Q: Could you give me an overview of Empower Work?

A: Empower Work is a national nonprofit, and we provide timely, free support for folks that are going through really challenging work situations. And so we talk about it as sort of blending both the emotional and the tactical. So we address the components of mental health that are impacting the situation at work, so that could be someone's really stressed because their workplace isn't providing personal protective equipment and it's COVID, and they're really worried about not just getting sick themselves, but maybe bringing that home if they have someone in their household who's immunocompromised. And so there's obviously a significant component of mental health that's impacted by the situation that's going on. And then we also talk through the sort of tactical components. And so it's really important for us that we blend both of those. And for a couple of different reasons. One is that when we first started our initial research a couple of years ago, a lot of times when people think about work, they think about it separately from mental health. And there are a lot of reasons for that, but we structured it in a way that we wanted the support resource just to be really open and inclusive. And so we it really on like what's feeling most pressing for the person. And so sometimes what's feeling most pressing is that emotion, is the anxiety or someone's having panic attacks or, there's some sense of like overwhelm or strain or anger even that's going on. And then for other people it's really much more the sort of like, yes, I'm overwhelmed, but really I want to focus on like, what's a tactical plan? Like how do I address this? And we use a combination of counseling and coaching. It's really based in coaching best practices. And I think that's tied in some ways to elements of positive psychology in that unlike typical counseling, it goes more into like the deeper backstory and the problem and kind of delving into that. We're really focused on forward momentum. And we combine practices in deep listening, acknowledgement, reflection so that we really create a space where someone feels connected and safe and like they're in a trusted space and also reflecting back the values and strengths and really hearing what we're hearing the person as opposed to hearing the situation. Because I think as humans, we're really... it's very natural to go into the problem solving mode of like, oh yeah, just like go talk to your manager, or like, oh yeah, I was in that same situation because we want to help people so much and taking away that problem seems like a great way to help. But our approach is really based on like deeply sitting with the person and figuring out what's at stake for them, what do they ideally want to see happen? And it's only then that you think about what's the forward momentum because it's like it's really hard to know kind of where you want to go until you understand what's at stake and you've listened for those values and what's kind of at core for them.

Q: I'm curious how you came up with the idea in the first place. Was there a specific moment where you realized there was a need for this hotline for the workplace?

A:  A couple of years ago when MeToo headlines were raging, I was increasingly supporting people who needed someone to talk to about a situation that they were experiencing. And so one conversation in particular, it was a young woman who was first in her family to go to college and join the particular industry that she was in. And she'd leveraged the heck out of her LinkedIn network to connect with me. And like we didn't know one another. We ended up having this conversation, and I left thinking like, man, like what she needed was so much more immediate to what she was experiencing because like by the time we connected, it was like weeks later. And although the situation was still unfolding, I think part of what had been so stressful for her was that she wasn't able to more immediately access resources or support or like get access to something earlier on. And so I turned to my husband, and I was like, I wonder if there's like a Crisis Text Line for work or something because I don't know if you're familiar with Crisis Text Line, but they've done amazing work. They started as a teen or adolescent based resource, as sort of like a new version of a suicide hotline but over text. And they've now expanded, so they provide support to people of all ages, but typically folks who are younger. I think most of the folks they support are under 35 or under 40. I guess it depends on how you define younger. And I think they really revolutionized the sense of using different means of communicating with folks who are in these vulnerable moments. And so when I thought that, I was like, it doesn't mean that it needs to... I didn't know if it existed, something like that for work. And it didn't mean it needed to, I just was really curious about it because I've been having all these conversations, and I was like, man, I wish I had that in my back pocket, and I could share it with people. And so I started digging around, and I spent hours that night Googling and like couldn't find anything. And I thought it was just... I was like, is it the search terms I'm using? Like what would you Google if you're looking for this? And that just got me more and more curious over the next couple of months. I did significant market research just to understand kind of what existed, where were the gaps? What was already out there and what else might need to be there? And then I did really deep user research. So interviewing ... Well, we started with a simple survey for folks across industries and demographics and that sort of thing to really understand what kind of work situations came up, how difficult were they, where do people turn when they happened, and what resources did they have, that kind of thing. And then from that we saw this pattern and then I started doing interviews with hundreds of people from like HR specialists to labor organizers to people who'd had really challenging, and saw pretty much this big gap and that is, if you work at well-resourced companies, you are likely to have some degree of support. So like there might be coaching internally at your company or an employee assistance program or some kind of well-resourced and well meaning companies have some degree of things. But you have to work at one of those places to get access to it. And well resource individuals, so if you're personally in a situation where you can pay for something like there are access to resources. But that leaves like 40 million working Americans who don't have anything. And so there's this real equity gap in terms of folks who are most at risk and most likely to experience adverse work situations that impact their mental health and their financial wellbeing are disproportionately more likely to face them, and then they're disproportionately more likely not to have support. And so you just sort of... In my mind, I was like, oh, well this is such a huge, really like a justice issue, that the disparity in that was so profound, and it mimics disparities that we're seeing obviously across so many different facets of the United States. But because work is so central for people in terms of their financial security, their sense of wellbeing, their mental health that not having that in particular in a workplace or around workplace issues has a really significant impact.

