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Welcome to Voices in Local Government, an ICMA podcast. We're your hosts, Joe

Supervielle. And I'm Angelica Wedell. We're bringing you real world discussions on

today's top local government topics. So today's episode is on mental health and its

impact in the workplace and employee retention in local government. So we brought a

very special guest, Adrienne Wise. Adrienne is a trauma -informed care consultant.

She's a coach. She's an emotional wellness and behavioral expert. She's also a global

public speaker, which is great. And the CEO of Wise Choice Counseling and Consulting

Services. So you will learn more about Adrienne and her background and her area of

expertise. But on the Heels of Mental Health Awareness Month. We really wanted to

dive into this topic and bring it to local government leaders so you can make the

best impact for your employees. - That's right, Angelica. It was a great interview.

Adrienne was so good, but I also just wanted to start off by saying what this

episode is not as well. This is not about entitled younger workers expecting to be

coddled or we won't even get into those generational types, but it's not about, "Oh,

I need a mental health day. I can't work. I don't want to work." This is, as you

said, this is how leaders in local government can set up a good environment for

their employees to do their best work and get the best outcome for the organization

and for the residents. It is about setting up your teams and individuals for

success, how to help each other, and also how everyone can take their own personal

responsibility. It's not just about what the leaders can do only. It's about what

you can do for yourself, what you can do for your peers, diagonal, up, down,

whatever in the organization. Again, just about doing the best work possible. So

we're not going to step on too much of the interview, but Angelica, can you give

the listeners one highlight to look forward to? Absolutely. So as you said,

Joe, it's not just the fluffy stuff of when people think of mental wellness, well

-being and all of those types of things. But we really went into being practical,

something that leaders can latch onto to really help them with some true challenges

that local governments have. So one of the things that I loved that we discussed

that Adrienne really brought up was about the impact in the workplace culture and

some real solid ways that mental health plays a major role in retention,

employee engagement, and those types of things. And she even talks about the why

behind the actions. Why do these things matter? Why is it going to help your

organization improve? And really, if we're going to be effective,

if we're going to be the kind of workplace where people want to come to work,

where people want to stay and we're holding onto our best talent. These are some

things that are just in general whether you're an HR director or if you're a city

manager or if you're an individual even. These are things that are going to help in

the day -to -day workplace, the day -to -day work life. So Joe, what about you?

What were some things that really stood out to you that you appreciated from this?

My favorite part was the conversation about peer support. I'm not the executive of

anything. I'm not necessarily the quote -unquote leader, just how I can do a better

job helping my co -workers, again, do their best work,

but also the mental health aspect. Joko, we had a moment. Actually, we were

recording the intro after the interview, and immediately after the interview, we're

talking about published dates and what we're going to do to turn this thing around.

And I saw you're doing the math on the calendar and trying to figure out if you

could get those edits done over the weekend. And it's not that I called you out on

it, but I brought it up 'cause I've had that exact same type of moment. And it's

your choice, you know, if you have time to do it and you wanna do it, great. If

not, that's okay too. The deadlines are what we set. There's time later. And that's

one aspect. I hadn't really thought of it this way, but

When people talk about burnout or overworking, that's a big thing in local

government, especially if you're in the city county manager chair. It's a tough job.

It's 24 /7. But that other cliche of boundaries, you still set your own boundaries

and you still make your choices. So whether you're that CEO role or just somewhere

in the middle of an organization, I guess I would challenge the listeners out there

to make those choices because doing that extra mile, whether it's at the end end of

a long day or over the weekend. If you get something done and it comes out well

and the output is great and you're proud of it, that can actually be a boost to

mental health. It's not always a, I'm stressed out and tired and burning out. You

can do that extra thing and feel really good about it. Or it could go the other

way. So to me, it's case by case and individuals have to make those choices. And

that's circling back to my intro. That's kind of one thing that stood out to me

again. It's about personal responsibility, the mental health, not just what HR can do

for you or the leader or the EAP. You got to make your own choices too. So Adrienne

did a great job of highlighting that and really making it clear to kind of consider

those things moving forward. So that was my, that was my favorite part. So did you

end up doing it? It's funny that you bring that up, really, because you looked

directly into my mind in that moment. I tend to have the base tendency to want to

burn myself out. I love working and I love what I do, I really do, but at the

same time I can get carried away. It's not uncommon for me to just marathon hours

and hours all through the day and then through into the evening And just,

you know, 'cause there's always something else I can do, there's always a little bit

more work that can be done, always, always. And I know that a lot of local

government folks are in that same boat, especially if they're in a small team, or

if, you know, they're in a situation where they're looking to hire or someone's

covering other positions, there's always that temptation to extend more and even more

so for local government leaders because there's other stakeholders in the whole

community that's looking to you for that guidance and that leadership and making sure

that the community is running. And so sometimes there are times when you're just,

you're working over the weekend, you know, you're burnt out. And we know that the

majority of local government leaders say that they do not have the capacity to add

more work to their plate. They just don't. But even within that,

how can we take care of ourselves and how do we know when we need to make that

decision that now is the time to take a break, right? Or now is the time to do

that extra work or go that extra mile in that moment and it's not going to burn

me out. So we were on the precipice of a three -day weekend for a holiday and a

lot of times on three -day weekends I might try to sneak in some extra work because

a lot of times I'm enjoying it and it really is fun for me but this time I think

I needed the break and I said okay you know what there's nothing that has to be

done in this three days that can't be done when we come back So I'm waiting.

I'm going to be editing today. Yeah. And then in the meantime, I'll jump in and

help with the webpage and all the other grunt work. I hate to say that, but you

know, there's a lot of production stuff that goes into this. So we'll get it done

as a team. And that's what I meant about the peer support. It's not about just

supporting whatever decision the other person is doing or telling them, no, that's

the wrong and do it this way. It's just about listening and empathy and helping

when you can. And I think you made the right choice because you are full of

energy, ready to get going on a Tuesday rather than, oh, what did I, what did I

just spend my long weekend on? I can't believe we're already back at work and

burned out. So. And I also want to say I am a very lucky human being that I get

to work with Joe Supervielle. He is a great colleague. He's great at collaborating.

