Support Your Human Capital with Jim Link

The humans in your organization are the most important asset you have. It’s essential that you take care of them, especially as we come out of the pandemic. There’s an overwhelming feeling of isolation that employees felt in the last few years and the confusion of today is causing the isolation to linger.

What’s a leader to do? Go back to foundations. Empathy is the single most important skill that leaders can and should use to ensure that employees feel safe and heard. Unfortunately, empathy is also a skill that we’ve been trained out of using in the workplace.

This week on the podcast, I’m talking with Jim Link, chief human resources officer at the Society for Human Resource Management. This is the conversation that will change your mind about having mental health conversations at work, if I haven’t already convinced you. 

We talk about why mental health support will save your organization money, how to engage leaders in conversations around supporting employees in this way, and how tech can free up the HR managers’ time so they can be the empathetic people person they want to be.

So many ah-ha moments to be had here! 

Listen on your favourite podcast player

About Jim Link:

Jim Link is the Chief Human Resources Officer for SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. Jim’s experience includes roles of increasing responsibility in human resources, mergers and acquisitions, and operational effectiveness. His personal interests include talent acquisition management, employee and leadership development, equality and equity, employee engagement, internal innovation, and driving rapid business scalability through both organic and inorganic, often complex, growth opportunities.

Born and raised on a working family farm, Link brings an agile, transparent, can-do approach to his client’s needs. Equally effective from manufacturing floor to board room, his natural curiosity and resourcefulness generates long lasting relationships that drive value creation and sustainable business results.

As a recognized thought leader in human capability and the future of work, Jim is a sought-after commentator with the national and international press, features widely on the lecture and speaker circuit, and consults with leaders, companies and boards of directors around the world on matters related to the workplace. 

Additionally, he is in his tenth year as an adjunct professor teaching Human Resources Strategy in the MBA program at the Poznan School of Economics in Poznan, Poland and entering his second year teaching the same topic to graduate students in Yangon, Myanmar.

While serving on boards of advisors for several early-stage companies, Jim is a board member of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Human Capital Advisory Council. He is active with a number of charitable organizations in his community and is certified as a SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

Follow Jim on LinkedIn.

Mentioned In This Episode:

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

organization, people, employee, mental health, human capital, leaders, employer, workplace, world, individuals, capability, impacted, senior leaders, work, feels, impact, learning, jim, SHRM, taught

