In this episode, Chip discusses with Patrick Rogan of IgnitionHR the challenges small agency owners face in supporting stressed employees.

They delve into the impact of both work-related and external stressors on employee performance, noting the increased stress during and after COVID-19. Patrick shares strategies for addressing these issues, such as maintaining open communication, offering flexibility, and utilizing employee assistance programs.

They also discuss the balance between being supportive and maintaining business operations, emphasizing the importance of creative solutions and understanding regulatory requirements.

Patrick Rogan, SHRM-CP is the Founder and Managing Director of IgnitionHR. He has been helping senior executives in both large and small organizations meet their strategic talent needs for the past 25+ years. He specializes in developing programs that help his clients attract, align, manage, and retain top talent.

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host, Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance, and I am delighted to have with me one of my most frequent guests. Patrick Rogan of IgnitionHR. Welcome to the show, Patrick.

Patrick Rogan: Hey Chip, happy to be here.

Chip Griffin: I am happy you are here because, because I wanted to talk to you about getting help.

So I, I turned to someone who can give that kind of help about how to get help. And let’s see how circular we can make that. But, before we jump into that topic, if someone has, for whatever reason, never heard you on one of my shows, or doesn’t know you otherwise, who are you and why are you here?

Patrick Rogan: Sure.

My firm is IgnitionHR. I help organizations with their people challenges, which is part of what we’re going to be talking about today. My focus is in the human resources area. I do, fractional HR leadership roles. I do spot solutions for individual problems. I do a lot of work in a policy area, all that.

Chip Griffin: And, and you work with a lot of, of agency owners, including some of my SAGA clients, which I really appreciate because you are, you’re able to help navigate all the challenging situations that, that we all inevitably come up with as, as small business employers. And, and today we’re going to talk about, I think one of the toughest things, which is how do you help employees when they need help, when they’re feeling stressed? I’m not talking about work performance so much. Work performance may be a symptom or a result of what we’re talking about here, but I’m talking about the stresses that come to employees. And some of that may be work stress, but I really particularly want to focus on stress outside the office that perhaps is, is bleeding over either into their actual performance or just their demeanor and I mean, sometimes you just know something’s wrong and you can’t put your finger right on it.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, this is, this is the number one hot topic that I’ve been getting from my clients. It, certainly took, an uptick five years ago with COVID. And it is diminished some, but not as much as I would have anticipated. So, you know, I see it in just unusual things in the workplace that I used to not see before.

 There are anxiety related things that you’ll see manifested in the workplace, some of which are maybe the result of the workplace. More often than not, they originate outside of the workplace and there’s a lot of confusion with business leaders and agency owners in particular about what do I do about this?

And the first question I typically get is, is it just me? And the answer to that is no, it’s not just you. You know, I was looking at some, some recent data, a couple of SHRM survey, the Society of Human Resource Management, surveys out there, you know, 44 percent of US employees right now feel burned out at work.

You know, 45 percent feel emotionally drained and 51 percent at the end of the day are just like out of gas. Totally. And 84 percent of workers, by the way, believed, poorly trained managers are a factor in their work and stress. So that’s just something to keep in the back of our mind. But yeah, it’s, it’s big, it’s a, it’s a big honking challenge right now.

Chip Griffin: Well, it’s, it’s tough too because, you know, agency world is, is known as a stressful environment, right? Right. Yeah, it is. It, in large part, and we’ve, I’ve certainly talked about this on all of my shows a lot and in articles. Part of the problem is that a lot of agency owners don’t manage their businesses effectively.

They don’t price effectively. And so that means we ask our teams, including ourselves, to do a lot more in a lot less time. And so that, that just, you’re starting with a stressful environment. So if you have other factors that are contributing to that, some of which may be work related, it could be, you know, a particularly difficult client that’s not being managed well or something like that.

But a lot of it is the external things, that you allude to, and, you know, right now we’ve got, a situation where there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world, domestically, internationally, economically, and these are, are causing issues for the team members of a lot of small agencies. Whether it’s because, you know, your spouse works for an organization affected by some of the, the budget cuts that’s taking effect. Whether you know, some of the societal issues are, are concerning you. Whether you just are, you know, kind of stressed out because you see all the headlines and you don’t know what to make of it all.