And so it was a lot of fun for us to be able to do this interview with Adrienne

together and that, you know, we can learn from Adrienne how to support each other and

to support ICMA and to support our members. So all of these things you're going to

hear in this interview. I'm known to not take a compliment, but just thank you

Angelica and right back at you for all those things. It's been great having you at

ICMA and on the podcast. One last note for me on this topic before we get to the

interview. For those listeners looking for more tools to support employee or resident

mental health, ICMA affinity partner Cope Notes provides mental health daily support.

CopeNotes .com has more on the science of how it works. There's also an interview of

voices in local government episode with Johnny Crowder, the founder of Cope Notes,

linked wherever

beyond. So definitely check out copenotes .com and I think there might be one more

chance to see cope notes and Johnny in person. Yes, Johnny is going to be leading

an educational session at the ICMA annual conference in Tampa and it's called

Building a Culture of Mental Health in a Controversial Climate and that's going to

be October 27th. So come out to Tampa, you can go to conference ICMA .org.

And without further ado, there's a couple of things that Adrienne brought up that

are near and dear to ICMA's heart. So for example, how can local government leaders

handle stress? What about incivility and polarization and doing better town halls and

things like that? And so all of these types of topics are

Hey, Adrienne. Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad to have you today. Oh, thank

you. I'm so glad to be here Yeah, it's May. It's mental health awareness month, but

obviously it's an important topic year -round. So it's not just It's not one of

those things where let's talk about it once or twice or put on an article and move

on And I think this will be good content for our listeners to hear whether it's

this week or later this year or even refer back to so we're excited to have you

here and specifically want to get into how mental health affects us in the workplace

and local government is a little different than maybe a typical private business, but

mental health is kind of the same and relevant for everyone. So within local

government employees and what leadership can do to foster a good environment and try

and improve that is really our focus today. So again, glad you're here and glad to

talk about it. - Thank you, thank you so much. - Yeah, absolutely. You know, we talk

to local governments, we help local governments all across the nation and all across

the globe really. And so do you as well, Adrienne. But we know that we're all

humans and we're all going to work and everything. So the things that are applicable

to us, the things that are people in the private sector even when it comes to

mental health. It also applies to local government because we're all people, we all

need to take care of our mental health and we all bring that to the workplace.

One of the things that we want to focus on today is how that mental health really

impacts the local government workspace when it comes to things like recruiting, when

it comes to things like retention, engagement, you know over the last five years

these were some major struggles in in the public sector and so we're really excited

to hear your advice especially for local government managers and practitioners that

want to improve that job satisfaction and they want to make the work life better in

their organization. Absolutely absolutely so much to say on this topic and we could

be talking all day and for weeks and hours about mental health in the workplace

environment. So I'm happy to really get into that discussion today. - So Adrienne

Wise is the CEO of Wise Choice Counseling and Consulting Services. She is a trauma

-informed care consultant who partners with organizations, including local governments

and those individuals as well. And she works with people all over the world to

create mentally and emotionally healthy workplaces and environments. She has a master's

degree in community counseling from Merrimont University and a bachelor's in psychology

from George Mason University. She's got over 15 years of professional experience in

behavioral health and she also has really great and engaging,

informative trainings, workshops. She does keynotes globally And she's addressed

audiences in over 20 countries. And she's also been featured in multiple media

outlets and publications. So at the end of this mental health awareness month here,

we're really excited to talk to Adrienne about how local government leaders

specifically can overcome some of the challenges that they're facing for themselves,

for their teams, and to really achieve their full potential there. So Joe,

I'll throw it over to you. Yeah, well, let's get into some of those specifics,

obviously, with all that background Angelica just covered. Glad to have you here for

the audience. Can you start us off by just explaining or sharing what are the most

common mental health challenges public sector employees face today? Maybe something--

we all know it's a big topic and important and hard and maybe really hard to

measure as well, but what are those most common challenges that you see in local

government? - Yeah, yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, Joe. It's so many

different mental health challenges that the workforce and public sector is facing.

But if I had to say, based on my own experience, what I see more often than not

is there's about two issues that I'd like to really discuss. One of them is

anxiety. I think you can think about anxiety and track that pre -COVID to a certain

extent. I think there was just a normal anxiety of having to balance life and also

balance work and the demands of the jobs. And then if you think about everything

that kind of happened during COVID, there was sort of this new layer of anxiety

that was placed on the public sector of how do we sort of manage, how do we work,

how do we make sure that we're able to get the job done and meet the demands of

what has to be done, but acknowledging the fact that people are terrified about

what's coming, what's next, what does this mean. And then you think about the level

of anxiety today, you know, since sort of our change in government,

there has been a huge, huge uptick of anxiety being sort of experienced by our

workforce. And again, A lot of that has to do with really just trying to, with the

upkeep of life, with bills, with finances, with all types of things that sort of

impacting that employee into personally. And I think that there is this phenomenon or

this age -old phenomenon that you can just, like it's a light switch, sort of flip

the switch off and on when you show up to work and be ready to work. And you

can't, you can't. It wears on you like a badge of Velcro. Everything just kind of

sticks to you and sticks to you and all this stuff just keeps adding and piling

on. And when you get to work, you can't just take off that vest of Velcro. You've

now got to figure out how can you manage life with this anxiety, with this weight

of anxiety, how can you manage this of what you got going on outside of work, but

then also still meeting the demands internally and work. And then I think with

anxiety's evil twin, if you will. There is this phenomenon called imposter syndrome.