SPEAKERS

Jim Link, Lindsay Recknell

Lindsay Recknell  00:01

You are a People Leader or a HR professional, working hard to create an amazing employee experience for your team and your organization. But between the operational tasks of your job, managing emotions and politics both up and down the corporate ladder, and trying to find some semblance of work/life integration in your own life, I suspect you could be overwhelmed and burnt-out. Even the thought of navigating the complicated world of mental health at work probably seems like too much to handle. Let this podcast can be your not-so-secret weapon to help fix that! I am your host, Lindsay Recknell, and my mission is to help great leaders like you feel less awkward and more confident talking about mental health at work so you can stress less, take more action and continue to make a valuable difference in your job as a leader, positively impacting the lives of your people. I’ll be bringing you the experts, insights and actions that will give you the skills you need to navigate mental health in the workplace and foster a workplace where everyone’s mental health can thrive.    This week’s guest is another VIP executive from SHRM and one of my most impactful episodes yet, Jim Link is the Chief Human Resources Officer for SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. Jim’s experience includes roles of increasing responsibility for human resources, mergers and acquisitions and operational effectiveness. His personal interests include Talent Acquisition Management, employee leadership development, equality and equity, employee engagement, internal innovation and driving rapid business scalability through both organic and inorganic, often complex growth opportunities. Born and raised on a working family farm, Jim brings an agile transparent can do approach to his clients needs equally effective from manufacturing floor to Boardroom. His natural curiosity and resourcefulness generates long lasting relationships that drive value creation and sustainable business results as a recognized thought leader in human capability and the future of work.  Jim is a sought after commentator with the national and international press, features widely on the lecture and speaker circuit and consults with leaders, companies and boards of directors around the world on matters related to the workplace. Additionally, he is in his 10th year as an adjunct professor teaching human resource strategy in the MBA program at the Poznan School of Economics in Poznan, Poland, and during his second year teaching the same topic to graduate students in Myanmar, while serving on boards of advisers for several early stage companies. Jim is a board member of the SHRM Foundation, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta human capital Advisory Council. He is active with a number of charitable organizations in his community, and is a certified as a SHRM, Senior Certified Professional, Jim and I were so well aligned on so many topics, and I can’t wait for you to hear what he has to say. So let’s get to it.  Before we get started, I want your time to be valuable here so in order to get the most from this podcast, head to my website at https://mentalhealthforleaders.com and download the Guide to Influence & Impact at Work which has the step-by-step action plan you’ll need to embed a focus on mental health into the employee experience of your workplace. It’s totally free and will give you the start to your action plan – steps to follow to create engagement, build a budget and a method to measure the value, influence and impact you’ll be making as you lead this transformational change in your organization.  We haven’t been taught the mental health skills we need to truly lead our organizations into the future so let this Guide and podcast be the advantage you need to elevate your career, your leadership skills and the positive impact you’ll bring to your organization. Head to https://mentalhealthforleaders.com and download the free Guide to Influence & Impact at Work now. The opportunity is yours and I can’t wait to see what you’ll do!  Alright, now lets get to our guest.  Hello, Jim, welcome to the show.

Jim Link  03:44

Hi, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lindsay Recknell  03:46

I’m very excited to have you here at the end of our SHRM conference, the most wild, productive, amazing, inspirational four days.

Jim Link  03:54

That’s right, 16,000 people here and then several more 1000 joining us virtually, to talk about all things that are pertinent to the human capital space. And this year, more than ever, there have been so many new things that are on the docket and on the agenda that will be important for human capital leaders to know not just for today, but as they plan and think about the future.

Lindsay Recknell  04:15

I can’t it, it feels so aspirational. It feels so exciting to think about what’s next.

Jim Link  04:20

Yeah, there it is. And you know, if nothing else we’ve learned through the COVID time period, is that there’s never been a more important time to be in the human resources, space and learning how to take care of ourselves and each other.

Lindsay Recknell  04:32

Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. Before we get too much further on. Could you share with us a little bit about who you are and what you do within the SHRM organization?

Jim Link  04:39

Yeah, sure. Well, I’m on the personal side first, I’m a father of four and two college graduates and two on their way to university so very excited about that. My wife is actually a licensed medical social worker. So as you can imagine, the last few years have been very interesting for her and our entire family has As these impacts have been felt, and she spends a lot of time working with people who need assistance in a place that’s different than I do, for example, is the human capital leader. But yet we find there’s a lot of commonality when we discuss the real concerns of what’s happening in our society.

Lindsay Recknell  05:16

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you’re running, you know, the biggest HR organization here in the US and internationally, internationally.

Jim Link  05:23

Now, there are 316,000 members that SHRM represents around the world. And my job as a Chief Human Resources Officer is not just to take care of the employees of SHRM, but to really identify and just start thinking about externally how human capital shapes the future of business and society. And that’s the I love both parts of my job. But the latter part is really, really exciting for me. And before that, I was the Human Resources leader for Randstad, North America was a very large human capital consulting and staffing organization. We were putting approximately around the world 500,000 people to work on customer and client sites every week. So it just makes sense that you go from being the CHR O and the largest, publicly traded human capital company to being the CHRO in the largest HR membership association in the world, it just seems like a natural progression for me.