Q: 78% of the people using your service identify as women. Why do you think that is?

A:  Yeah. So I think part of it's intentional, that when we did that initial research, it was like women and people of color, people earlier in their careers are more likely to face some sort of negative experience because of structural racism and sexism and all those kinds of things. So I think disproportionately people are more likely to experience that. And so we targeted... We don't market particularly if we're a women's based resource, but everything... We do outreach very intentionally to underserved and underrepresented populations, which tend to often include women. So I think it's both the intersection of that is a population that has a significant need, and we do intentional outreach. We just don't... We don't market it as specifically like women only because we find one, I mean, it's very gender confining, and we serve a lot of folks who are third gender or nonbinary or identify in other ways too, as well as folks who are interested in being allies or who are grappling with things themselves, or there are a number of men, particularly men of color or gay men, who are marginalized in the workplace too, who also really needed support. And so we found that trying to focus really on setting up messaging and our support structure in ways that really support marginalized populations without saying we're specifically for women of color, that kind of thing.

Q:  If you could offer one piece of advice to a high school student, what would it be and why?

A: Sure. So, my biggest advice and it is the same for parents as it is for kids, is finding comfort with the phrase “I don’t know” is going to help you a lot. When is this going to be over? I don’t know. When am I going to be able to be back in school full time? I don’t know. When am I going to be able to hang out with my friends? I don’t know. Am I going to be safe or am I going to get really sick? I don’t know. Are my parents going to be ok? I don’t know. I know what I hope the answers to all those things are, but I think the importance of surrendering a little bit to the “I don’t know”, which is really scary. Surrendering that allows you to then shift your mindset and go, “Okay. Since I don’t know, how can I behave in a way that keeps me safe and healthy.” That helps empower kids to practice distancing, I call it physical distancing because I don’t think you should be socially distanced, I only think you should be physically distanced. It helps kids make smarter and better choices about how they engage in the world as long as we don’t know.

Q: Given that mental health is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially for people in my generation, do you see young people using Empower Work?

A: We do have a number of folks who... I mean, a lot of people, especially between the ages of like 15 and 18 are working to support their families. So we see conversations where someone is in that age range who's working in the dry cleaner or working at a Wendy's or working in food service, a variety of jobs that you might hold while also going through school. And we also see folks who are... I would say predominantly the folks that we support who are earlier in their career tend to be more in the doing internships or the first couple of years more so. I mean, and I think that's more of like a reach kind of thing because both numbers and reach. But yeah. We support a lot of folks... 54% of the folks that we support are in their first 10 years of working. And I think... And the first 10 years basically means like they're under 30.

Q: Are there specific prerequisites that people have to fulfill in order to even be considered to be a counselor?

A: We thoroughly vet and screen and train all of our peer counselors. So everybody who comes in, who raises their hand and says like, "I want to volunteer," goes through an application and screening process and then 20 hours of training. And the screening process is really about, we just screen for a couple of key things. We screen for empathy. So like does someone have... You don't have to be the most empathetic person, but you do have to have a capacity for empathy, and then that's something that our training helps build on so that you can listen to people and you can reflect and you can acknowledge, and that's so important. And it's particularly important over texts because you don't have the same cues around body language or tone that you have in other contexts. And then we also screen for like, does someone have some experience in that workforce? And by that, it just seems that familiarity with a U.S. Workforce context is helpful when you're connecting with people. We did experiment for a little bit with folks who hadn't had workforce experience, and I think it just felt, for those volunteers, like a little bit like fish out of water because you're trying to learn two things at once. You're trying to learn how to coach someone, and then you're also trying to learn about workplaces and that's like two big hurdles. Where folks who already have experience in the workforce and have some degree of empathy, they're kind of building on some areas that they already have some familiarity with. And the training really is... In a way it's kind of like professional development. Because volunteers will come back and say things like, "Oh my gosh, I just got the most amazing promotion because of the training and volunteering," or, "I'm a better manager," or, "I just got the best performance review."