Sara Sheehan welcomes Psychological Health and Safety Advisor, and expert in hope, Lindsay Recknell to the show to talk about the vital topic of mental health training for corporate spaces. Mental health is absolutely fundamental to corporate wellness and Lindsay offers several methods of training corporations, employees, and business owners how to speak the language of mental health in their workspace.
Lindsay became a certified Psychological Health and Safety Advisor after a personal burnout and period of complete overwhelm. She realized that not every leader has the mental health skills necessary to tackle such conversations after the responses she received to her own crisis. She is on a mission to educate leaders on how to do the mental health and support work necessary for healthy employees and workspaces.
In this episode, Sara Sheehan learns about the corporate mental health training that Lindsay Recknell offers through her company, Paradigm Corporate Wellness. Lindsay explains not only her Mental Health Skill Training Certificate Program and her Language of Mental Health Digital Subscription, but details for Sara exactly who will benefit from this training and what the return on investment will be. Lindsay is an expert in hope and her desire to make a positive impact on the lives of others, to make mental health a priority in workplaces, and to support wellness in organizations is deep-rooted and informed by education and empathy.
About Lindsay Recknell
As an expert in hope and a Certified Psychological Health and Safety Advisor, Lindsay works with individuals and organizations to increase their levels of psychological health & safety in the workplace using Positive Psychology and the Science of Hope. She empowers individuals, strengthens teams and transforms organizations through her Mental Health Skills Training certificate program, Language of Mental Health digital subscription and wellness webinars. Lindsay lives in Calgary, Canada with her husband and their two Golden Retrievers.
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:
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Transcript
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:02] Hi there. My name is Sara Sheehan and welcome to my podcast, Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. Today we are going to talk about the very compelling topic of the mental health crisis and how my guest, Lindsay Recknell and Paradigm Corporate Wellness seeks to change the game in the workplace. If you would like to learn more after listening to today’s discussion, check out the show notes for contact information to meet with Lindsay or with me. We would love to hear from you.
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:47] Lindsay, I am so glad to have you on Transformational Thinkers today. Part of the reason that I expedited our discussion is because over the course of seven days, at the end of March, there were two shooting incidents in the Dallas Metro schools and of course, the terrible shooting in Nashville at the Covenant School in Dallas. I believe there was one young man that was shot and passed and another that was injured. And in Nashville, three adults passed, three precious children passed, and of course, the shooter passed as well. It’s such an inflection point for us. This is a very sad and truly horrible tipping point. I believe in the need to focus on mental health and really address it head on as the physical, mental, emotional health condition that it truly is. So today, I’m super excited to be talking with you. I want to start with your bio and then we can dive in to some questions. A little bit about Lindsay Recknell as an expert in hope and a certified Psychological Health and Safety advisor, Lindsay works with individuals and organizations to increase their levels of psychological health and safety in the workplace using positive psychology and the science of hope. She empowers individuals, strengthens teams, and transforms organizations through her mental health skills training certificate program, language of mental health, digital subscription and her wellness webinars. Lindsay lives in Calgary, Canada, with her husband and two Golden Retrievers. And by the way, what are their names? Not only your dogs, but your spouse.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:03:01] They are called Squeak and Dennis.