Lindsay Recknell  06:17

Yeah, well, I Well, and you obviously have a lot of passion for it. And if we could talk about what you said as the as your favorite part of your job, which is how to support human capital into the future. That’s right. What does the future of HR look like, in your opinion,

Jim Link  06:32

what it’s the future has changed dramatically from the predictions of what it was going to be just three, four or five years ago. And there are lots of things that are happening in the global marketplace that are driving that the very first one, obviously, is the talent shortage. And not only is there a talent shortage in the US, for example, there are two openings for every unemployed person in our country. And there are similar sis statistics from around the world whenever we you look at those numbers. But that tells us that there’s also a skills gap. And that skills gap is particularly concerning for me, it’s the thing that keeps me up at night, because I’m not sure we have in place, the true systemic approach that we need to really solve our human capital gaps in skill, competency and capability. And then the third thing that’s that’s on my mind is the well being of our of our employees. And that the pandemic brought forth this idea that the way we work used to bring us some sense of community, some sense of connection, even if we didn’t like the commute to physically show up some to be at work at some place at some specific time. It gave us a sense of purpose. And it gave us a sense of connection with those people that were around us, when we were all forced to be home. Except for our essential workers, which were certainly staying put and helping our country survive through all this craziness. What we found is that increased sense of isolationism and loneliness, and lack of collaboration with other human beings is showing up now in very interesting and sometimes scary ways. In our workplaces, so employees are learning how to address those things now. And they’re looking for good ideas. They’re looking for guidance. And they’re looking for ways that they can help their employees be their authentic best selves at work every day. And to be honest with you, there are no easy answers in that space. But I can tell you that that is now on the radar screen. I hear it from CHR OHS CEOs from Politico’s and others, that this idea that we have to somehow put a wrapper around our employees and help them be their best authentic selves at work is now a much higher priority than it was just three to four years ago.

Lindsay Recknell  08:48

It is music to my ears, because one of the things that I do that we do is mental health skills training for HR professionals and leaders. And we have these six modules that address exactly what you just talked about. We the modules five and six are how do we support HR professionals with their mental health so they can reduce their burnout, manage their own workload, so that they can show up in their best selves and model that behavior for their people. We also teach how to have these kinds of conversations how to notice when somebody isn’t feeling well, and giving leaders and HR professionals the competence to know what to say, so that they will write often if we don’t know what to say, we just won’t say anything.

Jim Link  09:30

Right? That’s that’s the escape clause, right is to do nothing, and we can’t just do nothing. So I find that there are a variety of ways and things and first of all, thank you for your good work that you’re doing in that space to help human capital and human resources leaders because they are often the front line. Yeah, in the workplace of these issues. What I found though, as I think about this, and as I frame this up to talk to other leaders about this topic, what I find is that I start with him authentic leadership. And we all know the importance of the importance of empathy. And as and that is a central component. It wasn’t that long ago, it really in a time when I was beginning my career 1520 years ago might have been for years longer than ever, we won’t say that here. But that’s right. Well said, what we found was that we often heard from our senior leaders and saw them model behavior, which meant that you suppress those things, you’re natural for those of us who have an input, natural, empathetic leadership style, it was taught to you back in those days, that you should suppress it. Because what someone was feeling or thinking or believing at work was irrelevant to the work itself. Fast forward 20 years and a global pandemic, and the opposite is true. So what that has meant is that the rise of of identification of leaders who have that that empathetic capability is more and more impactful and needs to be taught to leaders that it’s okay to be empathetic with the words, sometimes as simple as the words that you would engage in the discussion and discussions with someone. So if we have to go back to that kind of foundational level to enable empathetic management, then let’s do that. And I will go so far as to say that leaders in the not so distant future, three to five years out, who don’t have the capability to develop and demonstrate and lead with their empathetic skill and capability, they’re going to become extinct, they will become extinct. And and because there’s such a need now for individuals who have that capacity to lead small groups, large groups, entire organizations, and and maybe countries around the world, right? When will we start to see that transition of people who can bring that type of style into the workplace and beyond, we will be in a much better place to help these individuals that your organization is focused on in which every employer should be focused on.