It is real. We talk about it, I think, a little bit on a very surface level, but

we don't really get into it as deep as we should. And so with anxiety comes this

imposter syndrome sometimes where regardless of how qualified you are, regardless of

how talented you are, regardless of how seasoned you are within the field that

you're working in, you still feel that you can't measure up and perform the job

with the level of efficiency and effectiveness as maybe someone else would, right?

You don't still feel capable and qualified of meeting those demands. And sometimes

you're kind of looking around at others and you're like, you know, Susie's got five

kids and managing life and managing this high VP role and John's over there killing

it and doing this and doing that, how come I can't measure up to that, right?

Those are definitely two mental health challenges that I see a lot that employees

are really, really sort of battling in the center. - And I didn't, I didn't even

necessarily want to bring up social media this early on, but whether it's LinkedIn

for professional stuff or other Facebook types, you see the best, you see the

filtered version of everyone's allegedly perfect life. But I think everyone knows that

that's not really the case. Maybe compared to a decade ago, it's not that easy.

But again, LinkedIn specifically for work stuff, you see all the accomplishments and

the certifications, the promotions, the new jobs. And it's not necessarily jealousy,

but it is a, oh, How did they get that? Why can't I get that? Or why am I not?

What am I doing wrong? Or as you say, maybe that person did get it and now they

feel like the imposter syndrome is going strong. So it can be tough and I need to

find ways to reality check. I guess really what I'm getting at. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. And it's funny because LinkedIn isn't technically supposed to be viewed as

social media, right? I think at least in its original formation was supposed to be

a place for just professionals. That was supposed to be different than Metta and

what they have out there. And then like, but still, here we go. We're in this

world now where we're seeing people, we're seeing the human sides of people that we

didn't necessarily see them at his work. And you're like, how is Joe out there

actually like running a podcast, be the VP of the organization and he's an author.

Oh my gosh, you know, so it just it kind of it is that thing that I think

humanly is in within us that we do want to be a success. And I know that that

word kind of varies from person to person. But those are the reality of the things

that we're really all combating with and and facing. I think that kind of leads us

to our next question, which is about, in your opinion, how does that trauma -informed

lens or that trauma -informed approach to leadership help improve things like retention

and satisfaction among our local government staff? Especially if folks have high

workloads already, they're experiencing high stress or they're in a high stress

department. How does that leadership play into that? - Yeah,

so I think for our viewers, our listeners, some people may be familiar with the

term of trauma -informed care. It's become a little bit of a buzzword over the last

couple of years or so, but it's been in existence for way longer than that. And so

I'll just briefly say that trauma -informed care is the understanding that you believe

that exist, right? You have to believe that trauma does exist in the world. It

exists within people's experiences. And it's not just that someone could experience

trauma in childhood. And it's not just trauma that's experienced into personally,

sometimes workplace environments create trauma. And the idea around this is that if

you have that understanding that trauma exists, then you also then understand that

you are within a workplace environment where sometimes the triggers of someone's

trauma experiences may come up. And it may not be the workplace environments in

intention of doing that, right? I think workplaces are gonna run as workplaces

should, but that person just due to their own experiences are being triggered by

what's happening in the workplace. So the trauma -informed approach is really

specifically for leadership is helping leaders understand there are tools, strategies,

a whole bunch of things from the hiring process all the way to the onboarding

process to the just ongoing sort of management of staff that you can put things in

place that helps avoid what we call retraumatization.

I'd like to kind of give a little bit of an example for some people who may not

understand what I mean by this. Let's just say that there is an employee who grew

up in an environment where there was lots of yelling and shouting at home, whatever

that situation was that created that. And now they're in a workplace environment

where it's very intense, it's very driven. And sometimes I like to say,

there's a lot of passion that is happening or being expressed in that workplace

environment. And you have a leader who is fairly aggressive in their tone,

right? When speaking with you. Even though that leader may not be yelling at you,

they may not be shouting at you. Someone who's experienced trauma in their life may

not be able to separate the two, right? The level of aggression and tone and what

they've experienced in their childhood becomes interlinked. And what it does to that

employee as it begins to weigh on their confidence, it begins to show up in their

work where they're just not performing or producing at the level that maybe they

once were. And so part of what that trauma -informed approach does with leaders is

help them see that, help them understand that, and give them tools and strategies to

be able to, again, avoid that re -traumatization within their workplace environment.

Can I ask a follow -up on that? Is there-- maybe it's a spectrum, not necessarily

neither or. But what's the responsibility level on a leader to adjust their style

versus different employees who almost certainly all have a different preference on

exactly how a leader talks or interacts? And how can those sides work together? And

it's not necessarily just the CEO and a There's usually that middle management or a

supervisor in between, but how can those different levels work together for the best

outcome? - Yeah, you bring up a good question because this is some of the fear that

I hear when I'm talking to C -suite level folks, right? The decision makers within

these agencies before I come in to do the consultant work that I do. And some of

their fears are is that we can't just kind of create this environment where people

can't expect the expectations essentially to be met by their staff.