There’s a lot going on that, that can be difficult. And so as a, as a small employer, it’s tough. And I, and I’ve been in this situation a lot of times over the years where I’ve had an employee with external stress and I’m not quite sure what to do with it. In part, because sometimes you’re not quite sure what that stress is.

And I’ve always wanted to be careful about prying too much into the personal lives of employees. For are all sorts of reasons that I’m sure you can elaborate on. So, so when you, when you look at the situation and you figure that as far as you can tell, it’s not work stress, it’s likely to be some kind of stress outside the office.

How do you, where do you begin?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah. So. I think it’s important to make sure you’re keeping the lines of communications open. So hopefully you’re running your agency in a way where stressful situations that are contributed from either you or how your organization is set up or how you manage your employees or not is not contributing to stress.

Hopefully it’s relieving stress and that’s, you know, the things are generally moving in the right direction. What I’m seeing a lot of now is either behaviors or changes in output or indicators that are really unusual for someone who normally is either going at a steady pace or even at a very, very, you know, aggressive pace in terms of getting things done.

All of a sudden, things change. And it’s important, I think, you know, to address that as early as possible is when you’re noticing it’s happening because particularly if it originates from outside of the organization. And there are so many, you mentioned a few, but there’s so many other reasons for stress outside of the organization, whether it’s in the family or political disruption related or, you know, environmental, whatever, you know, there’s a gazillion of them out there.

I think the earlier you can address it, the better it is, because you can at least be aware of what it is that’s causing the problem. So, for instance, I was working with an agency recently, and we had one of their high producing employees all of a sudden who was missing time from work. His productivity was down, and they, you know, quickly got on top of it and said, Hey, you know, we noticed things are a little bit different.

What’s, what’s going on? You know, or turns out one of his parents was ill, and they were like, well, you know, do you need to take some time off to deal with this? And he was like, you know, I didn’t know that was an option. They’re like, of course that’s an option. You know, it’s, you know, and they were very

upfront, they were, you know, they didn’t let it linger on. He did take some time off. He was compensated for a good chunk of that. He was able to resolve the problem. And you know, a month and a half later, when he came back, he was like 100 percent productive. I mean, it was just like a textbook example of how to deal with an outside stressor that’s respectful.

And what I like best about it is he was he didn’t need to share this with them. He did. He also shared it with others that he worked with as well as what the leadership team did to support him. So you took a, you know, a very negative situation, you know, a problem. But yet at the end of the day, he was able to take care of the problem.

He came back working gangbusters and the entire organization, it wasn’t a huge agency, everyone saw what happened. They were like, wow, this is really cool. This is why, this is why I work here. So I do think you can, you can, you can flip it around, but I think it’s important, particularly when things just don’t seem right, have a conversation. And along the lines of, Hey, listen, I noticed things aren’t like they normally are.

I noticed we missed a deadline. That’s very unusual for you. Ask a very open ended question. What’s going on? You know, and, and just see what they say. They don’t have to tell you specifically what it is, if it’s outside of work related, but asking the question and opening the door for that conversation is totally good, and the best way to do it is with an open ended question, just like that, is typically how I would approach it.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think honestly one of the challenges that a lot of small agency owners have is that they don’t encounter these circumstances all that often, maybe, maybe for many of them, it may be the first time that they’re encountering some, particularly when you get into the specifics of what the issue might be.

And as a small agency owner, you don’t really feel you have someone you can, you feel like you’re on an island. And, and who do you talk to about this? You don’t have a senior leadership team you can sit down and bat things around with often. You know, I, you and I worked together in a larger agency and mm-hmm

You know, if and when, and, and I did have issues with, with my team members having things going on outside the office on a number of occasions. And, and I would just walk next door to your office and say, Hey Patrick, let’s talk this one through. And, and so I think that’s part of the challenge that owners have.

So. You know, what advice do you have to them other than obviously hire someone like you or me who can say that, hey, this is how we’ve done it, right? You know, how do you go about even figuring out how to navigate these things?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, I think that the first thing to do is to do the best you can to kind of lower the pressure.

