Aflac's CHRO leads by example to encourage work-life balance

For remote and hybrid workers, the line between work and home time has become so blurred, it can seem like one in the same. That's having a persistent negative impact on mental health and well-being nearly three years since the start of COVID. 

"If you're surrounded by work all the time, at least from my perspective, it can be very troubling," says Matthew Owenby, chief human resource officer at Aflac. "A lot of the mental health issues are because there's no natural breaks for people to separate their work and their life." 

Aflac's nearly 15,000 employees work a remote or hybrid schedule, and ensuring that employees have time to unwind and benefits to support them has been top priority for Owenby and his team. The company offers both remote and on-site mental health counselors, which Owenby says has reduced the stigma around discussing mental health, while providing immediate access to care. 

Read more: How to build the best wellness package for your workforce

Beyond benefits, Owenby says he prioritizes his work-life balance every day, by limiting after-hours emails and taking his PTO. He shares what works for him, and what other employers and leaders should do to address workplace burnout. 

Nearly three years into this pandemic, what are some of the persistent pain points employees are dealing with that are impacting their mental health? 
Aflac employs thousands of people globally, so I get to talk to employees about how they're feeling. The mental health issues that either came out of the pandemic or have been sustained throughout the past couple of years are not surprising to me. You have people that are still struggling with the balance of work that has invaded their homes. Leaders really have to be adept, thoughtful and communicative so that distance doesn't mean isolation. 

How is Aflac addressing that, and encouraging a healthier work-life balance? 
At Aflac, we have counselors both on-site and remote for people to reach out to and establish a relationship with and start having those dialogues. We make it safe to talk about anxiety and depression and the issues that we see. But if you're thinking that a couple of links on a webpage is going to make a difference, it probably isn't. We have to be willing as employers to be customized like we would with physical health.

Over the past year and a half, we've started having town halls and focus groups about things that we're going to be doing to support mental wellness and mental health. We brought in outside people to speak about it and to start making it just as common as any other wellness support, whether I'm talking about fitness or diet, or financial wellness. We've seen that it took away some of the stigma that may be attached to these issues, and just made it part of our normal offerings of benefits for our employees. Since we started the town halls, we've seen about a 45% uptick in the use of our programs regarding mental health, either directly for an employee or a beneficiary of an employee that works here. 

Read more: Mental health has a race issue: How misdiagnosis is impacting Black employees

We recognize that if people are struggling mentally, it's going to impact the workplace. But it's not just about coming here and doing a good job. At Aflac, we want to have people feel cared for completely. We genuinely care about our employees. And we recognize that having mental health support is a part of that care.

How are you planning to address and expand your mental health and wellness support in 2023?  
What we don't want to do is have this be a sort of an annual enrollment type experience — we want this to be as integrated into a person's life as their diet preferences, their fitness routine, and their general healthcare protocol. It should not be a once a year activity, it just should be incorporated into how people manage their health. So our big goal around these types of benefits is to ensure that people understand what's available for them, and then as they're accessing it, that they're getting what they need.  

Read more: 13 companies that expanded their benefits in 2022

In 2023, we're really going to focus on the next stage of what we believe is a part of employee mental health, which is financial security. So offering budgeting and financial planning and retirement and how it all plays together. We know that if people don't feel financially secure, they experience a lot of anxiety on the job, which leads to all sorts of negative mental health outcomes. So in 2023, beyond the fact that we're going to continue to reiterate all of the resources that we have, we're going to focus on financial fitness. 

What's your one piece of advice for employers? What's worked for you when it comes to supporting your mental health, as well as that of your team? 
This is going to sound super basic, but allow people that separation between work and their life, and in fact, insist upon it. Insist upon people taking time off — take your PTO, take your mental wellness day, take that break, and when you take that break, leave Aflac behind. There is nothing that's going to happen here, in the next two days or even week that's going to be super important to Aflac. We can sustain the organization without you for a period of time. Aflac has nearly 15,000 employees globally, so a portion of them being out, while it may be inconvenient, it's not catastrophic.

Read more: 22 HR and benefit lessons we learned in 2022 

For me, some of the things I don't do: I don't send crazy emails after a certain hour in the day. I don't send to-do lists for people over the weekends. I don't check my own email after certain hours. I don't constantly create fire drills for people. I try to plan my day around preventing the need for rushed work. 

But I also set up my own boundaries — if you send me an email at 9 p.m. tonight, there's a 100% chance I'm not going to respond to it. It's taken me a long time to condition myself for that. When somebody, for example, takes PTO, I will never email them or call them, so I expect the same out of myself. If I'm on PTO, I'm going to be on PTO and try as you may, you will not get me.