lisa later became the program administrator for Mhr program and I actually had a class from Lisa when I was attending USU, which was really my very first intro to HR and I have you to thank for putting a good taste in my mouth for this very important profession. For sure today. Lisa is the associate director of benefits. within usu’s office of

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Human Resources Lisa has four children and one beautiful granddaughter. So thanks again for being here Lisa.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Thank you. Matt for having me.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And then Angeline Clayson (Guest) Clayson began her career at the Sinclair Corporation where she focused on recruiting and talent acquisition. She was then recruited to Savage Services where she brought expertise with employee benefits Administration later. She was recruited again to lead employee benefit Administration for Salt Lake’s most prestigious Grand America Hotel. As an Aggie alumni Angeline Clayson (Guest) had the chance of a lifetime to move back to her hometown Cache Valley and take the role of benefits supervisor in the office of human resources at Utah State University. She loves making benefits more accessible and friendly for both employers and employees with a focus on Mental Health. Angeline Clayson (Guest) has one beautiful teenage daughter who brings her immense joy. So thank you for joining us Angeline Clayson (Guest).

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Happy to be here. Thank you.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So let’s dive right into the topic. It’s a little bit of a hard topic at times, it’s about tragedies and hard things that are happening in individual’s lives and in the workplace, but let’s kind of set the stage for the conversation with this first question. What would you define as a tragedy?

Lisa Leishman (Guest): A tragedy is an event that causes great suffering and distress. These could be events that impact one individual employee or a larger scale tragedy impacting a community or even obviously a worldwide pandemic or a war. There are many different types of tragedies: the employee whose partner has lost a job and they are looking at eviction, the employee who experienced a miscarriage you and your amazing wife have just recently experienced a tragedy not necessarily a tragedy per se but a setback in your son and his that doesn’t sound good.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): No, I totally get what you’re saying. Only Lisa’s.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): It’s not trying to be though.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s that moment of Crisis, right? Yeah.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): It’s when you heard the words that Angeline Clayson (Guest).

Angeline Clayson (Guest): stressler let’s stressor in something like yeah.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Yeah. start over.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, totally go ahead. What would you define as a tragedy?

Lisa Leishman (Guest): okay, so I could

Lisa Leishman (Guest): So a tragedy is an event that causes great suffering and distress. This could be events that impact one individual or a large-scale tragedy impacting a community such as a pandemic which was worldwide a war. There are many types of tragedies from the employee who’s Partners lost a job and they are looking at eviction, the employee who experienced a miscarriage the employee who is balancing caring for their family and their parents that sandwich generation. Maybe you have an employee whose child is suicidal.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): The employee has a family in an area of the world impacted by war. How an employee defines a tragedy will be very individualized. You and your lovely wife are going through a stressful moment right now and that could be defining your world as a tragedy. So what we need to do is be prepared to support those employees. And it can be very broad and how we support those employees.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That makes a lot of sense and I do agree that tragedies can take a lot of forms and they can manifest in individuals’ behaviors differently as well. They could be turning inward self-harm or lots of different manifestations of those hard things that come up so USU as an organization, Utah State University was founded in 1888 a long time ago now fast forward to today There are over 10,000 employees, staff and faculty throughout the state of Utah. That’s a lot of history and a lot of data around experiences that could have come up in the realm of tragedies without sharing specific details. What types of tragedies are impacting the workplace.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): I already mentioned several tragedies that impact people’s ability to be successful in their job and be able to work well in their position. Again, many tragedies are happening worldwide. We have wars, floods, fires , famine. We had the pandemic and although they’re not happening in our backyard. They really have an impact on everyone’s well-being.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): We have a very diverse Workforce at Utah State. So we have employees who have family members that are directly impacted by many of these tragedies. Employees are struggling with coping with what is happening in the world, having to do more with less as an employer. We’re just like everyone else, employees are having to do more. We’re that with less. They’re overloaded. They’re trying to balance family and work and our mental health is really impacted by this. We’re so grateful for the negative stigma. Mental health has decreased over time and people are more willing to talk about their mental health and how we are coping.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): We often talk about our therapy sessions and who we’re seeing and can we recommend somebody for a worker to visit with. It’s a very open discussion. About the mental health treatments that our family members are receiving. But mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It really affects how we think, feel and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress. How do we relate to others and what type of choices do we make regarding our health? But we view that you issue that mental and physical health are equal in components of our overall health if somebody is depressed.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): That increases their risk for many types of health problems diabetes heart disease and stroke. And then if you have those chronic conditions, it can increase your risk of mental illness. So I could go on and on about the tragedies that are impacting the workplace, but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That sounds great. And there are a lot of different things to consider for I’m glad and appreciate that you brought up mental health because I know it is tied to a lot of the different strategies that are coming up today. So can you tell us a little bit more about what USU has done specifically to help employees struggling with mental health?