So if you happen to be working at the same facility, I’m, I’m a big fan of going out for a cup of coffee or, you know, or, you know, lunch or, or whatever, like, like something outside of the building can be very kind of relaxing and disarming. I think, you know, scheduling some time at a good part of the day when the employee is most productive and like, maybe for some people, it’s like first thing in the morning, let’s have a chat and talk about this.

Being sure that you uncouple the organization from the, whatever the problem might be. So, like, if you’re, if the, if you’re noticing things in the workplace, like, maybe it’s production or missing deadlines or, you know, all those kind of things. Don’t focus on the missing deadlines, focus on what’s causing the missing deadline.

So what’s, what’s going on here? And then don’t talk about the deadlines anymore. Focus on well, how can, how can I support you with this? You know, in the example I gave earlier, giving some time away from work to help the employee deal with that was the perfect solution. It may not be that, you know, there are a million different ways to help.

Sometimes just having someone they can talk to, is very helpful as well, too. But I think that’s kind of like the, The, the best model that I’ve seen is find a space of time that has the least amount of stress naturally in it. Like, so you wouldn’t want to have this conversation, you know, during a, you know, performance review discussion.

Right? Right. That’s, that’s emotional enough already.

It’s a very bad time.

Let’s not throw this on top of it. So, kind of, kind of make it as neutral as possible would be my recommendation.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, you know, if you know that they’re crashing on a deadline for a client, you know, maybe then is not the time to add that extra stress.

So, hey, let’s go take an unex, you know, an unexpected half hour out to go have a cup of coffee, which in your mind is, hey, that’s a nice thing. In their mind, they’re like, how am I going to get this done? Yeah. Right. So, you need to have that situational awareness. But I, you know, I, I particularly like the fact that you suggest open ended questions here because I think, you know, one of the challenges that, that owners also have is they sit there and they see an employee who is, is suddenly not performing the way that they used to it.

And too often I think they jump to the conclusion that it’s because they’re just getting sloppy, they don’t care, that it’s, you know, and the reality is, at least in my experience, more often than not, it’s because there is some kind of stressor, whether it’s work or non work, that is impacting them. And so asking those open ended questions and not assuming that they’re simply being derelict in their duty.

Is a helpful starting point because you can then start to understand what the root cause of it is. And then frankly start by acting human. Just, just have a human reaction to whatever they tell you as opposed to the, the natural instinct, which is, well, what does this mean for me and my business? Mm hmm.

Because that’s, that’s not how you resolve a situation.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah. I’ve seen more than one such more than one occasion where, you know, there’s a stressful situation, an employee’s dealing with something. The business leader knows they’re dealing with something and they call at a very, very, very stressful point in time that they know is going on.

Someone’s passed away or something. Hey, I just have a quick question. Can you help me with this? No, they can’t. They’re dealing with something really stressful. So that’s, that’s an example. You don’t make a bad situation worse, right? You know, and obviously, If you have good processes and good policies, you’re, they’re, they’re a lot less likely to happen, but the things that you have no control over that are happening, what are things you can do to be supportive and for heaven’s sakes, please don’t make it worse.

Chip Griffin: Well, and I think, you know, a part of it is, is you all, you need to sort of adapt to the individual circumstances, right? You mentioned someone close to the employee passing away, for example. So that there, there’s a difference between things that are, are likely to be long lasting impacts versus things that are more likely to be shorter term impacts.

It’s not to say that someone passing away doesn’t have long term impacts, it absolutely does, but it tends to be more acute in the moment. As opposed to someone has got a very difficult illness that they or a family member are dealing with. Those are more likely to be long lasting. So, so is there a way you would approach them differently based on that nature of it, whether it is more short term and acute versus long term chronic Issues that need to be addressed.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, so with the, the, I’m seeing more of the long term chronic things in the last couple of years than I, than I have in the past. So they could be emotional related. They could be, you know, someone, a personal illness, you know, that is going to have a long recovery period. It could be you know, a family member who has an illness that’s going to have a long recovery period.

I think that being open to flexibility as much as you can, can go a long, long way. So look, you know, let’s say you have a strong performer on your team and you know something’s going on. And they’re typically, you know, kicking out 50, 60 hours worth of productive work every week. But you know that for them to be able to deal with whatever this other problem is, that’s not going to be sustainable.

