Making Mental Health Matter with Kimberly Breuer

Thomas Kohler:
Today’s guest, Kim Breuer.

And what could you do if the leadership is not buying in into there is a need for supporting mental health?

Kimberly Breuer:
Very, very good question. I also recently did a presentation on a conference about that, because that’s a very common question and a lot of HR teams are overwhelmed or maybe have a lot of question marks. How do I get my management to buy into this idea and invest into it? So here again, it depends on your current situation. What I always say or recommend is to first of all understand the status quo. Understand what is your core problem in the company? Is it even sick leave? Is it fluctuation? Because a lot of people leave the company because they are not happy anymore? Is it employee satisfaction? Is it workload? Like really understand first of all, what’s the problem? And then you have to form a story around it why mental health solutions can solve this problem and also make it measurable. Because most managers want to understand what’s the return on investment. Why should I invest into something what KPI will go up afterwards? So this is the job of the HR team, to make that tangible and also visible. But on top of that, not KPL’s are not always sufficient. They are kind of the baseline.

But after that, sometimes you maybe make them experience it. What do I mean by this? We have, for example, a bigger client of 8000 employees who started with us. But in the very beginning they said our management is not convinced yet, even though we showed them the KPI’s and the numbers. But they said they don’t want to buy it for 8000 people yet. So what we have done, we started with a pilot. We started with a pilot of 100 people and did a lot of surveys around that. And afterwards the managers really realized and also listened to the people who tested it, that they liked it so much and that they really made a difference. And that people started talking about it in the company, that at some point they started to be interested, they started to use it themselves.

And that was the moment when they got convinced as well. So it’s also about individual solutions and really figuring out what’s right for you. But there are definitely ways to get the management buy in.

Thomas Kohler:
Kim and I talked about mental health, the role of an internal and also external psychologist when an organization is leveraging this for the employees, and also what you can get out of it in terms of metrics, an increased sense of belonging to the organization, reduced level of attrition. And this is really, I would say, very impactful. And we really deep dive into this topic from different angles. So listen to it. And also I think Kim’s vision on making mental health matter is really relevant.

Today’s guest, Kimberly and we will talk about mental health. And I’m really looking forward to this episode because we, I think, did not cover this topic for a year now. So we do a bit of a deep dive. And I’m also interested in yourself because I think your founder always have, has a lot of things to tell as a story, but also as a vision. And maybe we start with a short introduction about yourself and why you started Likeminded.

Kimberly Breuer:
Yes, sure. Hi Thomas, thanks for having me. So quickly about myself, I’m, as you mentioned already, the founder of a mental health startup which is called Likeminded. And I am by background, a psychologist myself, which is one of the main reasons why I initially came to start a mental health company. But the reason behind that is actually that I was always about to become a psychologist and a coach myself. Because for me it was always my kind of passion and motivation to share psychological knowledge and to give people easier access to it and easier support. Because I do believe that actually all of us could need a coach or a psychotherapist to live a more fulfilling life. But when I did that, I realized quite soon that this won’t have an impact or such a big impact as I would like to have, that there’s a huge shortage when it comes to psychological support, especially in Germany, but also globally. And that was the reason I decided to found a company myself, to make psychological access and support more scalable and give more people access and education about that topic.

Thomas Kohler:
And how do you do that?

Kimberly Breuer:
So Likeminded is a platform for mental health support. What does it mean? You are dialing in or logging in as a user. And you can get access to different support formats ranging in the level of intensity from digital exercises in a media library, up to group workshops which take place online, and to one on one sessions with coaches and therapists. And we are selling this solution to companies because we believe that the employer have a responsibility to invest into mental health. And also we see that the mental health problems are only increasing, of course, also increasing the costs for companies because of sick leave due to mental illness.