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Absolutely great question. Even prior to covid our office the office of Human Resources recognized there was a need to provide Mental Health Resources to our faculty and staff. Utah state had done very well to initiate mental health programs and resources for students, but we felt the resources for our employees were lacking and I distinctly remember a conversation. I was having one day with Angeline Clayson (Guest) Clayson. About this and once she got the green light to implement a mental health initiative she ran with it. And since it’s Inception, it’s called Aggie’s drive. I’ll have her talk about it. It’s helped so many employees with their family members’ mental health. So Angeline Clayson (Guest) you want to talk about your program and what you did to help our faculty and staff.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Yeah, I’d love to as Lisa mentioned Angeline Clayson (Guest)’s Thrive was this mental health initiative that we decided was really important to get out to our employees. There were a couple of things that we were hoping that the Aggie starve initiative would do. The first one was to gather all the available resources to our employees and have them in one location. So we created the website to provide a One-Stop place where employees can learn about the University’s employee assistance program what resources they have through their medical plan what Community Resources there are available to them in the community that they live and that’s throughout the state of Utah, And what on campus resources are available to them as well? And so it connects them to material and webinars all around mental health education and support.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): We want those employees who are experiencing a tragedy to be able to think when they start going through this tragedy where Aggies Thrive is my resource. And that’s where I need to go to kind of get connected to available resources. So in hopefully minimizing those stresses that they’re experiencing that time as much as we can.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What’s been the response of Angeline Clayson (Guest) from USU staff to Aggie thrive?

Angeline Clayson (Guest): So positive when we rolled this out our vice president and Lisa got multiple emails saying thank you so much. we needed resources we needed to be connected and it continues because we’ve added things to this program as time’s gone. We celebrate World mental health day and have a whole day of activities around education and whether it’s again on campus resources, we have a music therapy department. So we’re letting them know about that art therapy all these types of things and we’re regularly getting positive feedback about what it’s doing for employees providing to our employees. Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay, cool.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): The other thing that we were hoping that the Aggies thought I would do is again building that supportive culture around mental health. So we’re as Lisa mentioned you trying to continue to remove that and stigmetism, excuse me around mental health and that it’s just part of our normal. Total being that we need to focus on. So many of us nowadays are impacted one way or another around mental health and we don’t want there to be any shame around saying, life’s gotten hard. I’m going through some depression. I’m seeing a counselor taking medication. That’s no different than I have diabetes and I’m going to a doctor and I take medication. So that was another area of Angeline Clayson (Guest)’s Thrive that we wanted to

Angeline Clayson (Guest): and build this culture around mental health support and then in addition to that it also provides resources to the supervisors, a lot of times our Frontline supervisors are the first ones experiencing and dealing with their employees tragedies and their stressors. And so it provides them some information education. It lets them know about Mental Health First Aid training that we have provided to supervisors too. So they can kind of help recognize when employees are experiencing some mental health challenges. So that’s another area that we’ve brought to our communities attention with the aggistry website

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So I guess the way that I’m hearing this day Aggie Thrive program is essentially institution Individual care it’s a way for the large organization with 10,000 people to help individuals. And I think it’s key that a program this has resources for those supervisors like us you does because they’re the person that has that interpersonal connection the highest, amount of FaceTime and direct contact with each team member and so having that layer of support built into a program this I think is phenomenal so I’ve got to follow up question. First of all, how long ago was Aggie Thrive launched? How many years has it been?

Angeline Clayson (Guest): you correct me if I’m wrong Lisa about July of 2020, right?

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Yeah, it was.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): or July of 2019 it kind of …

Lisa Leishman (Guest): No, I started in 2019 and you’ll let this out Matt.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): yeah, 2020.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): 20, okay.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): It was in July of 2020, right?