Like maybe they’re going to be for a period of three or four or five months, maybe you need to change that expectation. You know, I, I’ve seen, employees ask to go, Hey, can you just put me on like part time 30 hours a week and let me deal with this? And for a high performing employee. You know, most agency owners will bend over backwards to find a way.

The last thing you want to do is have to replace this person, right? So if you, if you get two thirds of them, you know, for three months versus the whole person for that three months, you know, most are going to say, heck, yeah, I would do that. But yet in this situation, lots of times what I hear is now I really need this work done now. You know, this is a critical client. This is a critical need that we have. And this is where I need that person’s focus. And I find that to be a little bit tone deaf. Because if that really is a top performing employee for heaven’s sakes, why in the world are you risking losing them because you have a client need that you’re going to value higher than their need?

I mean, all needs have to be met. But I think sometimes a little bit more flexibility and at least sensitivity to the situation is, is probably the most important thing. You know, well, let’s talk about we have a client that’s really important. Let’s think of another way, you know, we have someone who works on your team, maybe they could have a little bit, you know, kind of just be open to different creative solutions to get things done in a way that meets the needs of the employee at the same time.

Does that make sense?

Chip Griffin: It does. And I think you’re touching on, on really the, the crux of the problem in many cases, once you get past the initial communication aspects of it and things like that is, you know, how do you strike that balance? Because as a small business, you, you and as a human, you want to be flexible, but as a small business, you also don’t have the same level of resourcing that you might in a larger organization to absorb someone who is not able to perform at their fullest.

And so trying to figure out how you, how you can balance it out, I think that’s, that’s really one of the trickiest things to do. How far do you bend? And in some ways, the new work environment has taken away some of the best tools that I had in the past. When I encountered these situations because I would, I would immediately sort of on my checklist start offering remote work, flexible hours, things like that.

Everybody’s got that already. Yes. So, it’s no longer really a meaningful gesture to, to say that. And so, because I found that I was often able to offer that as a good way to sort of just at least start down the path of being human and helpful, and then we can figure out where to go from there.

But now, everybody’s already there, so you don’t have as many of those easier tools that you can deploy. So how do you make that judgment where you’ve bent as far as you can, because you still do have a business to run? And I do agree that too many are short sighted about the cost of replacing an employee, both in actual cost as well as the impact to the business.

But at some point you can only be, you know, so forgiving and so flexible until you get to a point where it’s just not tenable anymore. How do you figure out when that is?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, it’s different for, for every agency, you know, and, and where that point is. Sometimes it’s, well, you know, in the example I gave before, they had the, they had the employee off work for a long period of time.

And they were able to find a solution to, to totally backfill them. In some cases I see, you know, take advantage of a freelancer to help. In other cases it’s, you know, have someone who’s a level or two below kind of put them in a stretch role and see what they can do. Sometimes it’s the agency owner themselves that steps in and fills the gap.

So I think the, the trick is to be creative with that, but make sure you’re aware of all of the, the tricks you have in your bag to solve that problem. Sometimes there’s a, there’s a solution out there. Maybe that you hadn’t considered. And some may be cost ineffective for a period of time. If you can live with that, I would suggest you consider it.

If you can’t live with that, then you have to figure out, you know, what’s the, what’s the best solution for you. But, in general, you know, I encourage to be as flexible as you can, particularly when you know it’s going to be temporary in nature.

Chip Griffin: Right. And I, I think that’s, that’s part of the, the calculus here, right?

I mean, the longer it’s likely to last, the harder it is to maintain a level of flexibility. And so the more you may need to, to figure out how to either have a permanent fix or, you know, go separate ways if that’s necessary. I think it’s also, this is also a good point to, to pause and say make sure that you are considering any legal or regulatory requirements that, that may be in effect for whatever circumstance presents itself. Because there are, there are things that you need to be thinking about here, you know, if you, if you allow employees to take leave, typically you have to allow them to, to come back to their role, depending on the exact nature of their leave and all of that kind of thing, but there are a lot of those things that you want to be consulting with someone like you, Patrick, or an employment attorney, or something to make sure that you’re not tripping up. And every state is different on these things, too. So, you just want to make sure that you’re not getting yourself into trouble, and honestly, it is one of the challenges when you ask those open end questions.