Sara Sheehan: [00:03:04] That’s fantastic. Our loved ones, all of them, make a huge difference in our lives. And so, Lindsay, let’s talk a little bit about your backstory first.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:03:15] Well, first off, thank you so much for having me. It is such a delight to hang out with you. I just have, I just have so enjoyed our relationship over the last however many years that we’ve been connected. I feel quite honored to be here with you. So thanks, Sara. I really appreciate it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:03:30] Absolutely. It’s my pleasure.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:03:32] I got into this work from a very personal place back in 2018, the summer of 2018. I suffered from total, complete overwhelm and burnout. I was working too much, playing too hard. There was so much going on in my personal life and my professional life, and I found myself at a place of total, utter, complete exhaustion. And I was working for two consulting clients at the time. And I remember very distinctly I went to one of my consulting clients and said, Here’s what’s happening, here’s what’s going on for me. And they said, Sorry to hear that, not my problem, please get back to work, in not so many words. And then I went to my other consulting client and they said, Sorry to hear that. How can I help? What do you need? How can we best support you? Clearly we all want second leader’s response. But in first leader’s defense, they really hadn’t been taught how to navigate these kinds of situations, right? I believe that generation, the generational gap has a huge impact on how we’re dealing with mental health at work. And, you know, in their defense, they just they didn’t learn that in their leadership and management training. However, as humans, especially leaders in our environment right now, we want to be better and we want to come along to this party where we can integrate work in life, where we can meet our team where they’re at and really support them in the best way. And so there is definitely a responsibility and an accountability for all of us leaders to learn that, whether it’s on our own or, you know, coming to my certificate program. But that’s where I really identified that there was this gap. And so now I’m on a mission to close that gap and educate leaders on how to do this work, not only because we know we need to, but also because I think we get to there is so much research and evidence to support the ROI of doing this work. The productivity increases and the collective wellness and health of our organizations, and truly of our community of humanity, when we when we have these skills.
Sara Sheehan: [00:05:40] So it sounds like it was a true personal reckoning for you. Fantastic.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:05:45] Yeah, it absolutely was. I have an IT, finance and project management background. That’s what I did before doing this work and people sort of look at that and think that’s quite the career progression. But if you think about the stress involved in being an accountant and working in technology you know, it’s a natural progression.
Sara Sheehan: [00:06:05] Well, let’s ground this in your skills and expertise, Lindsay. You have a specific certification that absolutely is a door opener in the space in psychological health and safety. Talk a little bit about that for our listeners.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:06:24] Yeah, absolutely happy to. So it’s a 21 hour course. It’s made up of six modules and very intentionally structured. These modules are very intentionally structured. So if we think of the first two modules, they are literally about how to open the door to conversation about workplace, about mental health in the workplace, because often I feel like we want to engage, but we don’t, we literally don’t have the words or the language to know how to engage, what to say, what to ask, and then how to respond. If you say to to someone in your workplace, you know, I see your behavior has changed. Is there something going on? How can I help? Often we think, well, what if they say, Yeah, you know, I haven’t been feeling myself today. Do we know how to respond? So the first two modules are about that, how to respond. There’s a there’s a whole bunch of scripts and actual, you know, questions that you can ask. And so it’s very practical, very tangible, and it really helps to take away some of that awkwardness and help us to feel more comfortable when we find ourselves in those situations, because we absolutely do. And we will continue to find ourselves in situations like that. The middle two modules, modules three and four, are about the navigating the legal, ethical, moral considerations that we need to make as leaders in organizations because we’re not experts in this space and nor do we expect you to be, you know, the same way we would never expect you to be a first responder, trained as a first responder to, you know, put a band aid on your child. The same deal is we would never expect you to be a psychologist or a mental health professional to feel confident that you can support people that you are dealing with, that you are managing, and still get them the help that they need. So we talk about all that critical thinking to be able to wrap the legalities, the ethics, the morals and your own policies and procedures and governance at your organization and how to make the best decisions based on all those factors. So that’s module three and four, and then modules five and six take into consideration you, the human. How to help you show up as your best self and model that behavior out loud for other people so that they feel comfortable and like they have permission to also do that thing and take care of themselves. Because often as leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, we forget that we are people too. And, you know, there’s so many expectations on us as leaders to be there for other people and manage both up and down the corporate ladder, that we forget that we also don’t have these skills and the permission to feel like we can take care of ourselves. So modules five and six are all about that piece and helping you to show up as your best self.