And that's not what we're saying at all. We're not changing, we're not creating an

environment where leaders have to walk on eggshells around their staff. What we are

doing is teaching them that there is a way that you can still achieve the goal of

getting them to do their work but doing it from a place of empathy, doing it from

a place of respect, doing it from a place of learning the strategies of just

effective communication and that teaching them that you doing it the way that you

either were taught or you thought was the way to kind of kind of fear people into

doing what it is that you want them to do is going to give you the actual exact

opposite result. If anything, it could be pretty catastrophic, right? And there are

some people that are resilient enough that can thrive in environments like that. But

again, you're only going to see what's on the face, on the surface of them

thriving, which you're not going to see is what they have to deal with to get to

that place. And what you're not going to see is then what they're swamped by the

time that they get home, they're drained, they're facing burnout, compassion, fatigue,

all of those things are set in because of sort of that ripple effect effective,

what energy they had to fight to push forth, to push through whatever that was. And

so, you know, it is definitely a constant fear of leaders that we're with this sort

of wellness approach or this thought of trauma -informed care that we're telling

leaders to not hold people accountable. That is not it at all. It's the exact

opposite. But there is a better way and a healthier way of how we can do that

because we want staff to not be there for a short term, we want longevity out of

our staff, right? And so teaching them how to do that in the right way is what

sort of creates that strong retention in our workplace environment. - And I wanna

jump in to add on to that, that when we're talking about with local government, if

we are not paying attention to that mental health area, and we're not paying

attention to that burnout and we're not paying attention to the environment that our

staff are working in, that culture in that organization, that may very well be the

thing that makes people leave. I saw a report on LinkedIn that said the number one

reason why people leave their jobs is because of a bad manager that they have,

a bad experience that they had working with other people. And so if we are Not

paying attention to those types of things and we're thinking of okay mental health

is fluffy, and we don't we don't need that So it's just go go go burn out. I

don't care that type of a thing you may end up losing your best talent and then

it's really expensive and Creates burden on other staff when you have an environment

where everyone is leaving because because of that situation, because the leadership is

not thinking about the experience in the workplace for the staff and the employees.

So that's, I think, directly related to that. Absolutely. We love case studies.

We love to see the work being done. We like to see people being successful,

and we like to see how we can take these ideas that we're talking about and turn

them into practical action. So, Adrienne, could you share an example? It could be

either a local government client that you've worked with or even another client.

But can you share with us a story about how investing in employee mental health can

positively impact job satisfaction, engagement or retention or anything along those

lines? Absolutely. There was one particular local government client that definitely

comes to mind. I've been working with this client since 2022 in various capacities.

I was initially sort of brought on to work with this company because they had just

outlined or developed core values for their organization. But as they develop the

core values for their organization, they recognized something very critical that we

sometimes don't think about. How do we make the core values make sense to our

staff, right? You have something as simple as we treat each other with respect.

That's wonderful. Most people who understand what that means, very surface level, But

what does that really mean in terms of us being an employee here for XYZ

organization? How does that really intertwine with our role in the work we do?

And so I was brought on to help them figure out how we help the workforce sort of

live those core values. And so one of the things that some of you all may thinking

about right now is, is how does mental wellness or trauma informed times, what does

that have to do with sort of the culture of the organization. And what I love what

I do is how to help people see how trauma informed really infuses itself in

sometimes as basic as what do we think or how do we feel about our organization.

And so we took the core values that they have. And we actually created a whole

sort of timeline of events that would help the organization figure out how we live

these values. And so we helped them create a culture book that really sort of

highlighted how you do that. It has a, it's really like a playbook where there's

all types of scenarios in there that teaches them how to live and live out those

core values with real workplace experiences. We're,

you know, and we did it from a lens where even though people have different roles

within the organization that almost anybody picking that book up from the receptionist

to the mid -level manager to, you know, the CEO would be able to resonate with what

that book or that playbook is actually saying with them. We developed a whole series

of ongoing wellness trainings for the company. For every single large staff or all

staff event, we taught them how to lead those meetings, even with their town hall

meetings, we taught them how to lead those meetings, lead those town hall meetings

from a trauma -informed care approach. And I can go on and on about the things that

we've done and still ongoing. So I think there's two things to highlight about that

is, for one, they signed up knowing that this would be an evolution.

And as I came in to sort of assist with some of those initial things,

they quickly understood how bringing in for the long haul because this is not a

quick fix. When you're talking about culture, it is not a quick fix. When you're

talking about changing mindsets and the way we think of wellness and teaching people

how to do the things they've always done differently. You know, it takes time,

it takes commitment, and their ability to do that, they've started to see definitely

some transitions within some of their staff. And I think that even though their

retention rate, which was extremely, it was plummeting.

Let me say that it was plummeting. I think that they have seen less and less

people leaving, maybe switching different roles within the company, but less people

leaving since I came into engagement with them in 2022.

So adapting this type of approach within your organization, connecting with a

consultant that can really understand the intricate things that are happening within

your organization and helping you develop a plan to be able to address that from a

wellness perspective is highly recommended and needed if you want to protect your

bottom line. One thing that you brought up that was really interesting to me and

we've been seeing here at ICMA is we're calling it the rise of incivility, where

you brought up the idea of town hall a public meeting, city council meetings, and

working, you know, when you're working in local government, you're working with your

community, you're working with council members, you're working with staff,

and you're bringing all of these different thoughts and ideas together, and we're in

an environment that's more polarized than it's ever been, that we're working in an

environment where a lot of local government leaders are saying that incivility is

impacting their job in a negative way. So do you think that this idea of trauma

-informed lens and empathy can have a positive impact or help with that whole idea

of incivility in the public meeting space too? - Absolutely, 100%.

I think that for one, one of the things that I try to highlight for leaders when

I'm sort of teaching some of, or coaching them through some of the things that,

some of the changes that need to be made, is for one is when you are giving

public address to a community, especially if it's about huge changes that are going

on with the organization, you wanna make sure that you back it up with the why.

The why is, it may not be an agreed upon why, you know, it still may not make

people say, "Oh, - Okay, well, great. Thanks for letting us know we get it now,

right? But sometimes we leave out the why. And I think that helping people

understand why this is happening and why this is necessary is important.

