Making Mental Health Services in the Workplace More Approachable

In this preview of our Work, Wellness and Space project, set to launch July 15, we feature Alex Simmons, founder of Boon Health, which provides a mental health platform for businesses, about evolving mental wellness services in the workplace.

After spending much of his 20s logging 80-hour weeks (or more) in investment banking and private equity, Alex Simmons was convinced: The way most employees access mental health services in the workplace is broken.

That’s why he founded Boon Health in fall 2019 – to provide a more approachable and holistic mental health platform that emphasizes coaching.

“It's no longer going to be sufficient for employers to simply have employee assistance programs,” said Simmons. “We’re going to need something more – something that’s designed not only for short-term crisis management but also for preventive mental well-being.”

That way of thinking – that mental wellness must increasingly focus on prevention – is a major takeaway from Work, Wellness & Space, the inaugural research offering by Immediate Frontier. The project, a partnership between GreenHouse::Innovation and Greentarget in special collaboration with Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam, will launch on July 15.

Simmons is among the more than two dozen experts in innovation, architecture, commercial real estate, public health and a host of related fields interviewed for the project. His company, based in Birmingham, Mich., has a team of 40 ICF-accredited coaches, therapists and clinical psychologists. Boon’s coaching services are strictly digital via Zoom, and the coach-employee relationships are 100 percent confidential. The company also offers interactive webinars on different trending, relevant topics in mental health. With remote work becoming a necessity since the start of COVID-19, Boon’s digital offering might make more sense in the weeks and months ahead than ever.

COVID-19’s impact on Simmons’ plans has been two-fold. Experts predict that longer term, the need for more robust mental wellness programs for employees will become even more important – and, among smart employers, more sought – than ever. They point to the combination of COVID-19, related economic disruptions and racial tensions spurred by George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 as major stressors.

But COVID-19 emerged in the United States right as Simmons was getting ramped up. That’s slowed things down in the short term, but he’s never been more confident about the long-term viability of the company. Especially if a greater emphasis on mental wellness in the workplace emerges.

“If you're a mom working from home with multiple kids and you're having to support those kids and entertain them while trying to work a full day, there's a whole host of other stressors that have entered your life that never existed before,” Simmons said. “And most of us aren't equipped with the tools and resources to be able to know how to deal with those stressors.”

“From an employer perspective, a lot of what I'm hearing is this idea of the acceleration of the mental health crisis and stress and anxiety epidemic in the United States. That is ultimately creating a greater need for better mental health resources in the workplace.”

Surprise! The Future is Here!

COVID-19 changed the scheduling of a work and wellness research initiative but it didn’t change the mission.

Immediate Frontier’s research-first approach is set to offer new thinking about working in Corporate America — just when we need it most.

Early this year, GreenHouse::Innovation began work with Greentarget Global Group and LAB/Amsterdam on a wellness summit about how Corporate America could improve work, wellness and space.

A group of experts was scheduled to meet on April 23 in Chicago.

"The project was of great interest, particularly for those involved in commercial real estate and development," said Howell J. Malham Jr. founder and president of GreenHouse. "But between the February announcement of the summit and its scheduled date, the world as we once knew it changed."

The WHO declared the COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, the in-person summit was canceled, and — most significantly — what we had accepted unknowingly for years as norms largely went out the window.

"We could have walked away right then and there, or at least waited idly by for an 'all clear'. But we realized that the work was more important than ever, and that we could help chart a course forward," he said.

The old game plan was torn up.

In its place, a new one that focused on the growing demands for new solutions to new problems wrought by the pandemic:: specifically, what will the commercial workplace look like in the months and years ahead, given Corporate America's concerns about the health of its workforce, the safety of its workplace, and, not the least, the sustainability of the economy as it is presently configured.

“We wanted to bring together a group of experts in the area of work, wellness and space — but, clearly, the coronavirus had other plans,” said John Corey, president and founding partner, Greentarget. “Switching to a research-first model conducted over electronic channels not only yielded insights at an incredibly important moment, it’s done so in a way that’s actually appropriate for the times.

“What we’ll release this summer will capture the return-to-work conversations of the moment — and, we think, help shape what the workplace and wellness will look like going forward.”

For the past three months, Greentarget Director of Research & Innovation Betsy Hoag has led a series of one-on-one interviews with domain experts in a variety of fields.

Already, her team has uncovered a fund of insights on what healthy sustainable development looks like now — and for whom. It spans a wide range of topics — everything from the management of virtual spaces to the changing nature of mental health programs to aligning wellness initiatives and green programs.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and the events of the past two months forced us to truly invent what I’m calling a 'collaborative qualitative' approach to research,” Hoag said.

“The knowledge my team has gained throughout this process means we can engage in conversations with experts on near-equal footing allowing us to start conversations about innovation at a time when new thinking is especially important.”

Even before COVID-19, the project’s focus was on finding new ways to improve the health of the workforce. That meant healthier and safer buildings, cultures and environments — but more broadly, new ways of thinking and a holistic approach to preventative wellness.

"For developers, it goes well beyond LEED and WELL certifications," said Nicholas White, co-founder, LAB/Amsterdam. "For corporations, it goes well beyond the promises of existing wellness programs and flex-time.

"But these new ways of thinking will only work through collaboration…and if corporations are in it for the long haul.”

Phase I of the project will conclude with the delivery of an exhaustively researched report on the new normative expectations of development and design, as they relate to optimizing the workplace and the workforce for health, wellness and prevention in the era of COVID-19 and beyond.

Health Nation

Chicago hosts Work, Wellness & Space Summit which kicks off larger research & innovation initiative

Editor’s Note: The below was published in early February, before the full force of COVID-19 changed our plans — and all of our lives. We leave this post here to help explain how our plans have changed. You can learn more about that here and here.

It’s a well-established fact:: Where we work impacts how we work — and how well we work. 

A healthy office in a healthy building can, among other things, contribute to the development of a calm and more productive atmosphere.  

Employees, particularly younger employees, are not only seeking out jobs at companies that promote wellness for themselves and for the environment, they typically stay at those kinds of companies for a longer period of time.  

“A manifest commitment to health and wellness is no longer a ‘nice to have’ for employers in this century; it is a need to have in order to remain competitive and successful,” said Howell J. Malham Jr., founder of GreenHouse::Innovation.

“That commitment, we contend, begins with a healthy space.” 

The very idea of “space,” however, is changing — dramatically; as well as the collective attitude toward the concept of what we call “work”:: where and how we work, and why.

With these changes come a host of new social expectations, many of which are in direct conflict with what governs the attitudes and behavior of primary actors — developers, brokers, property managers, tenants — when it comes to engaging with “space” in all of its forms. 

What’s doing this governing? We call them social norms.

To identify those norms, specifically those that prevent us from fully understanding the new dynamics of wellness, work and space, GreenHouse::Innovation and Greentarget are convening a summit in on April 23 with the founders of Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam and an international group of guest thinkers from global commercial real estate firms, as well as experts from health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, health and wellness, and design.

“This summit is an important first step in a larger research and innovation initiative to explore new ways to engage with the concept of ‘space’ in America, particularly as it relates to the wellness of employers and employees,” said John E. Corey, president and founding partner, Greentarget. 

“Our hope is to continue to discover new opportunities to incorporate sustainability in a more comprehensive way for the benefit of the businesses that lease space, the tenants who occupy the space, and the environment in which we all live.”

For more information, click here.