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So we have over three years of history of the program existing. So how does number one measure success of individual components of Aggie thrive and two, how are they informing change if maybe they need to make some additions or add something or enhance something in one area of the program. So, how are you measuring success? And how are you making changes to the overall program?

Lisa Leishman (Guest): we get a report each month from our employee assistance program, which is one of the primary resources within Angeline Clayson (Guest)’s Thrive and we’re anywhere from eight to ten percent utilization with our employees assistance program, which includes six free visits for someone that is struggling regardless of what they’re struggling with whether it’s family work. they don’t.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): It’s really whatever they’re struggling with. They get six free visits per issue per year and that can be face to face that can be over the phone that can be through teleconferencing and so we make it convenient and like I say, we’re about anywhere from Seven to ten percent utilization which means one in 10 of our employees are seeking out that service. and that’s

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That really high honestly, I just Googled what the average EAP usage is, three to five percent is average.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Yep. Yeah.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So you’re more than double which means people know about it. And those who need it are using it. That’s honestly phenomenal.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): We put it into our training. So, I do some training for leaders and I review Aggies Drive. So we definitely are trying to get the word out about Aggie Thrive as much and as often as we can. And…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): cool

Angeline Clayson (Guest): the one thing I would add to what Lisa said is, before we had our Abby’s Thrive initiative. Our EAP was kind of the Bare Bones product that came with our life insurance and so part of our leadership approved purchasing a larger product of the EAP which provided us the data analytics that we were hoping to get with to see what the need was and the utilization was with that.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Amazing that’s very powerful to have that information to help inform next steps. So it can be this continuous innovation of care for the individuals in the organization. So let’s maybe talk about an example here. Obviously, we don’t need to go into specifics but how does USU respond to a tragedy? Let’s say there’s a death or some other really large. Problem or tragedy that happens immediately after the news is announced.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Sadly. in June of 2022 We received the devastating news that we had a plane crash. That occurred here in Cache Valley and it killed an instructor and a student within the aviation program. Maybe you saw this on the news. We had quick action from our critical incident team. We immediately called in a specialist. This is another service that is part of our employee assistance program. offers The end of so it happened on a Friday and on Monday morning. We had a group meeting with the aviation students and faculty and staff anyone…

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): are

Lisa Leishman (Guest): who wanted to be there really? And then they offered to meet with individuals one-on-one.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Those that were struggling individually to talk about them to give them resources to help them cope with such a big tragedy and then we offered continued support. We checked in with the department head on a regular basis seeing how the students were doing. and this was big. I mean thank goodness things like this don’t happen every day. But individual tragedies are more common. I remember walking into work one day in my previous job and I learned about the death of an employee and there was no plan in place. And nobody really knew what to do.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): And it was then that I vowed that I was never gonna let that happen again. As Angeline Clayson (Guest)’s talked about we feel very equipped with information available to employees and supervisors through our employee assistance program and ready to be disseminated when we hear about these types of tragedies. So we send information to supervisors about things like coping with an unexpected death or tips for announcing an employee’s debt to other employees. tips for delegating their tasks after an employee debt are just important things that a supervisor needs to be able to manage so we give them the resources.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): And then of course our employee assistance information how to let people know to reach out when they need that help. Angeline Clayson (Guest) do you want to take you have anything else to add?

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Yeah, so I feel like covid really helped us in the fact that we created this kind of critical incident committee because what it did I mean the university is large right as you mentioned and we’re decentralized. We’re all over the state. And so sometimes different departments can become siled and forget about all the various areas that need to be notified. And so that really helped in my opinion create good communication between these different departments that needed to take different aspects of these tragedies and from what they handle and manage those situations. And so I feel like that really helps having that committee because now when something happens they know to get out to the community members and those leaders get out to their teams. And so it’s a pretty quick reaction to any sort of tragedy whether it’s individual or on a larger scale.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): And the other thing I would add. Kind of going back to what you said is very individualized. So we do everything we can to, especially when it’s an individual tragedy, remove as many barriers as we can for that employee or family members who have experienced a loss, for instance the life insurance claims. We try to feel all of that out for the employee. We don’t just give them a form and say here go. we’re filling it out for them.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): We’re sitting down with them, we’re reviewing it and so they understand it and they’re signing it but we’re removing as many steps and barriers as we can teach the process.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s phenomenal to step in and do as much as you can to relieve the stress and tension that an individual’s having in that moment of Crisis. I think that’s phenomenal and having a critical incident committee that meets before something happens to dialogue through what happens in this type of scenario. I think can help an organization be more prepared which is critical because if you’re not ready for that moment, then there’s so much more room for handling something in it a way that can damage the