Sara Sheehan: [00:09:10] Fantastic. And so you are seeking clients that are interested as individuals in joining an open cohort as well as organizations that would love to host you in a private cohort with only their employees. Is that correct?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:09:31] That is 100% correct. So we have open cohorts that we run every month. They are like I say, 21 hours of instruction. So we run them twice a week for three weeks in a row, typically on the open cohort, but then on the closed cohort, the private, if you want to throw, you know, all of your leaders into a room and train them all up at the same time, the content is the same, but the theory and application or the application will be super unique and special for your organization. It’s all business case and group work based. And so if you want to do a group closed session, we will just make the business case and the group work really specific and tactical to solving some of the problems within your organization. And with that, that kind of program, we customize the date, the time, the, you know, the length of time that you’re working with us. So we can absolutely customize it to your organization when you do a closed cohort. And the open is, you know, you get some peer support learning as well because you’ve got leaders from multiple organizations in that environment.
Sara Sheehan: [00:10:32] What would the experience for the participant be like? Like, let’s say they start the course, it meets twice a week. Is there homework in between?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:10:46] Sadly, there is homework in between. It is super hands on. So I do not talk at you for 3.5 hours, twice a week for three weeks in a row. There’s theory, obviously. I want to, I want to teach you the theory, but it is business case based. So we set up the business case at the beginning and then throughout the whole thing, we put you into the breakout rooms. It’s a virtual live experience typically. So we put you into the breakout rooms and have you work on a specific question that relates to that business case. So it’s so much application and a little bit of theory because if you can’t, if you don’t get a chance to actually use the tactics and really experience what it looks like, it’s it’s hard to maintain or retain that information. So it is very hands on application. And then for the homework, you know, it’s a couple of hours in total over the whole time. We’re not asking you to spend your whole, you know, every evening working on homework for this course. But it’s taking some of the concepts and applying them in your actual organization. So whether it’s reviewing your own policies and procedures for first person language or taking the psychological health and safety standard here in Canada and seeing where you want to, which areas you want to focus on next within your own organization. It’s super practical and applicable and the homework is to apply some of the stuff within your own organization and then come back and talk to us about your experience.
Sara Sheehan: [00:12:20] Well, it sounds like this is very accessible, if you can complete the course within a three week period.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:12:27] And it qualifies for continuing education credits for so many professional designations. So if you are a SHERM professional, an HR professional, if you are a CPA, an engineer through APEGA, you have to do continuing education credits anyway to maintain your designation. And this program qualifies for those continuing education credits. I’m the only one that has a program like this, as far as I know, in North America. So it’s definitely, you’re going to get really unique training that is going to uplevel you in your own career. And here in Canada, it qualifies for the Canada jobs grant, which means that you can get up to two thirds of it paid for depending on which province you live in. And if there’s something here in Canada, I suspect there’s something at a lot of the State levels as well, as far as training grants out there.
Sara Sheehan: [00:13:19] That is fantastic. And so that means that almost every professional designation out there could qualify for what you’re offering. So this is a super compelling opportunity for a lot of people that need 21 hours of continuing education. You could get it in a three week period and it’s on an extremely compelling topic. One of the things I want to double click on a little bit, Lindsey, is that you actually obtained your own certification in psychological safety and health. Can you talk about that? Because clearly that experience has laid the foundation for what you’re doing today in Paradigm Corporate Wellness.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:14:06] So I am a trained, certified psychological health and safety advisor, and I’m trained through the Canadian Mental Health Association. I mentioned the standard for psychological health and safety, which is a standard, a guideline, a framework that we use here in Canada. And there’s something similar in the US, the ISO 9002, I think it is. So the standard is a framework for organizations to increase psychological safety in their workplace. And so my training is to help organizations implement some of these things. A big part of my training is identification of what we call the 13 psychosocial factors which contribute to workplace mental health. And they are things like workload balance, reward and recognition, leadership expectations, things like this. And there’s 13 of them very specifically. And I’m trained to go into an organization and identify the levers we can pull to make the biggest impact along one of one or more of those psychological factors. Because if we can address and be specific on addressing some of these factors, that’s where we’re going to see the incremental and exponential growth in collective wellness in an organization. And that’s the beauty of what the CMHA has taught me, is to really dial down on what is impacting workplace mental health, what is creating potentially toxic environments, why are people burning out, and have some real tactical strategies for solving some of those issues?