And also giving, during those public address moments, I think it's important for

leaders to then also entertain the questions. And I think sometimes we try to back

away from the questions because we don't know what type of questions are gonna be

asked and in fear that it may start this huge revolt or it may be a question that

we can't answer. But we teach people how to work with those things,

right? And sometimes you may not have the answers and it's okay. And you may say

something like, you know what, that's a great question. I really don't have the

answer to that. However, let me go do the research. Let me figure that out and we

get back to you. And then you've got to follow through on that and actually go

back and provide the answer. Don't just think otherwise you're making it worse. Yeah,

exactly. Like, you know, as if we forgot that that was a question like that. You

know, you've got to go back it up and then go and come back and get and provide

that information. Also, this facade of like, what does it mean to be a leader that

sometimes people feel like I have to sort of be in this position of being very

polished and know everything that I'm talking about and have all the answers. And

that's not the case. You show the human side of you, which is the side that people

can connect with when you show up as an authentic person who's there to help their

support, there to deliver the information, but just knowing that you may not have

all the information in that moment. So, I think all of those things for sure can

help with that and something that I recognize that would be very beneficial for

leaders to be able to understand. Yeah, the town halls are tough too because there's

no, the city or county manager can maybe set expectations or build that culture

within their staff, but they can't really control how the citizens or the residents

are showing up. Um, especially if they're being in uncivil, which is obviously not

good, but sometimes people are angry for a legitimate reason and should, should

remain civil, but that's not always going to be the case. And you see the clips on

the news of the, the mayor, the council or the town manager getting yelled at or

grilled, but that affects the staff too, because they, whether they see it or

they're there in person, they might not be the one right up in front, but they're,

they're feeling it too. What do you tell a local government leader when they ask

you a question about specifically when residents are just being nasty or like,

hey, I signed up to execute this plan. The politicians should maybe be handling this

part, but I'm kind of caught in the crossfire. Is there specific advice for handling

that? Absolutely, I do. I give that advice all the time. And One of the things

that I help leaders understand is, first you've got to figure out how to be

empathetic, right? Empathetic is not sympathetic. Empathetic is really just

understanding merely where that resident is coming from. You don't have to agree,

but you just have to understand that it's impacting them. They're not just yelling

for no reason, right? They're not, you know, airing their transgender aggressions for

no reason. They're saying this because they really do feel passionate about whatever

the situation is. So making sure that you are acknowledging that you hear exactly

what they're saying, even repeating that back to them, repeating that verbiage back

to them in their words so that they do hear that you understand where they're

coming from, not just giving them the the good old nod and say Uh -huh. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I hear you, right? And then I think then to also then follow up with either

doing this, maybe even giving them guidance on another way in which they can really

sort of share their information, how they can help be a part of the solution to

addressing the problem and or maybe even figuring out how they can take the

information that the resident is providing them, but then coming up with a way to

say to them, you know, I'm gonna take this feedback back to my team. We're gonna

figure out a way of how we can address this. Being honest with them to say the

timeline of this, you know, may not be in the moment of now, but it is something

that I take very seriously of how urgent it is, right? And so we're gonna come up

with a plan to figure out how we can get this dressed in as fast of a possible

in a fast time frame as possible as we can right and giving that information to

that resident and not just kind of shooing them off or giving them lip service I

think is extremely important and again you show up as being authentic you show up

as being truthful you show up as being honest and giving the information that you

can and you don't have to kind of get yourself in this entanglement of telling

mistruths, right? So just showing up empathetic, understanding what that means,

taking in the information that's being provided to you and trying to give some sort

of a, or reflecting back what the resident said and then giving some sort of

solution of here's what I'm going to do or here's the next step. Most of the time

what residents want to do is to be heard and to feel that you just understand

where they're coming from. - Yeah, and earlier you referenced explaining the why,

whether it's a resident or a staff member delivering bad news is tough, but if you

can explain the why, people can still maybe disagree with a decision without just

feeling run over by it, like they're just doing this without explaining it.

That's even worse. Circle back to the staff a little You can work with a consultant

and put a plan together and kind of try and build that culture, but how do they

sustain it really is the question. Yeah, once later or a year later. Yeah,

that's a great question. So, you know, for every plan that's built in working with

organizations, we have a little bit of a sustainability plan built in as well. And

with room for error, because sometimes there might be key roles or key positions

that was put in place to manage and oversee certain functions that was put in place

and what happens should that those people retire, what happens should those people

move on to a different role, you know, and so we built that in to be able to

sort of account for that, knowing that everything's not going to be perfect, but if

the if the environment has done what it needed to do in terms of putting an

emphasis and a focus on increasing wellness and again being more trauma informed,

then those natural things that start to happen in the workplace won't plumb it

completely, right, because grace will be given, just given that because we've created

that type of culture. And so how do we sustain it though is that we put in long

term plans and so we can't create the one training and say, oh, this is a really

good training that we did three years ago, right? How do we keep up the training?

How do we keep up the workshops? How do we make sure that we have other trauma

-informed care experts within the agency? We have to sometimes create those champions

within the organization so that when we're going through a change, when we're going

through something that has to be repurposed or what have you, that we have those

change champions who can sort of swim in and say, "All right, everybody, this is

the thing. "We've got to put our hat on. "We've got to kind of buckle up "and get

ready for this next phase. "And this is how we're going to do it." You've got to

be able to build in people. You've got to be able to build in plans that are

sustainable and they're not just the one -time offerings. And so that's the short

answer to how we do that, yeah. - You know, I'm hearing a lot of themes recurring

here about active listening and empathetic communication and taking people seriously.

One of the things that you were talking about a little bit earlier was that idea

of the unheard. It made me think of a famous Martin Luther King quote that says a

riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to

hear. I think that really is powerful when we think about community leadership,

not only for residents, but also for staff. When we as staff,

when your staff don't feel heard or don't have a place where they can safely voice

their opinions on their experience, that is also hugely impactful to how they view

you as a manager, how they view you as a...

Yeah, I think that we take for granted some of the most basic things that we can

do. If you're not regularly surveying your workforce, you are doing a disservice.

I think the surveys should be organization led. They should be department led.