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Experience of other people at the organization and we want it to be a moment of healing Community grieving when appropriate based on the tragedy and helping everyone come together in a positive way so that everyone can move forward in a unified method. So I think that’s great as far as tips for other listeners, we’ve got leaders and people leaders that are tuning in what are the top three things a company should do to prepare for a tragedy right now before something happens.

Lisa Leishman (Guest): Great question. It’s just like we’ve been talking about it’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of when and companies need to be prepared. So the first thing I would say is develop a committee of key players and every organization is different. And so what that committee looks like is going to be different. It may be 10 people you issue that mite. It’s called the threat assessment management team. So we have an administrators from Public Safety Human Resources legal Administration Office of equity in our case Student Services, of course, you may not have that type of organizations that will be unique so

Lisa Leishman (Guest): The second thing is to look for those potential risks and make sure everyone on the committee understands what their role is when the tragedy occurs. We have individuals that are experts in Psychology, and they will go in and talk with faculty staff. Whoever it is and just be the person that they talk with. and work through the tragedy right after occurs, Angeline Clayson (Guest) any thoughts to add to that

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Yeah, I feel like being prepared for a tragedy is overall going to help your recruitment right employees. Going through a tragedy. I mean, this is something they’re going to remember for the rest of their lives and they’re gonna also remember their employer’s response to that and they communicate to their co-workers. So their co-workers will remember the company’s response to the tragedy too. And so I feel like those are really important reasons of why being prepared for a tragedy is so important, I’ve seen firsthand

Angeline Clayson (Guest): in previous experience that having kind of an obtuse response to what was a very big personal tragedy to employ cost them the employee and cost the morale of the team too by seeing that response. And so even if employees don’t see an employer’s response to a tragedy they’ll hear about it from a coworker and on top of that. It’s doing the right thing right? We’re helping humans and so being prepared to be responsive to employees is what every company should be prepared to do.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think those are great tips and every organization should evaluate their current situation if they need to make enhancements or if they’re making this for their preparations for the first time. Maybe you’re a newer or smaller organization. And this is the first time considering this but those are three incredible tips. And I think I’m going off of what you had mentioned Angeline Clayson (Guest) that everyone They remember the tragedy and they remember the response of the co-worker or of the company and of their co-workers and other team members and that’s a moment that can Propel you forward or can really damage not just the productivity of your organization, but profitability as you lose employees who may be this weighted by the way that you handle the situation and now they’re looking elsewhere or maybe they quiet quit, we’ve seen

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That term mentioned of now I’m just going to do the bare minimum because I fill this company doesn’t care for me as a person because they didn’t care for so-and-so that had this tragedy and honestly with review sites like Glassdoor indeed and other places where people can research what it’s like to work at a company you have to realize that so much is open and transparent in today’s workplace and it’s better to embrace that to own the situation and to respond. Seriously as you had said Lisa with the right resources, and I think these are some great recommendations that you’ve given so we’re about at time now before we wrap up. Are there any other final thoughts or recommendations advice that either of you’d like to share?

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): great advice Lisa

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Mean, yeah, just adding to that. We’re all humans, we make mistakes. So if the process isn’t perfect and you hear back from an employee that you really dropped the ball in this area? It’s just your opportunity to make the process better. So we just own up to where we fail and improve for the next time.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I love that. I’ve always believed that feedback is a gift even if it comes with a poop emoji, right That’s to improve so, that’s it. I’m in the world of feedback and it really is the critical feedback that helps you make changes to become better and it’s great to hear the nice things of what went well, but that’s all types of feedback so you can move forward. I think that’s fantastic. Thank you Angeline Clayson (Guest) for being here with us today for everyone that’s tuning in. Thanks for listening and make sure to follow along with us at the culture profit.

Angeline Clayson (Guest): Thanks, Matt.