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:42] Fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about the return on investment for a company that decides they are going to put their investment in the right place? What could they get out of it?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:15:59] So there’s a ton of research out there to back up the value of doing workplace mental health programing. One of the recent studies I saw suggested that for every dollar an organization invests in workplace mental health programing, they are going to earn $2.60 back. So 260% is a pretty big deal. I don’t know how many investment programs that you have in organizations, lovely listeners, that get that kind of return. But the beauty of the last 5 or 10 years in this space is we are doing math differently to calculate those kinds of numbers. For sure it’s an expense, but on the back end of that, there is a decrease in your benefit utilization rates because your workforce is healthier. And so they’re not having to use their reactionary benefits so often. There is an increase in presenteeism, which is that idea of people being at their desk in mind, body and spirit and not just body. And so when you are proactive in supporting, creating a supportive environment for your folks, they are more present in the office, less as absenteeism. And when you create this environment where folks feel comfortable to speak up, to dissent, to bring their ideas and innovations and suggestions, I mean, just think that through. If you’ve got more people bringing innovative ideas to your organization that you implement, that logically translates into greater revenue generating opportunities, greater business opportunities and all sorts, you know, problem solving and all sorts of things, if you create that environment where people feel safe to to speak up without retribution. So the math, the science, the evidence, the research studies out there right now, it’s pretty exciting to be in this industry right now, actually, and help to educate people because a lot of times I think it’s just an awareness piece that we don’t know how the research has changed and how the evidence has supported it, especially if you are someone like me five years ago who was the original skeptic and thought that anything to do with mental health was cosmic woo woo.
Sara Sheehan: [00:18:09] Well, I definitely believe the world needs Lindsay. And I believe that what you’re bringing is something that can help every business be more competitive and more productive and truly a better place to work. So I am totally sold on what you’re doing. Can you talk a little bit about what your offerings are like if you were to take a step back from a 10,000 foot level, Paradigm Corporate Wellness does all of these things.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:18:44] So I already mentioned the certificate training program, which is my number one program, especially for leaders and HR professionals. I also have a program called The Language of Mental Health, and that’s my digital subscription. It is intended to help build language comprehension, the literal words that you can use to make connections with each other in your organization. It creates an opportunity for leaders to speak to their team members from a place of common understanding. It gives team members a place to start to open the door to really important conversations and the skills to know how to do that. It’s a subscription on purpose. I don’t believe that mental health is a one and done kind of deal. I think that we need to continue to have these kinds of conversations until it becomes just the way we speak around here. And so my clients will sign up for a year, typically a year, and I’ve got clients going on three years and I only started this three years ago. So they just keep re-upping on their subscription because they get a new topic, a new mental health related topic every month. I give you the presentations, the research, the discussion questions, the speakers notes, all of those things to be able to share this information with your organization and really, really meet you where you’re at.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:20:06] So if you’re thinking as a leader, Heaven help me, I have to come up with all this stuff myself and it’s going to be so time consuming and I’ve already got X number of projects off the side of my desk. That’s not this at all. This is absolutely like your whole tool kit to be able to have these conversations. So that’s the language of mental health. I do masterclasses and virtual webinars for organizations who do, you know, who may may be at the start of their journey to creating mental health programing in their workplace. And so I will do one and done webinars and masterclasses for sure. So if that’s where you’re at, I’m here for that too. I don’t do any one on one coaching. I have strategic partners that I work with that do that kind of work. I really want to make a bigger impact and help organizations make transformational change. But I do do some consulting in the turnover transformation space. So if you are experiencing a lot of turnover in your organization, I can guarantee you it’s coming from a place of psychological safety. And so we’ll do some strategy and consulting and some actual implementation of a plan to solve your turnover program through my turnover transformation.