Lindsay Recknell  12:09

Absolutely. And the, like you mentioned, it’s not it’s a gap in our leadership development. It’s not it’s it’s not that we haven’t recognized it’s important. We’ve just never been taught. And so I got into this work, because I had I suffered burnout had two leaders, one leader, I said, this is what’s going on. He said, sorry to hear that not my problem, get back to work, do your thing. oldstyle, right. And the other leader said, sorry to hear that, how can we help? What do you need? What accommodations can we give? Awesome, everybody needs to be this leader. But it’s not this leaders felt that he was that place he’d just never been taught. And so filling that gap, and bringing those two kinds of leaders together with compassion and empathy, that’s the only way to go.

Jim Link  12:51

I completely agree. And what I find interesting is, not only were those folks folks not taught that specific skill, it was actually preferable that if you had it naturally, to suppress it, or to push it down, and to not lead with that, even in your first five leadership approaches, right, that was number 10. Or lower right in the skills that you would deploy, to help someone be successful in an organization. The good news and the exciting news today, if we get anything else out of this terrible pandemic that we’ve gone through, that’s positive, one of the things that we can certainly get out of it is that human capability gets stronger and better when they are surrounded by people who are empathetic and understand who they are as individuals, and help them succeed based upon those very factors that we use to hide. Yeah, right. So you know, coming to work and saying to an employee on your team, how are you doing today, and then actually standing there and listening to the response and reading the body movements and the eye contact and the connectivity that you have with that individual? That’s an early step, and just asking someone how that they’re doing, and then actually wanting to hear the answer. And being prepared to address something that comes out of that response is, to me is an ideal place to start. You also show empathy, by by being appreciative and grateful of what other people do. And I know with with my own teams here, and in the past, it takes me two seconds to say nice job, or thank you or I appreciate you, or anything else to and that helps to help another individual employee understand that, that you can put yourself in their shoes, because you’ve been there. You you want that same reaction from them coming toward you as a leader that, that they understand what you’re doing and decisions that you’re making. And all of those things put together. Give us the opportunity to help move our society and our workplaces into a culture of acceptance of belonging and inclusion. And that’s what I’m all about. And that’s what I’m what I’m after. The other part of this equation is there fantastic organizations out there now who are who are picking up on this, there, I’m aware of one organization in particular, that today contracts with employers, so that they’re helping employees navigate through life, not not when they have a crisis, when they actually help them navigate, and they use technology and AI, they have 1000 trained coaches in different aspects of life situations, whether you’re going through a divorce, or you have financial situations, or your kids are unruly, or, you know, I can’t even list all the hundreds of things that is that come across their desk every day. But they are they’re literally a phone call or a zoom call away, to help you navigate. And that’s what we’re doing is we’re giving people navigational skills and capability in places where that our society might have missed helping people learn those things in which the COVID crisis brought about in living color. So I’m super excited about those organizations, that technology is actually helping us find a solution set to to matters of the heart and the mind. And to me, that’s just a phenomenal place to, to know and to grow. And I’m happy to be a part of some of those things. Yeah,

Lindsay Recknell  16:27

I watch the finals of the Better World Challenge Cup yesterday, speaking of HR technology, and have the opportunity to meet with Guillermo as well, which is really great. And because technology can enable the employee experience. Oh, boy, I feel like when that’s one of the biggest things that I took away from this conference, other than the fact that we had an entire day dedicated to mental health, which leads to the employee experience, and how can we help the professionals that are supporting the people move away from the more administrative paper pushing kind of tasks enabled by technology so that their value can be where they are the most valuable, which is connecting with their people?