Thomas Kohler:
That’s I think something that is definitely a big problem to solve, especially in an environment where there is a lot of, I would say, demand on people. And nowadays everybody wants to move fast. And I remember, I think it was Tania Channing from Pipedrive. She is the CHRO chief people and culture officer there. And when we did a podcast with her, she mentioned that the biggest game changer in her time as a CHRO was now at Pipedrive. She really has internal psychologists. Right. And I think overall is also showcased that somebody with that experience and also looking into an organization or into several organizations is really highlighting this as one of the big game changers. So I was wondering on how you came up with the idea and what was the trigger event, if there was some.

Kimberly Breuer:
Yes. So, first of all, hearing that makes me very happy, because I can tell you that there are still a lot of companies that do not invest into mental health at all or even think about it. And then having internal psychologists, it’s a great initiative, even though it also comes with some potential downsides, which I can explain maybe in a bit later why I think it also has some risks. But what was the trigger event for me? As I mentioned, first of all, I worked as a coach and a psychologist myself. Besides my studies already then, I’ve been doing a lot of work in different companies, from corporate to startup to consultancy. And I realized more and more that there are so many people actually asking for support, needing help. Also, my own coaching sessions were always booked out without making any marketing and promotion. And I think what, what was, for me, the trigger moment was having my coachees sitting there and telling me again and again, Kim, if I had known that 20 years earlier and I heard that sentence so often that at some point I thought, it’s so crazy that a lot of people only get into psychological support and only hear about all this when they’re already older, and they could have used this knowledge very well early on in their lives and might have had a different way of living and also different decisions taken early on. And for me, that was, I think, my trigger moment, where I decided I want more people to know about this.

Thomas Kohler:
That’s interesting, because a lot of people go to a psychologist, maybe if they have a problem, and then sometimes it’s maybe a bit late, not too late, but maybe you can also anticipate it. And I maybe have an example for you. For myself, I also proactively went to a psychologist when I started my own company for the first time. And I had a lot of, I would say, question marks around my personality, what are the triggers, what are the spikes and so on. And I think up to that point, hired hundreds of people into companies and also had, I would say, a very good sense of framing people, understanding and having certain assumptions, and being a bit confident in that sense.

But to judge for myself on how I’m wired, I was not really confident and thought about, but this would be really interesting to understand what is really driving me and why. And then I went to a psychologist doing a test because I don’t believe in this online, 16 personality tests that are really on the surface. And if you just answer it in a different way, then you get something different. Or if you want to answer it in a certain way, you get what you want. But with a psychologist and a very in depth analysis of all of this, this was really game changing for me. And suddenly I. I could really feel very comfortable in where I can really trust my gut feeling and instinct, but also where I need to be careful and maybe find a mentor, a coach, or just people that are a bit more complimentary to me for certain situations, behavior and so on. So I think that’s a really game changer, especially if you do it early on in your life, because you can also shape your personality. Right.

And after three years, I did another test and then I could really see the dimensions that I wanted to affect were affected. I think it takes time, but it’s really cool and it’s then a bit like a game. So how does this then look like when, like, when it is used in terms of analytics? Can you also get some reports of yourself and what you do? Or is this more a conversation or how can I imagine it?

Kimberly Breuer:
Yeah, definitely. So, first of all, thanks for sharing the story, because what you just described is, I think, one of the main reasons why, in my opinion, everyone could use to talk to a coach or a therapist once in their lives, because we have this blind spot when it comes to ourselves. As much as we are trying to be self reflected, we will always have a certain blind spot because we can never look at ourselves objectively. And that is why it’s so helpful to have someone mirroring you and asking some really good questions. So thanks for sharing that, first of all. And yes, measuring and looking at data is as important, of course, for us as well, because first of all, we need to prove that our solution is actually effective, right? Because a lot of companies are investing lots of money into it and they want to understand, does it actually do anything? Does it help our people? Are they healthier? Are they happier? Is the sick leave reduced, and so forth. And we are a digital startup and company, so of course we are collecting data that we are analyzing. First of all, we always do a little assessment.

