At this year’s ICMA Annual Conference, I had the privilege of co-hosting the panel discussion “Emotional Exhaustion and Its Effect on the Chief Administrative Officer.” The discussion was one of eight sessions in the mental health track. While we focused on CAOs and assistants, it strikes me that this topic belongs front and center in the November issue of PM, which is dedicated to “elevating your organization with an eye to the future.”

In fact, it is impossible to “elevate” an organization that is suffering. One of my panel co-hosts, Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, CEO and executive vice president of the American Psychological Association (APA), shared some startling statistics. The APA has been studying stress in the workplace for decades, but in their 2022 poll they found that close to two-thirds of adults said their life had been forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many reported worsened mental health, decreased physical activity, disrupted sleep, and increased reliance on unhealthy habits.

Though it is the pandemic that has brought these issues into the foreground, we can leverage this moment to bring about much-needed permanent changes to the way our organizations deal with mental health. While at the conference, it was heartening to hear the many examples from cities, counties, and towns of all sizes who are working to equip their employees to manage daily stress and handle the challenges that affect their mental health. In the November issue of PM, Chris Hillman, city manager of Irving, Texas, outlines what his city is doing to support the mental health of first responders and their families. Across the board, however, the most challenging obstacle to making significant progress is erasing the stigma attached to mental health treatment.

That is where CAOs can step up and help to change the narrative; to demonstrate that it is not a sign of weakness to ask for help but in fact a sign of strength. You’re better for the organization when you are able to acknowledge the need for emotional and psychological support given that the very nature of your jobs requires you to be responsible and accountable for the well-being of your community. That is a tremendous amount of pressure.

A Tragedy Spawns a Mission

Another one of my co-hosts on the conference panel was A. C. Gonzalez, an ICMA senior advisor and retired city manager of Dallas. He shared his personal journey as a catalyst for change. Recently, A. C. was devastated by the suicide of his friend and colleague, who was also in city management in Texas. As anyone in this situation would do, he asked himself what he could have done to help. How could he have intervened to prevent such a tragic loss?

As he puts it, “Our conversations were always kidding each other. We joked about the challenges of our councils and problems we were facing. We kept it light. We sought comfort by finding the humor in our trials. But, as it turned out, I never knew the extent of what he was going through because we did not feel comfortable sharing those feelings. At his funeral, I promised his widow that his death would make a difference.”

That tragedy set A. C. on his current mission. He has been working with the Texas City Management Association (TCMA) to help make changes that would encourage managers to get an annual mental/brain health checkup, no different than annual physical exams. The TCMA board has recently added a new condition to maintaining membership in good standing: all TCMA members must commit to two hours of session time with a counselor or two hours of mental health training every two years. To facilitate accomplishing this commitment, TCMA added a partnership with mental health provider Deer Oaks. Members can attend educational sessions and webinars focused on mental health and access resources on the TCMA website.

A. C. likes to say that if anyone asks why you went to talk to a counselor you can say you must do it to stay in good standing with the guidelines set forth in your profession. It becomes normalized like ethics and other professional standards. He adds that you can also tell your organization about it, letting them know you are a responsible manager taking care of your whole well-being, and that you want them to do the same. That’s leading by example. Here are a few other ideas A. C. shared:

• Include a mental health assessment or an annual visit with a counselor as part of your employment contract, which can be shared with your team.
• Use a similar evaluation process for staff, helping them to see that talking with a counselor can help them be the best version of themselves.
• Talk with insurance providers to include a mechanism to lower premiums if the employee takes advantage of counseling; make it a financial benefit.
• Get staff involved with setting the guidelines—form a committee, for example.
• In the aftermath of a crisis, we often secure intervention services. Turn that into an ongoing program of mental health support for staff.
• COVID is one way to get the message out that even high-profile athletes and celebrities have suffered and need support. We can use this crisis to institutionalize or routinize mental/brain health services for our organizations.
• Help others recognize that this initiative is about being a responsible steward of all of our organizations’ assets, including the most important one—our mental health.
• Help others recognize that there is a compelling business case for making this commitment to ourselves and our teams: most of our medical claims, problems with poor performance, and absenteeism are rooted in unattended brain/mental health issues.
• Use this as a new opportunity to see how we can improve our overall thinking and emotional stability so that we can better tap into this “above the neck” resource that we all carry around with us. Treat mental fitness like we do physical fitness by having a plan and a program of activities.

Additional ICMA Resources

During the pandemic, ICMA added a member benefit called Equilibrium that offers help with personal and work-related issues. Equilibrium provides professionally trained advisors available 24/7 365 days a year to help with family problems, marital concerns, financial and legal matters, stress, depression, and other issues affecting the personal or work life of our members. And while it’s important that it’s confidential, we want to get to the point where we feel comfortable saying, “Heck yeah, I reached out for help. You should, too.” That is far better than losing so many of our outstanding managers who see leaving the profession as the solution to preserving their mental health. It boils down to creating an environment where it is safe to ask for help. You can also access additional resources at icma.org/topics/mental-health.

The Bottom Line

One of our keynote presenters at the conference, Col. DeDe Halfhill, shared a powerful story about how she left the car running in a closed garage for a few seconds before coming back to grips on things, and then most importantly, getting real help. Instead of hiding her “humanness” as she called it, she chose to share this with her airmen to show others that they’re not alone. Many of her airmen came forward and talked about their need for support as well.

At the root of driving this cultural shift is the health of your employees. When you have a healthy organization, people hear about it and that positively affects your ability to recruit. It does cost money, time, and energy to bring about these changes. Some of our members shared examples of labor contracts with police and fire that make it a requirement to get an annual psychological/emotional assessment and the infrastructure to support the follow-up required. It may necessitate changes to your healthcare provisions and additional training and programs for staff. But evidence shows that the cost of failing to support employee psychological well-being is often far higher.

Dr. Evans and I are part of a group of CEOs working to advance health equity that we formed last year with a focus on vaccines. The data from the 2022 APA poll demand a shift in workplace culture to destigmatize mental health support. The following is a list of actions that organizations can take to support employee mental health and facilitate this much-needed cultural shift:

• Training managers to promote health and well-being.
• Increasing employee options for where, when, and how they work.
• Examining health insurance policies with a focus on employee mental health.
• Taking a critical look at equity, diversity, and inclusion policies.
• Listening to what employees need and then taking action.
• Developing programs and policies that support employee mental health.

You are invited to show your commitment to changing the culture around mental health in the workplace. We’re grateful to the two dozen communities who already have. Learn more at icma.org/apa.

While the pandemic demanded so much from us and our organizations in terms of meeting the needs of our residents while often putting our own needs on hold, it offers an opportunity as well. We can make lasting and much-needed changes in the way we support the mental and emotional health of our team members. And that will elevate our organizations in a way that nothing else can.

MARC A. OTT is CEO/executive director of ICMA, Washington, D.C.