Jim Link  17:09

That’s absolutely right. And first of all, we have to make that okay, yes. So we have to set it as an expectation, we have to give people permission, in some cases, to do what you just described, to actually resend that that’s a value add and a business enabler in organizations. There never has been this connection between a person’s well being their state of mind and heart, their, their what they bring to work every day and business outcomes, that connectivity for some odd reason has never been made. Now we know that that is the case, and that there is an ROI on the matters related to the well being of an employee. SHRM itself is intimately involved in this work as as you know, and as we’ve discussed, like you said, there was a a group that came together last fall where this was the specific focus of two days of bringing in industry professionals, Politico’s people who were trained in mental health, medical doctors and you know, others to come together say, how do we actually move this initiative forward for the greater good of our society, and are the companies that operate within that within that society, not to mention for the people who are impacted would be personally impacted by the efforts that we make here. So SHRM is doing those types of things our SHRM foundation is fantastic in this space with their with their mental health certifications, and alliances. And we work with a variety of third party organizations who also helped make us smarter, quicker advisor, more more capable, as SHRM to actually then help workers understand how they can help not just themselves, but others who might be in their purview along on this journey as well. So it’s a fantastic time to be involved in this space, whether you are a Chief Human Resources Officer, or whether you’re a brand new entrant into the workforce. Or if you’re even someone who’s just interested in helping others along life’s journeys. This is the absolute best place and time for us to be who we are and what we do and human resources.

Lindsay Recknell  19:19

Oh, it feels so exciting.

Jim Link  19:20

I know. It does gives me goosebumps.

Lindsay Recknell  19:22

It truly truly does. Can you talk a little bit more about the foundation, speaking of evidence and research to support the ROI of doing this work? Can you talk a little bit about that kind of new or like latest initiatives that the foundation is working on?

Jim Link  19:36

Well, first of all, this is has been an initiative for the organization for quite some time for the SHRM foundation for quite some time, but it’s taken on a whole new level of importance based upon the events of the past two to three years. So with that we partner with third party organizations who are also interested in those types of issues, to build programming, learning and even serve occupations for people to help them understand how they can assist others who might be similarly situated. So we deploy a variety of groups to help us do that one of the groups we work very closely with is called psych hub. Here, they’re based in the United States, but to work all over the globe. And they’re, they advise us technically, on the things around mental health, because we’re not mental health experts, right? We’re work experts. But those two are now finding themselves collaborating together, sometimes quite well, and sometimes not so well in the workplace. And so they’re advising us on the more technical components of those things, while we have the impact of those 316,000 human resources professionals around the world. So from those certifications, and learning, learning and development types of programming that we pull together, we then can certify individuals that they have, they have learned the things that are important for them to learn in this space, they can then apply those skills in the right way in their workplace to help people who are situated. And we work with a lot of those individuals who, and companies and organizations, because they are like minded with us in this effort, what cyclop is just one of the many that come to us for our reach, to help them scale the ideas that they have. And that’s fantastic work and fun for us, because we get to talk about things that those organizations have made us smarter regarding, and then apply it into the workplace to help individuals who are impacted. Yeah,

Lindsay Recknell  21:30

amazing. One of the things that we talk about on the show is how do we engage some of the senior leaders in these conversations, you know, it’s it’s functional line level managers that are seeing the immediate impacts on their people. And sometimes there’s a disconnect up the chain because of the conversation around ROI. And the maybe perception that doing mental health at work, is a cost not a benefit. How do we, in your opinion, how do we engage the senior leaders leaders in the conversation, and also get them to pay for get them to invest in this work, instead of just saying to somebody, go do this off the side of your desk, which we know, I get asked. That’s what gets asked, though all the time. And so then there’s no consistency, there’s overwhelm and all of those things? How can we how can we open the door to that conversation,