They should be team specific lead. Every manager, every supervisor, every leader has

the ability to survey their own team. And I think that part of the, no, there's

art form to survey, right? Because you have to be able to ask the right questions,

and you've got to be able to ask the right questions in the right way so you can

get the right information.

And not be afraid to ask the questions that you're going to get the feedback that

maybe you don't want to see, you don't want to hear. But if you want real change

to happen, if you really want to know how to address the challenges that are

happening within your workplace environment that you've got to ask tough questions. So

surveying, I think is a huge thing that we just sort of take for granted, but it's

also about the mechanics of how you survey. When I am sort of initially doing my

assessment of what's happening in the workforce, there's a combination of a written

survey that is anonymous for those Um, fear that there'll be some sort of

retaliation because that's kind of one of the reasons why people don't speak up. Um,

and then I also do, uh, a focus group. And I might do several focus groups because

there are some people that they are loud and proud. They really want to say, Hey,

I've got something to say. And I need to share it and I need to get it out. Um,

and, you know, having someone like me come in to sort of hear that, uh, who's sort

of showing up in a neutral space can be very cathartic and very healing in of

itself. Because again, most people just want to be heard. So I think surveys,

I think focus groups doing it in a regular routine manner, but then not just taking

in the information and doing nothing with it, but creating that plan from what you

gather and - Showing and sharing what you heard. Show and share what you heard. Why

is, it shouldn't be a secret. Show and share what you heard. And you could do it

in a constructive way. But show and share what you heard. And then also begin to

give updates on what are we doing with this information as a result of what we've

heard and what's been shared. - Once the results of the survey, not just in numbers

of here's the stat or here's the, you know, what people rated rated this one

through five and hear the numbers, but if the numbers are proving what most

employees probably already know, if the environment is not good or not been healthy

for a while, how do they position that constructively, but also acknowledging how bad

it is without trying to sugarcoat it or make excuses? Yeah, I think that, you know,

the level of transparency is something that leaders have to kind of buy into and

that takes time, right? So there's long discussions about the what ifs so that

people can sort of get themselves mentally prepared and literally prepared for what

might come of asking the questions, right? And so I think what I tend to try to

do is when we create eight questions, again, we're very careful with how we're

creating the questions. We are agreeing in advance that we may share this

information. But again, what is the way in which we want to share the information?

So when we're asking questions that create maybe like bar graphs that might say 4 .5

out of 5 stars on this, 2 .5 out of 5 stars on that. And maybe what we might do

is choose not to reveal some of the comments or commentary because we also know

that sometimes given that it's anonymous, people may not say things in the most

professional way, right? Yeah. And sometimes the comments themselves can retraumatize

staff. So we're being very intentional about paying attention to those things in

advance. But we may show the results that, hey, we asked the question of, do you

feel supported by your manager? And it's out of five stars and maybe the rating is

3 .5 out of five. That may not be the best, you know, of course, we're aiming for

five stars, but for some people that might not look good or feel good, but it is

a reality. Does that mean that because we show the information that 3 .5 out of

five rating for, you know, we don't feel supported by our staff, by our leaders or

by our managers. Does that mean that people are going to leave? No, because guess

what, they already knew this, they already filled this out. That's why they said

what they said in the survey, right? But it's showing that we are listening and we

hear you and we are being transparent about how and recognizing how the organization

as a whole is feeling and then taking that information in a constructive way and

saying here is how we're going to begin to address this and being honest that these

changes are not going to happen overnight. It's going to take time. We have to be

very careful and methodical with how we do this. And then there might even be a

question on the survey as to what are some ideas that you all have that can sort

of help make those changes in the environment. I mean, you know, I think we take

for granted that sometimes the people that are actually impacted are the very people

that have the best solutions and, you know, can help us really drive home what we

need to do to fix it. So it can be difficult and pretty jarring,

I think, for leaders to buy into this level of transparency,

but it really changes the game. It changes the game completely with how staff feel

and how they show up because they feel like they're working for a workplace that

essentially is listening to us and showing us that they're trying to make some

changes. Yeah. One thing I used to say a lot is it's not bad data. Data is just

information. It's just data. And when you can think about it objectively, rather than

subjectively, you can say, you know what, this is a starting point. Maybe I got

three points out of five, but that just means I can improve from here and I can

look at it as an opportunity to make this a better workplace rather than as a

personal attack. - Yeah, it's not necessarily personal, right? There's a circumstantial,

hey, maybe this staff, whether it's a CEO or otherwise, that question you referenced

about, do I feel supported? That could be a one out of five, but that same person

could say, I know why I'm not supported, it's because that same person is stretched

too thin, has to do a million things and can't even get to what I need. - Exactly.

- It's hard to get those, it's hard to extract that level of detail out of a

survey necessarily. - Correct, correct. - Maybe not an exact science, a little

scientific and art, I don't know how you do it, you're the expert, but maybe that's

why, that's exactly why organizations need people like you 'cause you know how to

kind of put all those pieces together. - Absolutely. And I mean, you bring up a

good point. And I think this is where you structure things. Like to say, here's the

sort of Likert scale question that can give us the number that we can all see and

understand that. But right after that, there's the explain, right? And then we get

the meat as to why people are feeling the way they're feeling. And then what we

share, then might be a summary. And we can say, hey, this is the rating that we

got. But the feedback, the commentary is saying that some people are feeling this

way about I don't feel supported by my manager because they've been in the manager

position has been vacant for the last year. And so I'm being managed and supervised

by somebody who doesn't even know who's not even in my department or in my team

has no idea what I do, right? Or understand the depths of what I do. So they're

getting context and sometimes contact is everything, right? and so you can kind of

help layer this. But we can say still, you know, this number is not good and we

still want to make sure that we address this and we put in the things that are

necessary to make sure that the staff feel supported. - Joe and I, we're individuals

that want to take care of our mental health and our mental wellness and there's

other individuals that want to do that for themselves too. So how can an individual

employee improve their own mental wellness in the workplace? - Yes,

absolutely. I think when we, I talk a lot about self care for anybody who's been

following me on social media or following me on LinkedIn for some time, you'd know

that I talk about that all day long. And so I talk about this idea of like,

what really is self care? And self care is beyond things like doing yoga.