Sometimes you get, you do get information that now puts you in a box. Right. Because, because now it’s, it’s tripped a regulatory tripwire, if you will. So I still encourage those open ended questions, but be aware that, that you may now gain knowledge that, that means that you need to treat the situation differently from a legal perspective.

Patrick Rogan: Yes. And, you know, keep in mind that there are federal regulations and there are state regulations and sometimes there are even local county regulations that, based upon a whole number of factors, including the number of employees you have, which, you know, could be, 15 could be 20 could be 50 or could be 1, depending upon how the regulations are done.

So, yeah, I would say when you’re at the point where you think, parting ways might be the best option, make sure you have your bases covered from a, from a legal perspective.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, it’s a lot safer and, and I would generally encourage you to start asking questions of your professionals before you get to the point that you think you might have to pull the trigger because, you know, there are certain steps along the way that can make it easier if that’s where you have to go with it. And/or you can at least plan for it if you know, Hey, I can’t do this. I need to offer them their role back or I need to do this, that, or the other thing. The sooner you know that, the easier it is to plan. You don’t want to be shocked when you get to the point where you’re like, Oh, I can’t eliminate their position because of X, Y, or Z.

That becomes even more difficult to handle.

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, I hate, I hate when I get the call. Hey, I, separated this employee and I need some advice, versus I’m thinking about maybe separating with an employee and I need some advice. Like the latter is so much easier because you know, the options kind of are done once you call me after it’s done, you know, I have to unmess it up. That’s a lot harder than helping you do it the right way from the beginning.

Chip Griffin: So, you know, one of the things that in larger agencies you tend to have is an HR team that you can, you know, bring in to help and you can perhaps refer the employee to them.

Many larger businesses have employee assistance programs and things like that that can be helpful. As a small business, you’re unlikely or less likely at least to have those resources. Are there resources that, that smaller businesses can offer to employees to be helpful in these situations beyond, like, particularly if you think you’re in over your head as far as actually advising the employee beyond just working through the, the work parameters?

Patrick Rogan: Sure. There, there are definitely resources. There are organizations like mine, you know, where there are HR consultants who are available, who do a lot of work in this area and can help you navigate both the legal ramifications, as well as the organizational and motivational pieces that go along with this. Sometimes the best solution is an employment attorney, depending on how far you are along the process.

If you, if you’ve already done something and you want to make it better, you probably need to go to an attorney. If you’re thinking about doing something, go to a consultant like me, there are a billion people who do – not a billion – millions of people who do what I do. And,

Chip Griffin: I guess I was thinking more about who can help the employee.

Are there, are there, are there resources that you would give to the employee for people to talk to or should you just leave that well enough alone?

Patrick Rogan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So one of the things you can do is you can, it depends upon how frequently you’re going to have this problem. So I have some clients who will just put in an employee assistance program, which can be, you know, typically cost next to nothing.

Usually one of your insurance providers will throw it in for free. So if you don’t have an employee assistance program, I would recommend everyone get one. Because even if you never use it, the one time you need it, if it’s there, it’s a resource. They’re open 24 hours a day. The employees can call on, they can get support.

I found them to be really, really helpful. And I’ve gotten really good feedback from employees in terms of having employee assistance program. For agencies where you’re seeing a little more, you might want to go one step beyond that. So there are also, counseling services that you can pay for.

They’re not horribly expensive. It’s all subscription based, where you have more frequent use if you need it. So those are options that you have. And then there are things, you know, you can offer, you can throw in, like, get a Calm subscription for all your employees or one of the other tools out there.

So people, if they want to work on meditation or, you know, those kinds of things, they can come in really happy too. So there’s, there are a lot of things you can do, but I think having an employee assistance tool is really good because it’s always there. If you need it. In my experiences, you know, all levels of the organization I’ve seen take advantage of that tool from an entry level employee to the most senior agency owner. All have needs from time to time and my experience is most of them provide really really good service. So those are some ideas I have there.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think the bottom line is that you’re not, you’re not sitting on an island alone.