Jim Link  22:18

we open that door to that conversation by speaking a language which those individuals understand. And that’s usually in the form of a Numerix, or predictive analysis impact data, right? So so we have to start thinking about how to take this problem and put it into such a way into the language that they will understand and react to, we know that there is a connection already. And this has been proven time and time again, and will continue to be proven between someone’s engagement in the work that they do and the outcomes of that business success, whether that be customer service, whether that be bottom line profitability, whether that be growth in scaling, revenue development, you name the financial measure, there’s a connectivity between an employee’s engagement. And those numbers are those areas I just described to you. If you are not well, at work, you’re not engaged. And if you aren’t engaged, and you’re not well, to me, that’s even more problematic, right? So the, the opportunity lies within those of us who understand both sides of that equation, so who are on the leadership side of things, but also can interpret the data and analysis that we’re seeing in such a way that we understand that if we don’t do something, we actually cause more harm to the long term success of our people and our organization than we would if we did nothing. So I am all about building that body of data of evidence, because that evidence then gets translated into such a way that it’s can be interpreted by senior leaders in organizations and when they see the impact that that employee wellness is having on their healthcare cost, on their productivity on their scaling or revenue generation, they will see those connections and when they see those connections and numbers speak volumes, and and they shall respond. There’s no doubt in my mind, I’ve seen it with every other thing that’s happened. So why wouldn’t Why would mental health and mental well being be any different, but the biggest impact of well being and particularly mental health if you’ll let me just be that specific of well being on employer certifying employer insurance plans is huge. So if you if you have someone and you can impact them in a diagnostically significant way to impact their mental health, you are going to save yourself a lot of money on insurance claims and costs in the long run. We just need to do a better job of speaking in those mathematical terms, and then building the case for early intervention and action to to avoid long term impact and cost. And that is a translatable skill, we’re not doing it well enough now. But work is going on out there, I see it in being able to take that and translate that in such a way. The other thing that we can do is to support and endorse organizations that are new in this space of employee Well, being these navigational places where that employers can go to the startup or early entrance into the organization. These are people who have the idea about how to solve this problem, they’re looking for funding and resources than to scale it. So one of those companies that that’s doing a particularly unique job in this space is called Life guides.com. Life guides.com. And they are one of those organizations that are speaking to employees who may be impacted by any of those life challenges that we talked about a little bit earlier. And getting intervention and help for those individuals in navigational skills. I think the best way to think of it is, if you’re trying to get through something, then the all you need as a navigator, right, you need someone to help show you a way through. And that is what this particular organization focuses on. Of course, they use AI and technology to make the best matches for the people who are helping you with your particular concern. And it’s absolutely fantastic. But it gets to the biggest uptake. If you think of industries out there in the world, guess which industries uptaking their services the most, would you even have a guess?

Lindsay Recknell  26:37

I was gonna say manufacturing or something like that.

Jim Link  26:40

That was my first thought to its healthcare. Get out? Yeah. So healthy eating? No. So who has been or has been the most burned out industry in the last three or four years? We know, healthcare friendly workers. That’s right, frontline workers, particularly those in healthcare. And so what healthcare companies are seeing is that this early intervention with their own staffs, doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, people working with friends, you name it, they are the ones who are seeing the most benefit from early intervention, and can show that in the success, productivity, attraction, retention, engagement, any HR or business metric that you want to find with their individuals. So isn’t it great that the very first people that are seeing the benefit of this work are the people who have been most arguably most impacted by what we’ve all gone through in the last two years?

Lindsay Recknell  27:37

Well, and can see the huge return because they already they already recognize the power of doing this work. And now they will have the kind of no evidence to support it or the, you know, the benchmark, and to be able to see where they grow very, very cool.

Jim Link  27:52

I like the math, right, and the the algorithmic approach to solving a problem. But first, you have to have the data. So these people are generating that data in spades. And then it becomes the opportunity to translate that into measurable, measurable actions, which can be interpreted by senior leaders to make the right decisions for their companies and their employees.

Lindsay Recknell  28:12

Not just mental health awareness, but mental health action.

