“Not acknowledging that millions are dealing with mental health conditions is costing an enormous amount both in terms of dollars and cents and, more importantly, people's lives."
Arianna Huffington
Mental Health at Work Mini-Conference, May 2018
"I personally would like to thank Mind Share Partners for all of your support of this ERG and community from the very beginning when we were unsure, driven, and quite a bit scared on launching something that would make us so vulnerable. You provided resources and insight that gave us direction, hope, and reminded us that what we were creating would matter to our peers. To which, you were right. I'm thankful for Mind Share Partners, what you stand for and all that you're creating in this new area of diversity, inclusion, and belonging."
"After the Mind Share Partners conference, we created our own Mental Health Fund, since our health insurance excludes it, and talked about it so our team knew we had their back and they'd be covered for emergency care for suicidal thoughts, etc.
It's a start. Stigma runs deep. It's good that [Mind Share Partners] is helping workplaces talk about it!"
Just launched! Join our Mind Share Partners Institute certificate program.
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Case Study
Oportun
Industry: Financial Services, Technology
Size: 3,200 employees
Location: San Carlos, CA
Time frame: August 2020 - September 2020
Offerings:
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Executive Team session
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Extended Leadership Team session
Result highlights: Among senior leaders at Oportun...
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91% had a better understanding of their role as a leader in supporting workplace mental health.
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91% felt more comfortable talking about mental health at work.
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91% felt better-equipped to support a colleague with their mental health.
About Oportun
Oportun is a mission-driven Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides inclusive, affordable financial services powered by a deep, data-driven understanding of its customers and advanced proprietary technology.
By lending money to hardworking, low-to-moderate-income individuals, Oportun helps them move forward in their lives, demonstrate their creditworthiness, and establish the credit history they need to access new opportunities.
The Context
Amidst the events of 2020, Oportun focused their efforts around supporting employees through the pandemic on a few key topics:
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The New World of Remote Working
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Efficient Resilience at Work
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Building a Diverse Leadership Bench
As a part of this ongoing effort, Oportun had established EAP access for all employees and organized a variety of mental health-related events to support its employees, including sessions on stress management, meditation, and a group discussion with a counselor.
In addition to these resources, Oportun wanted to ensure that their leaders were fully equipped to acknowledge and work through their own mental health challenges, and in doing so, set the tone on how mental health is acknowledged and supported throughout the whole organization.
Having sparked productive conversations around mental health in past training with Mind Share Partners, Oportun reached out to us again to help them facilitate this conversation among their leadership.
“We must ask critical questions of those in managerial and leadership roles about their responsibility in supporting mental health and how they can contribute to creating a healthy, happy, and more productive culture where employees feel comfortable to ask for support.”
- Christine Martin, VP of Total Rewards & Human Resources, Oportun
The Solution
Mind Share Partners held two, 90-minute leadership sessions—one with Oportun’s executive team and another with SVPs and VPs—to discuss the importance of mental health for a productive, engaged workforce at Oportun and practical tools specifically for these leaders.
Key topics included:
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What a mentally healthy culture looks like at Oportun.
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How supporting mental health fits into Oportun’s mission and goals.
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Key leadership skills for supporting workplace mental health.
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Culture change framework, action planning and leadership commitments.
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The Impact
Following the SVP/VP session, senior leaders surveyed...
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had a better understanding of their role as a leader in supporting workplace mental health (91%)
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felt more comfortable talking about mental health at work (91%)
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felt better-equipped to support a colleague with their mental health (91%)
“I appreciated the helpful suggestions on how to start these conversations with my team or other employees, as well as the suggestions on ways to be supportive and encouraging about these conversations at work.”
- Oportun Vice President
As a result of the leadership sessions, Christine Martin, VP of Total Rewards & Human Resources Information System, reported: “We have seen leaders request additional mental health sessions and make them available to the teams… [and] the leaders are considering building in additional mental health training into the budget… so that they continue to remain equipped to support our employees.”
“Working with Mind Share has been wonderful. The planning was well organized, and the sessions came together perfectly. They coached our leaders on how to share their personal stories to help normalize mental health in the company. No surprises, the planning was so organized we knew the sessions would go off flawlessly.”
- Christine Martin, VP of Total Rewards & Human Resources, Oportun