Sara Sheehan: [00:21:18] That is a fantastic overview. That’s super helpful. If you were to define who your ideal client is, who is that?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:21:28] So definitely leaders who get it, who understand the importance of doing this work, but probably just don’t know how. The ones that feel uncomfortable or awkward about having conversations or going to their colleagues or their team members to say, How are you feeling today? If that feels awkward and uncomfortable, but you want to do it, you’re my person. I definitely want to speak to you about that. If you are someone who even just is at that place where you need a check box in the workplace mental health box, because your shareholders are asking for it, your boss is asking for it, your employees are asking for it, I want to talk to you too. If you know how important this is, but you’re just not sure how, let’s talk about that. Typically, my organizations are medium to large organizations. I do some work with some select nonprofits, so if that’s you, let’s have a discussion about that. But this is not an inexpensive investment because it’s worth it. And if you’re going to get that $2.60 out of it, it’s a million times worth it. But it’s definitely for those medium to larger size organizations because that’s where you’re going to make the biggest impact.
Sara Sheehan: [00:22:46] And touch a whole lot of people. Who is a good referral partner for you? So someone that you can have in your network that you can talk to on a regular interval that might have suggestions and introductions for you to your ideal client.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:23:06] So definitely on the association’s professional certification bodies perspective. So if you are on the board or a decision maker at the accounting association, the engineering association, those kinds of things, and are looking for revenue share partners to offer this as continuing education credits to your members, I definitely want to talk to you. And then consultants that are working in organization on any sort of transformation. So if you are building your business to sell and you’re trying to create extra value to make your company more valuable at sale time, absolutely I want to talk to you. Because if you’ve got happy employees that you’re selling to the new owner, the value is going to go up in your organization. So definitely, if you’re an exit planner, if you are a OCM consultant, if you are a merger and acquisition consultant, I absolutely want to have a conversation with you as well.
Sara Sheehan: [00:24:02] Fantastic. Those are some great characteristics that we can think about, people that we know that might be helpful to you to get to your best client. I love the example that you shared about companies that are planning a sale. If they invest in their people, it’s only going to make the acquiring company have a better value. I love that. That is a wonderful thing for us to think about. What is your definition of success, Lindsay?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:24:42] Such an excellent question. Personally, my definition of success is if I can leave an organization healthier than it was when I came in the door, that is ideal. And it, I just get, if I can just touch 1 or 2 people, if I hear feedback that says, you know, I felt comfortable to support my team member because they felt comfortable to come and talk to me, win! Like I’m in for that, I really want to have a positive impact on the most people possible. And if I can feel like collective wellness is happening and progressing in that direction, that’s hugely successful for me.
Sara Sheehan: [00:25:27] And so, Lindsay, when I was listening to you talk about Paradigm Corporate Wellness offerings, I didn’t hear you mention one of your newest offerings. And I want to make sure that we cover it today because I think this is super compelling. Can you talk with us about what’s coming?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:25:52] Yeah, absolutely. I’m super excited about it. And it’s related to that language of mental health digital subscription that I talked about. It’s a franchise opportunity. So if you are someone who’s working in corporate and you are tired of working for somebody else, but the idea of entrepreneurship and content creation and creating a business scares the bejesus out of you, then this is an opportunity for you. So I am creating a franchisee or yeah, a franchise opportunity where I will give you business in a box. All of the sales training, all of the sales coaching support, all of the tech support, all of the content, all of the sales, all of the marketing. And you go out and find your clients and deliver to them this language of mental health subscription and it’ll be, it’s just going to be glorious. I just, I’m so excited for it and I can’t even wait for it. And I think it’s going to be super, super great.