Jim Link  28:15

Yeah, absolutely. The I think we are aware now in many cases, and what’s missing is the action. So any tool technology capability or intervention technique that we can be learned that can be learned, and then deployed effectively only serves the long term impact of of individuals and companies? For the good length? It’s absolutely clear my head

Lindsay Recknell  28:38

yeah. And raises collective wellness, generally speaking. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So we’re at the end of our show, we have learned a ton we have met a great number of people. Where do we go from here? Is there What is your biggest takeaway for people listening to the show that from from an implementation point of view, that’s going to have the biggest impact for their time well spent? Because we know that they are full out at the top of their capacity kind of people, well, what can they do with this information that will make the biggest impact in your organization.

Jim Link  29:10

I think they should prioritize what they’ve heard over the course of the last four to five days here, in person or for the our virtual attendees that that they might have logged into to see a topic that were particularly interesting to them? What when you have a great source of information like this conference has has provided, I think it’s important to prioritize how you will go about and approach the things that need to be done for today for the midterm and for the future. And I can I can tell you what I think those things are, I think the first thing that has to happen is you as an employer need to be building an a culture that contains three things in spades. One is a culture of learning so that you are open to and constantly in, in seeking new info Mission and new content. And that means not just for yourself, but for your company, your organization, your family, your friends, you so you are, you are in a lifelong learner, so that anything that you can do to build that will serve as well in the short, mid and long term. The second area is a culture of inclusion, belonging, and that is all things related to not just diversity, and equity efforts. But it’s things like we’re talking about here around mental health and awareness, and people who are differently abled, and bring new skills and capability to the workforce that we haven’t even thought about how to effectively deploy So building that. So first a culture of learning Secondly, a culture of learning first, belonging second, and then the final one is a culture of well being. And this is the one you and I’ve spent a lot of time on. I’m personally passionate about this as well, this culture of well being, it requires us to think differently about how we want employees to experience the world of work, from the time that they’re introduced to a brand and an opportunity in the form of a job or an experience within a company, through that entire process to the times through the lifecycle of that employee, until they leave that organization, we have to bring wellbeing more into the expectation list from the very first day they become aware of who you are, as an employer, we know that bringing those wellbeing initiatives forward will make you a more attractive employer, we know it will make you a more productive employer and will contribute financially successfully to the bottom line of your organization, regardless of the industry service or function that you provide, as an employer. So if you just do those three things, and then begin to develop the connectivity of those three things, with the short, mid and long term success of your business, then these things can help accomplish not just a good for that organization, but the good for our society as a whole.

Lindsay Recknell  31:55

Amazing. So well said thank you so so much for spending all of your time with us. Your wisdom has been incredible. I feel like we’re so aligned on topics. And so it was really nice to hear you to hear some of the things that we’re working on and some of the things that I got out of the show, to hear that confirmed from somebody who’s you know, putting these things together, because this is what you’re seeing from your members and in the world of work. So thank you so much for spending your time.

Jim Link  32:21

Thank you for allowing me to be here. It’s been my privilege.

Lindsay Recknell  32:23

Take care.  Thanks for joining me for another awesome episode of the Mental Health for Leaders podcast. To make sure you don’t miss any future episodes, please go to https://mentalhealthforleaders.com and subscribe to have these episodes delivered right to your inbox each week. You’ll also find all the shownotes, links, and resources that my guests mention on the show and the link to the Guide to Influence & Impact at Work freebie I mentioned at the beginning of the show.  You’re listening to this podcast because you know our people need us more than ever but being a people leader and HR professional is especially hard right now. If the thought of figuring out how best to support your people, and yourself, feels overwhelming and impossibly hard, let’s talk. I don’t promise I can make it easy but I can make it simple so let’s do that together. Go to https://mentalhealthforleaders.com and download the Guide to Influence & Impact at Work now. Until next time, take good care and as always, call me if you need me.

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My mission is to help great leaders like you feel less awkward and more confident about mental health at work so you can stress less and take more action.

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