Spark Ideas: Highlights from our community event on mental health
As part of our #SparkIdeas event series, we partnered with Talkspace to host a panel discussion in San Francisco on The Cost of Anxiety: Why Organizations Should Prioritize Employee Mental Health.
To tackle this conversation, we gathered a group of experts who are addressing mental health from a variety of viewpoints. Our panelists included:
> Oren Frank, co-founder and CEO of Talkspace a mobile and online therapy service and a Spark Capital portfolio company.
> Seth Feuerstein completed his MD and JD and then training in psychiatry at Yale.
> Indhira Rojas, founder and creative director of Anxy Magazine and principal at Anagraph, a design and publishing studio based in Berkeley, California.
>Tudor Havriliuc leads Facebook’s Life@ Facebook initiative as the vice president of compensation, benefits and global mobility.
On stigma: Despite mental illnesses being more common than cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, they still carry a strong stigma and, consequently, often go untreated. That stigma is especially prevalent in the workplace, where mental health is a taboo topic. Tragically, eight out of ten employees do not seek treatment because of fear and shame.
“We live in this environment where we’re all striving to be perfect, we’re all striving to be as productive as we can be… we don’t wanna show when things aren’t going well, we don’t’ want to talk about those difficult things in the work environment. But I got to that place where I wanted to be more honest about what’s happening with me, about my history, and have it be a point of service to my community in terms of helping other people who might be having that experience as well.” — Indhira Rojas, Anxy Magazine
“The list of things for which behavioral therapy is actually proven to be better than all other options is very long. But the stigma associated with seeking out that type of care, and the lack of access to that type of care has enormous impact, really for all of us.” — Seth Feuerstein, Yale Psychologist
“The only way that I really know to remove stigma is to seek help. If you go to see a therapist, a coach, counselor, or a psychiatrist, and you get help… you’re gonna be turned into an ambassador overnight.” — Oren Frank, Talkspace
On workplace cultures balancing aggressive goals with the awareness of the negative effects related “workaholism.”
“[Mental health] is a huge priority because our people work with their brains. Their output is almost all intellectual. So having a focus on behavioral health and mental wellbeing is really critical to their happiness and their ability to feel like they can be themselves…. We don’t actually tell people to ‘work hard’, it’s not part of the culture that there’s a specific number of hours that we need to see you. We don’t measure effort, we only measure results. It’s part of a culture of autonomy.” — Tudor Havriliuc, Facebook
“It starts with culture. No matter how good the therapy we provide, it can’t overcome a toxic workplace. [To fix the workplace] we need to understand that these are people that work with each other, not for each other. They collaborate, they care for each other. Those are very fundamental human traits that are not always acknowledged in the workplace.” — Oren Frank, Talkspace
What can both managers and employees do to support a healthier workplace culture and take stigma out of mental health conversations? Here’s what the panel suggests:
- Management should lead the effort — it starts from the top down.
- CEOs define and shape workplace culture — prioritizing mental health can’t just be lip service, it has to be seen in behavior.
- Find community and peer-to-peer support to address the issues that stress you out.
- Set good boundaries and create spaces for self-care.
- Employees should be honest with themselves about recognizing a toxic work environment.
Thanks to our community for coming out for this event. We had a terrific conversation on this topic. For more information about Spark Capital, follow us on Twitter.