It's beyond things like, you know, going to go get your hair done or haircut. Those

are great things to do. Don't stop doing them. But it is it is so much deeper

than that. Self -care is really about reserving the time that you need for you.

You can plan to do nothing. And that can be self -care. Can you plan to do

nothing? Can you take 15 minutes out of the day and just sit still. Can you learn

the benefits of meditation and really focusing on the present moment and not having

the mind wander into areas of things that we can't control, right? Or,

you know, can we avoid the pitfalls of anxiety which definition -wise is really

worrying about the things that haven't even happened yet? Can we take time to think

about what it means to just be organized? Can we take time to think about what it

means to hold boundaries? Those are self -care initiatives that we just take for

granted. That's what people can begin to do for themselves because here's what I

didn't get the chance to say today that I really want to make sure that I say

Leaders can't control everything. They can't control everything. These are not

superheroes, right? They don't have magical powers where we can just say, "Wala, with

my good attitude and my good empathetic approach, I'm gonna make all the bad stuff

go away." No, that's not how that works. So it's definitely more of a mutual effort

that people have to first do the things that they have to do for themselves. The

leader and the manager is there to sort of support that. But I think what's also

important is that what leaders and managers can do is begin to role model.

If you are showing up to work, not emphasizing and talking about and leaving space

for self care, your staff is likely going to find it very difficult for them to be

able to do the same thing. So you show the importance of what it means to take

care of self. You talk about it. It doesn't have to be the thing that we, you

know, doesn't have to be the taboo of conversation. You say, hey, we're all taking

a break right now. We're all taking a break right now for 30 minutes. We're going

to walk the halls. We're going to go outside and walk the perimeter of the

building, or we're going to take a lunch break together and intentionally eat and

not talk about work. You know, those are the types of things that we can do again,

not only for ourselves, but then also how leaders and managers can begin to support

those efforts of mental well -being and emotional wellness.

The self -responsibility, I'm laughing because I give this advice and don't follow,

but it's, you know, we'll get the email. Well, this isn't just ICMA specific. I've

been at other job places where you get the email from are, we encourage you to use

all your PTO before it expires, blah, blah, blah, and then they say that and you

read that sentence like, yeah, okay, but if I, if I do that, the works waiting for

me when I get back, it's not yet necessarily a break. So there's a balance. But I

liked what you said that it's the leaders can't just wave the magic wand and make

it so that the individual staff members have to do it. And that goes for the city

county managers too you as you said be that role model and yeah the council's gonna

bug you and yeah you're gonna get that phone call at 10 p .m. on a Friday night

maybe but boundaries are still what you make them you have to you have to do it

yourself. What are your thoughts on peer support within an organization where it's

not your boss or supervisor it's not the CEO? How can co -workers

support each other and find that balance between healthy,

constructive conversations and then just sometimes straight up, you know, complaining

or venting. - Yeah, don't be a technology vampire, but support each other. - Exactly,

exactly, 'cause I, that guilt too of like, I don't wanna just go complain to this

person who's probably also exhausted and overwhelmed and vice versa, when they're

doing When they need it you want to be there for them, but on the other hand,

it's like yeah, but I got x y and z of my own issues And it's tough. So how do

you how can co -workers better support each other? Yeah, I think you know Even

though I've been talking a lot about how I support the leadership team That's

because it really starts with a top -down effect, right? And so once the leadership

team gets on board the work that I begin to do with staff is helping them

understand that they can be leaders too. The position title is not what necessarily

makes you a leader. It's your ability to be proactive. It's your ability to be a

self -started. It's your ability to be able to take initiative. And part of what

you're doing when you do that is you're figuring out ways of how you can support

one another. And so you as an individual, with your coworkers,

can create eight initiatives within your workplace environments to support each other.

It can be sometimes you're identifying a buddy or you're identifying a coworker or a

colleague whom where you all feel that you can have open dialogue and open

conversations that are listening sessions, but then your advice or your guidance to

your colleague is you're here to listen. So you're being empathetic, you're here to

listen, you're reflecting back what you heard them say, but then you are also

helping to guide them to a solution. You're saying things like, I hear that you

feel lost within your team and that you feel that you don't have a voice within

your team. And when you try to raise your hand and give ideas and suggestions, you

feel like you're being overlooked or what you're saying is just not resonating.

What have been some of the things that you have tried or what are some of the

things you think you could try differently that might maybe help people listen to

you, right? You guide them into solutions. You don't go down that rabbit hole with

them and start saying, yeah, I know what you're saying 'cause Tommy, I tell you,

you know, just never listens to anything I have to say, right?

And because it's not helpful, right? It's helpful to listen and hear what they're

saying and that might be honest feedback that you're getting, but it is more helpful

when you can help guide them to a solution and guide them towards real things that

they can do, tangible ways that they can actually maybe try to make a difference.

What you may find is that when you're hearing your co -workers talk about the things

that are going wrong, you may find less and less that they've actually taken the

initiative to try to fix it or address it. They may find that they have had a

hard time being able to talk to their boss or talk to their leader because they

fear retaliation of speaking up. So you're giving them and guiding them helpful

solutions of how they can begin to chip away and maybe try to work at the problem.

Reminding them of what the resources and supports are that are out there. All local

government agencies pretty much have an EAP program, Employee Assistance Program,

that offers a lot of resources and supports as well, and that can help be sort of

that listening ear as well and help provide some guidance and some advice. It's

gonna be tough and it's gonna be hard, to not create sort of the complaint session.

I'm not gonna say that word either. But you know, it really is more of you taking

the the side of the person that's going to help them look towards those solutions.