There are a lot of resources for you. There are resources for your team. I guess I would, I would wrap up with, with this question. When you’re, when you’ve got an employee who’s kind of working through things, maybe there, it hasn’t risen to the level that they need to take time off, that, you know, that it’s not necessarily beneficial.

How much, how much rope, do you give them on the performance side of things? You know? So maybe it’s just that they’re, they’re just not performing at the same level. The quality of the work isn’t quite as good. It’s not, it’s not bad enough to let them go necessarily. It’s not an obvious dismissal. But it’s, it’s not where you would like to see it, you know, how long do you kind of let that fester, if you will, in, in the goal of being flexible to the individual before it becomes just problematic for your organization?

I think this is, I’ve talked with a lot of agency owners over the last couple of years about this, where they’ve, they’ve taken the approaches we’ve recommended so far, which is, you know, be human, be flexible. Be understanding. But where do you draw the line? Is there, is there, is it just totally situational or is there some guidance you could give as to how to think about that?

Patrick Rogan: So I think it is situational, right? The answer is, as always, it depends, right? Yeah, so this depends. I do think it’s important that agency owners are very careful that they’re weighing all the pieces, right? So, it is a business, right? You know, we can’t, we don’t operate at a loss. We, we have to generate revenue to pay our expenses and, you know, salaries and, and all that kind of thing.

We do have key clients that we have to keep. I think the, the trick is in the communication with the employee. So if, if you are giving some leverage, if you’re giving some space to the employee, and let’s say, let’s cut back your time a little bit. So you can deal with this situation. Well, I think it’s important to say.

All right. So I’m giving you some flexibility. Recognize that you’re doing that. Make sure they’re aware that you’re giving them that. And what I expect from you is for the time that you are working, I want you spot on, right? I need you to be, you know, everything needs to be perfect, just like it normally is that you deliver.

And if, if it isn’t perfect, then maybe we need to adjust that. Maybe, maybe that’s not a little bit too much time. We need to cut, you know, figure out what, what the route, what level is of their work that gets optimal performance. And that at least puts you in a situation where you don’t have to correct things.

You get good things, but maybe just not at the right output. That’s one. But the other thing is the economics or the economics. It’s still it still has to work. We have to take care of our clients needs. And maybe maybe you need another creative approach, you know, to solve that problem. Or maybe this just isn’t going to work out.

Just depends upon the situation. But I think keeping that communication open and recognize, make sure the employee, like when you give something, make sure the employee understands what you gave them, because that’s important, right? Sometimes it’s sort of gloss over. It was like, well, I’m doing the best I can.

Yeah, but you know, we’ve cut you down to, you know 70%. So, we’re covering the rest of that for you. Let’s make sure we’re aware of that. Does that make sense?

Chip Griffin: It does. And I think, you know, I, I think you have, you know, really underscored the fact that, that yes, you’re human, but it is also a business.

You do need to achieve results. And to me, I think one of the, one of the places where you really draw the line is on, you know, is it impacting the actual outcomes for clients or the outcome of your agency with that client? In other words, if it starts to threaten the relationship or it starts to threaten what you promised to do for that client, that’s a bigger deal than if it’s just not at the quality that someone used to do.

Or, you know, maybe they cut it a little bit closer on deadlines versus missing deadlines. I think the magnitude of the impact needs to be an important consideration here because I, I don’t think there’s any sense in getting worked up if the work is good enough still. It’s really a question of, do you need to make a fundamental change because it’s impacting the outcomes of the business?

Yep, I totally agree.

So with that, if someone would like to reach out to you for more advice on this, or maybe a particular challenge they have, or just learn more about the resources that you put out, where should they go?

Patrick Rogan: Well, it’s real easy. I’m at ignitionhr.com. You can click a button and schedule an appointment with me right on the front page.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. Well, I can, I can vouch for your Your wise counsel and ability to navigate lots of really tricky situations. You and I have dealt with some really fun ones over the years, both in our work together as well as for clients. So, with that, we will wrap up this episode. I thank everybody for listening and Patrick, I thank you for joining me yet again.

Again, my guest has been Patrick Rogan of Ignition HR.

Patrick Rogan: Thanks Chip.