Booz Allen Elevates Mental Health Support

October 10 is World Mental Health Day—meant to raise awareness of mental health issues and recognize what more needs to be done to care for individuals coping with mental health challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unparalleled challenges and stress to everyday life—and has only renewed Booz Allen’s commitment to emotional wellness and mental health support for its employees. 

A leader in mental health support, Booz Allen has received national attention for its Emotional Wellness Revolution and Mental Health America’s first-ever corporate award for mental health excellence. Since March 2020, a continually evolving array of Booz Allen programs have addressed physical, financial, and emotional health and resiliency—from “Let Us Be Heard” sessions focused on social inequality to a virtual “Reignite Your Spark” wellness symposium recently hosted by the firm. Here, leaders and employees share their tips for coping, communicating, and providing care—prioritizing mental health and emotional wellness. 

At Booz Allen’s wellness symposium, speakers discussed the “double pandemic” of COVID-19 and systemic racism and inequality that has left many people either upshifted into a stressful “fight mode” or downshifted into depression, sadness, and anxiety—compromising their health and making it difficult to concentrate, collaborate, and innovate. 

Though mental health looks different for every person, it’s essential to build moments of wellness into your daily routine. Experts say some techniques to help build resilience and maintain sustainable health, happiness, and performance both within working hours and beyond can include eliminating back-to-back meetings, taking regular work breaks, creating time for yoga or meditation, and using mindfulness apps to improve focus and reduce anxiety. Employers play an important role in helping employees find balance as well—Booz Allen supports a flexible schedule, affording employees the opportunity to disconnect and create balance during the workday.

Although wellness tips can apply to all kinds of stress, people might also need a discreet set of tools to help cope with trauma around systemic racism and inequality. Reading the news, viewing disturbing or violent footage, and even fielding questions from friends can create emotional strain—especially for people of color—during an already taxing time. Add to all this the challenge of showing up to work as your best self, and it can quickly become too much. 

“Reignite Your Spark” symposium speakers discussed the importance of establishing healthy boundaries and relying on community support networks, and offered suggestions including: 

• Remove notifications from your phone, especially from news apps
• Create boundaries around what kind of information you want to encounter
• Take time to digest events and seek out safe spaces for frank conversations
• Find ways to de-stress at work, like having a Microsoft Teams dance party
• Ask coworkers for help finishing assignments or meeting deadlines—without feeling like you need to explain why
• Offer to hold a listening session with coworkers

“We have to look out for each other,” said Senior Consultant Julia Chen, who published a personal essay about her feelings and experiences following a national rise in anti-Asian violence and sentiments. “We can only make this a safe and sustainable world if we know our neighbors better.” 

More than 53 million Americans today provide ongoing care for adults and children who cannot care for themselves, including aging parents, seriously ill spouses or children, and people with functional or cognitive limitations—and those with loved ones suffering from COVID-19. On top of daily stress and life amidst the pandemic, it can start to feel like too much. 

At the 2021 Unstoppable Together Global Summit, three of these caregivers shared their stories and advice for making the caregiving journey easier—and how to look out for their own mental health needs.

A mother of eight who balanced parenthood with a high-powered military career used team-building tactics from work to teach her children—even the younger ones—to do things like laundry and safely explore the neighborhood on their own. Children gain confidence and independence, and caregivers get more time for themselves. 

Another parent shared her experiences raising two children on the autism spectrum, one with complex medical needs. She noted that one of the hardest lessons she’s learned has been “knowing how to communicate and not keep it all inside.” Caregiving is “difficult, time-consuming, and hard. If you don’t have support, it’s even harder,” she said. 

When a normally bubbly colleague is suddenly less so, “Try to understand, because the reasons why might extend beyond the boundaries of the work environment,” said an employee who became a caregiver after his mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. “Give each other grace on hard days.”

In 2020, Booz Allen expanded benefits including additional PTO hours and family support services for both children and adult dependents, and provided monetary support through its Resilience Fund to help employees deal with pandemic-related hardships.

How can people support the caregivers in their lives? “Simply check in,” he said.

Booz Allen has made emotional wellness part of its firmwide wellness program, providing free counseling sessions offered through its Employee Assistance Program (EAP) as well as access to free on-demand, digital courses on managing stress/anxiety, mindfulness, yoga, DEI, and parental and eldercare support content, among other resources. 

It also trains mental health “first responders” within the company to spot signs of distress. These first responders, familiar with the range of available mental health resources, “can support people, promise to check in on them, care for them, or just ask them how they are doing,” Thompson said.

“We make it very clear that the EAP is for the employees to have, that it’s no different than going to your own medical doctor. Nobody’s going to know; we are not going to see any individualized information,” Thompson said. 

“While there’s been a growing awareness around mental health and we have been focused on this for several years, I think the pandemic has brought it more into focus that this is important,” Thompson said. “I think more people are asking questions about how people are handling and experiencing this unprecedented situation. Everyone is impacted by it in some way.”

Watch the full “Caretakers’ Dilemma” panel discussion from the 2021 Unstoppable Together Summit and read more about how Booz Allen supports mental health support.