But listening is powerful. Listening and understanding is absolutely powerful.

And sometimes that can make a person feel better. And then there's these other

things too, that we, you know, I know one organization created a salad club and the

idea of the salad club was yes, it promoted healthy eating, not to say that there

aren't other things you could eat outside of a salad and be healthy. But the idea

of the salad club was that we come together and we're all bringing different items

and different ingredients to sort of create the salad, right? And it promoted just a

way for us to come together. And during those salad sessions, We talk about things

that are difficult. We talk about ways in which we can fix things, ideas,

solutions, all of those things. And that was something that the staff came up with

completely on their own. - You used the word grace earlier too. I thought that hit

a note with me, but just allowing that grace and remembering that we're people with

feelings, thoughts,

that I think what what what what people think Joe is that the definition of

professional means you have to be stiff and you can't air feelings or be vulnerable

and it's the exact opposite but I think that there is still a layer of protection

that you have to have for yourself and that as you are being honest and as you

are being vulnerable, making sure that you still understand that you're in an

environment that has impact. So everything that comes to mind that we want to say,

as raw as we want to say it, can't necessarily be the first course of action. But

I think that just acknowledging the fact that we have feelings of being frustrated

can be said. That we have feelings of not being listened to can But you know,

we don't need to get into unhelpful dialogue, things that are not gonna move the

needle. And that's sort of that balance of sort of being professional, if you will,

which really does mean I could be vulnerable, but then also just being careful that

you're not saying things to hurt. You're not saying things to hinder, right? And so

I don't have to call such a such the jerk. That might be what I'm thinking in my

mind. That might be how I feel. Everybody may agree with me. But what I can say

is that, wow, his approach to how meetings are ran while he may say things like he

wants to hear everyone's feedback, I'm not getting the sense that he's allowing us

the opportunity to give feedback. You see, that's much more constructive. And we

understand what that means and we why? And now what are we going to do about it?

Or what can we try to do something about it? That's what I think people just have

to be mindful about as they are creating those type of conversations.

And so I actually have a training that I've done often. And that is,

you know, how do you essentially get rid of the gossip,

you know, that's that's That's what you want to not do because that would be

creating a trauma -informed environment at all. And that would be a good example of

how an employee can live a core value. Well, you don't become more of part of the

problem by creating this nasty negative environment and creating this toxicity in the

environment by being the Gossiper, right? You want to be the person that's really

trying to help guide solutions for sure. Well said. Is there anything else before we

wrap up here that any takeaways or anything else that anyone wants to bring up and

make sure that if you don't remember anything else today, you remember this one

thing? Yeah. I think, you know, the only thing I will say is don't be afraid to

talk about the things that make you feel uncomfortable. This is, This is not new

necessarily, but I think it's becoming newer for different industries to accept and

acknowledge that there are people in their environment with real experiences that are

being impacted every day. And you would be doing a huge disservice to your workforce

by not listening to that. And so I think there are lots of solutions out there.

I'm not saying there's one trick pony, but I am saying that a lot of what's at

the basis of the challenges that you're seeing within your staff is because there is

unaddressed trauma. And so making sure that you address that from whatever way you

do versus trying to tip toe away from it and hoping that it just disappears

magically is not going to be the right answer. And so I think that really just

acknowledging that knowing that there is real solutions out there that can help and

help solve those problems that you all have been grappling with. And if you wanna

fix the retention in your organization, it starts with making people feel valued

within the workplace because as Angelica started off the conversation, the statistic

of the number one reason why people leave is usually due because of the way they've

been treated. With pay being a close second, maybe even a third in terms of the

reason. So you've got to get ahead of this. You've got to be proactive. You've got

to step that set up out there and step into the uncomfortable.

Thank you, Adrienne. I think that's just incredibly valuable. And I think that our

listeners are going to get a lot out of this conversation. And if our listeners

want to learn more about you and your organization and your trainings, how can they

get in touch with you? - Yeah, I think one of the easiest ways to do is to go to

my website, which is wisechoicecounseling .com. There is a book a consult link right

on there. You can't miss it. And that allows us to just really briefly chat and

talk about what are the needs within your organization and how we can to help and

assist you. - And if you don't mind, I love this conversation so much. Can we all

just take a deep breath together before we leave, just?

- Sure, absolutely. - And the listeners too. I would say you do it at home whether

you're working, lunch break, Jim, whatever you're doing. It's good to remind her to

do that once in a while. - Yeah. - And thanks for all your expertise, Adrienne.

Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Voices in Local Government

by ICMA with your hosts, Joe Supervielle and Angelica Wedell. For more information,

visit icma .org and you can subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

 

 

 

In this episode of Voices in Local Government, hosts Joe Supervielle and Angelica Wedell sit down with trauma-informed care consultant Adrienne Wise for a practical conversation on mental health, burnout, and employee engagement in the public sector.

You’ll hear why fostering mental wellness is not just “nice to have”—it’s a leadership imperative for attracting and keeping top talent in today’s local government workplace.
 

Key Takeaways for Retention and Workplace Wellness:

• How mental health impacts employee engagement, retention, and workplace culture
• Practical leadership strategies to create a mentally healthy environment
• What leaders, managers, and peers can do to support each other
• How local governments can address burnout—and prevent it from driving people away
   

Featured Guest:

Adrienne Wise – CEO of Wise Choice Counseling and Consulting Services; trauma-informed care consultant, emotional wellness expert, and global public speaker
 

Voices in Local Government Podcast Hosts

Joe Supervielle and Angelica Wedell

Resources

Mental health services from ICMA affinity partner, Cope Notes.

ICMA Annual Conference, October 25-29 in Tampa. With sessions on mental health in the workplace and more. Registration opens June 25.

Voices in Local Government: Mental Health Ask Me Anything with Johnny Crowder