Partnership with Marsh McLennan Agency supports Workplace Resilience Index
Above: Gesine Ziebarth and Erik Muckey of Lost&Found met with Karlie Solum of Marsh McLennan Agency. The two organizations partnered in the development of the Workplace Resilience Index, a tool to help workplaces better support their employees’ mental health.
This article also appeared in the Sioux Falls Business Journal.
Organizations now have a new tool to help them better understand and tackle mental health challenges.
According to Lost&Found, increasing reports of mental health conditions and suicide risk are straining workplaces in South Dakota and the surrounding region. That was the impetus for Marsh McLennan Agency in Sioux Falls and Lost&Found to partner in the creation of the Workplace Resilience Index, an adaptation of Lost&Found’s highly successful Campus Resilience Index.
Marsh McLennan Agency has long championed mental health care for its employees and had made it a priority, but leaders weren’t sure if their approach was truly meeting employee needs.
MMA and Lost&Found met to discuss what gaps might exist in their current programs and how Lost&Found’s expertise could help by providing a comprehensive assessment and support system that also could be utilized by other organizations. The MMA team provided guidance on what would be most helpful to HR departments of organizations. Through a series of workshop sessions, Lost&Found took research and best practices for mental health and suicide prevention and adapted them to the workplace context with help from MMA. Ultimately, they produced a product called the Workplace Resilience Index, a workplace-specific tool that results in an action plan that can be implemented for any size of organization.
The Workplace Resilience Index will give organizations of all kinds — for profit, nonprofit and government agencies — the ability to look holistically at their mental health challenges and current solutions. The tool collects data across a variety of primary sources such as employee survey responses and secondary sources such as benefits packages to determine what strengths and challenges exist in current prevention strategies. This allows organizations to see where they need help and where they may need to apply resources.
“We recognized the importance of taking an objective look at our employee mental health offerings,” said Karlie Solum, director of community relations for MMA Dakotas. “By consulting with Lost&Found, we aimed to ensure that we had all our bases covered. Our goal is to proactively address mental health needs so we may never have to find ourselves looking back and thinking, ‘We could’ve done more.’”
Marsh McLennan Agency continues to support the enhancement and expansion of the WRI program in hopes of benefiting other businesses regionally. This comes alongside many other mental health investments in the community, including the recent announcement of the $1 million donation to Sanford Health for a pediatric mental health initiative.
The partners identified that most organizations understood that mental health was an important challenge to address, but they didn’t know the extent of the problem, nor did they have the resources they needed.
“There is a definite lack of resources available to organizations to help them recognize and address the mental health issues of their employees,” said Erik Muckey, interim development director of Lost&Found. “For example, all 66 counties in South Dakota currently face a serious shortage of mental health professionals.”
Investing in the mental health of employees “can make a huge difference,” Muckey continued, “and the Workplace Resilience Index is an innovative way to address an organization’s mental health and well-being.”
The Workplace Resilience Index is based on the seven evidence-based suicide prevention strategies identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its Suicide Prevention Resource for Action:
- Strengthen economic supports.
- Create protective environments.
- Improve access and delivery of suicide care.
- Promote healthy connections.
- Teach coping and problem-solving skills.
- Identify and support people at risk.
- Lessen harms and prevent future risk.
The WRI’s broad, thorough view of workplace prevention efforts can help guide decisions on investments in existing or new prevention efforts that will best serve employees. The information also helps Lost&Found better support workplace partners implementing suicide prevention programs and policies.
The Workplace Resilience Index can drive action, provide opportunities to learn from peers in other organizations and create a comprehensive understanding of mental health needs in the workplace.
It is not a ranking but rather a holistic assessment of what an organization’s mental needs are now and what resources or programs they have in place to provide support. It is a partnership-driven process that assesses mental health and suicide prevention practices in the workplace, identifies areas of strength in prevention and recommends practical approaches to improve workplace mental health.
To learn more:
About Marsh McLennan Agency
Marsh McLennan Agency, a business of Marsh, is a leading provider of business insurance, employee health and benefits, retirement and wealth, and private client insurance solutions across U.S. and Canada. Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC) is a global leader in risk, strategy and people, advising clients in 130 countries across four businesses: Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer and Oliver Wyman. With annual revenue of $24 billion and more than 90,000 colleagues, Marsh McLennan helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective. For information, visit marshmma.com, or follow on LinkedIn and X.
About Lost&Found
Lost&Found is a South Dakota-based, Bush prize-winning nonprofit organization that aims to do more to eliminate suicide among young adults and employees in the United States. Lost&Found is committed to connecting organization leaders to share best practices and common challenges while building a culture of mental health investment among workplaces. To learn more about Lost&Found’s Workplace Resilience Index, contact Erik Muckey at emuckey@resilienttoday.org.