Sara Sheehan: [00:26:50] Well, I think what is so interesting to me about it is that there are so many people out there that would love to own their own business, but they don’t know where to start and they really need someone that is essentially creating a ‘done for you’ opportunity. So let’s talk about who an ideal franchisee would be.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:27:11] Yeah, I really think it is somebody, so maybe it’s an HR professional who has a real passion for workplace mental health and wants to impact more than just the organization that they currently work for, that they want to be an entrepreneur, but the idea of owning a business is terrifying. This is really an accelerator for those fine folks who have a passion, have some skill in facilitation, have a big network that they want to be able to support and provide services for, but don’t want to do any of the business building work. I will absolutely just give you that business in a box. It’s also good for psychologists or mental health professionals that don’t want to work in a one on one counseling therapist type environment anymore, because I know a lot of health care professionals that are super burnt out and looking to get kind of away from that frontline work and support more people in a smaller amount of time, you know, greater value, smaller amount of time. So if you are a mental health professional that’s looking for a change, you are an ideal customer. Also, if you’re a sales professional who just believes in heart centered work, you don’t have to be a facilitator of this, of this product. We have facilitators that you can contract out. But if you’re just really great at connecting and building business from a heart centered point of view, I want to talk to you too.
Sara Sheehan: [00:28:39] That’s amazing. And so when do you think you’ll be ready to sign up franchisees. Are you ready now?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:28:48] I am pre-selling now with the expectation of launch January 2024 and we are recording this in April of 2023, so I expect pre-sales to happen in the Fall of 2023. And if you are kind of a founding, a founding advisor, a founding franchisee, the franchise fee will be lower for you in exchange for your thoughts and opinions. And really to help me form what this package, what this opportunity looks like for future advisors.
Sara Sheehan: [00:29:23] And so those initial advisors can provide you feedback. They may be able to give you a testimonial about the experience of using your materials with clients, and they may be able to speak to the return on investment for their clients and their business.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:29:43] 100%. You got it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:29:44] Fantastic. Well, this is a super exciting opportunity and I love the timing of when our discussion is today because you are right at the point of generating interest. And so we want our listeners that might have an interest in this program or any of your others to reach out to you for a discovery session. So make sure that I have your meeting link that I can include in show notes.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:30:19] Amazing. I will for sure. Thank you so much for that opportunity.
Sara Sheehan: [00:30:22] Absolutely. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners?
Lindsay Recknell: [00:30:28] I think just that if you are curious at all, if you are interested to know how you can make a personal impact or how you can influence the decision makers at your organization to do this kind of work, let’s have a conversation about that. I will absolutely meet you wherever you’re at, wherever that is. And if your organization isn’t quite ready for an investment in that space, let’s talk about the ways that you can get ready, the things you can do now to build some grassroots momentum, to find some influencers up and down the chain and the kind of impact that you can make on an individual level as well, to start supporting the wellness in your organization if you’re not quite ready to bring in a consultant or a strategist to do this kind of work.
Sara Sheehan: [00:31:18] Fantastic. And so, Lindsay, please share with us how listeners can find you or reach out to you, and we’ll make sure to include that in the show notes clearly as well.
Lindsay Recknell: [00:31:30] I hang out a lot on LinkedIn and I’m only one of two Lindsay Recknells and the only Canadian, so I’m easy to find. Definitely that’s the best place. And then my website is ParadigmCW.com and you can see all my programs and get a hold of me quite easily there too.
Sara Sheehan: [00:31:47] Fantastic. Well, Lindsay, I can’t thank you enough for being here. I want my listeners to know that I have the highest recommendation for Lindsay. She’s a true professional and she is someone that will add great value to you and your business. And for all of those professionals out there that need continuing education hours, please consider Lindsay’s course. It will be deep in knowledge, you’ll be able to apply it the next day and you’ll be able to finish it in three weeks. That sounds pretty remarkable to me. Excellent. With that, I appreciate your time today and I wish you well.
