Long story short: Help employees tackle these top stressors

April 29, 2022 11:23 AM

Employees have a lot on their plates, and that stress is following them into the workplace.

From managing their own mental health challenges and those of their kids, to money woes and financial strain, today’s employees are dealing with a barrage of challenges that are impacting their productivity and overall well-being. In this week’s top stories, parents and caregivers are shouldering a heavy burden: with pediatric mental health issues on the rise, Naomi Allen, CEO and founder of behavioral health platform Brightline Health, shares her recommendations for implementing employee benefits and a flexible work environment that will best support this group.

“Pediatric mental health is not like adult mental health, where I can be in an office working nine to five and hop into a conference room and have my therapy session,” Allen says. “I cannot imagine the ways that families are going to navigate this if they have to return full-time to an office.”

The EBN team also spotlighted the challenges employee caregivers face everyday in a special section, Do we care enough? Helping employees navigate these challenges takes robust employee benefits that cover both the mental, physical and financial needs of all. Read more to see how you can help:

Work stress keeping you up at night? Here’s how to get a better night’s sleep

Approximately 84 million American adults struggle to get quality sleep, according to a report by management consulting company Gallup and mattress company Casper. Associate editor Deanna Cuadra spoke with Dr. Michael Grandner, sleep advisor at Casper and director of the sleep and health research program at the University of Arizona, who shared several ways to improve employees’ sleep habits.

“People who don't get enough quality sleep are more likely to develop heart disease and diabetes, get sick more often and take longer to recover, develop depression or anxiety disorders and tend not to live as long,” says Dr. Grandner. “Taking sleep more seriously not only leads to improvements in health and well-being, but it leads to better work outcomes."

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Work stress keeping you up at night? Here’s how to get a better night’s sleep

‘I was just a daughter and a mother’: Sandwich caregivers struggle to manage it all

Of the nearly 53 million caregivers in the U.S., 28% are sandwich caregivers, according to a report by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving. Two sandwich generation caregivers shared their experiences for EBN’s special caregiving report, explaining what they learned along the way and what could best support other caregivers in their shoes.

“I was caring for all the elders and I was trying to be the poster child for mothering, and I just wanted to scream,” says Suzanne Blankenship, who cared for her mother and in-laws, while raising her daughter. “Where do I find a minute?”

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‘I was just a daughter and a mother’: Sandwich caregivers struggle to manage it all

Working parents need more mental health support for their children

Adolescent mental health issues skyrocketed throughout the pandemic. As parents and employers alike scramble to find and provide necessary resources, this is just the start of a long road ahead, says Naomi Allen, founder and CEO of Brightline, a behavioral health care platform.

Allen spoke to EBN about the current state of adolescent mental health, and how the conversation around balancing work and family needs to change to better support working parents. “If you don't have a solution for youth and pediatric mental health, then there's going to be real implications to workforce productivity and retention,” she says.

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Working parents need more mental health support for their children

Financial literacy matters to Gen Z — and they want employers to help them

Gen Z may currently have the lowest financial literacy rates — answering only 43% of personal finance questions correctly compared to 49% and 48% of Gen X and millennial respondents respectively — but they also have the most interest in learning, and 75% of employees in a BrightPlan survey indicated that they trust their employer more than anyone else as a source to achieve that financial literacy.

The financial needs of a 22-year old employee may be drastically different from the needs of middle-aged employees, or those approaching life events like childbirth or retirement, but they are no less urgent. Associate editor Paola Peralta explores how employers can get their young workers on the right financial foot.

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Financial literacy matters to Gen Z — and they want employers to help them