When people started our platform, they go through psychological diagnostics and answer certain questions, and afterwards we can have a first understanding and idea of where this person is at. What’s the severity level, what’s the topic, what’s the experience level, what are the individual preferences? And based on that, a machine learning algorithm in the back gives them a personalized recommendation of which formats to use. Because not everyone benefits only from one on one sessions. Some people benefit even better from a group session or a digital exercise. And in the end it’s really the combination of these formats that make it more effective. And then, yes, we also give people the opportunity to track themselves so they have an own site where they can do regular assessments about their well being on different dimensions. And they can track this over time, so they can actually see if they are progressing or if, for example, one dimension is worsening.

Thomas Kohler:
What are the other dimensions? This is something that I would be super curious.

Kimberly Breuer:
Yeah. So the current dimensions are something like anxiety or worry. So am I worrying a lot or not? Do I feel secure? Then the second dimension is stress management and resilience, as a third dimension is really stress at work, because we see a difference between I’m overall a resilient person, compared to do I, am I able to actually manage my stress at work well? And then a fourth one is really into the direction of happiness and feeling happy versus sad into the direction of depression a bit.

Thomas Kohler:
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And when you get then a result that you are, I would say more on the resilient side or more on the sad, happy side, what happens then? Are people then getting a certain treatment or journey proposed?

Kimberly Breuer:
Yes. So behind these dimensions there are different, let’s say, psychological concepts and diagnostics that assess anxiety symptoms, burnout symptoms and depression symptoms. And based on that, we then give them a recommendation, first of all about the format. For example, if we see that someone is very low on all these dimensions, that might mean that this person has already some pathological symptoms. And then we are recommending this person to talk to someone in a one on one session, and preferably even to someone with a therapist background, and then we even look for the right therapist. So we, for example, would then take someone, take a therapist and match them with someone who is focused on anxiety or depression, right? Based on their answers. And then if we see this person is actually at the upper end and is actually doing quite well, has some workload or stress management issues at work, but really wants to develop professionally and wants to work on themselves preventively. We probably would recommend this person lower threshold formats, like using group formats, using some exercises, journaling, really working on themselves on a continuous basis, and also match them with probably rather with a business coach instead of with the psychotherapist.

Thomas Kohler:
And when you look at an organization overall, what can an organization provide with all the attributes an organization has, for instance, managers to support mental health, or that people are having the space that they can individualize it for their need, basically?

Kimberly Breuer:
First of all, so I would say there are three big areas to look at. First area is education. So first of all, take a look at the educational level of mental health. Do people actually know what mental health mean? Is there any educational information material in the company? Did they ever do a mental health day with a certain presentation around that topic? So first of all, really making sure you have some sort of education around that topic, because that’s the baseline for everything. And second thing, which is probably one of the most important, you have to have management buy in and you have to make sure that leaders are talking about that topic openly because they will set the tone for everyone else. If the leaders are still very shy about that topic, or maybe even judge that topic, their employees will notice and that will definitely have an impact on the overall culture. And we see that, for example, also in our usage rates. So if we have the leaders on board with us as ambassadors, the usage of our platform goes through the roof, kind of.

But when we are in companies where the leaders are maybe still themselves a bit skeptical and do not really talk about it openly, the usage rates is, is rather low and we have a hard time to activate the people. And then thirdly, make sure that you have some initiatives in place. So give out some resources, invest into something. I know that a lot of people out there are right now at a place where they ask themselves, hey, we feel like we’ve done already 25 different initiatives and nothing really worked out. I agree. It’s not about quantity. You shouldn’t just throw initiatives out there and buy whatever, but you should really take a closer look at what does your company need in particular and maybe decide for three initiatives. And one of them could be a solution like Likeminded, where you give individual direct support.

Thomas Kohler:
And what could you do if the leadership is not buying in into there is a need for supporting mental health?

Kimberly Breuer:
Very, very good question. I also recently did a presentation on a conference about that, because that’s a very common question and a lot of HR teams overwhelmed or maybe have a lot of question marks. How do I get my management to buy into this idea and invest into it? So here again, it depends on your current situation. What I always say or recommend is to first of all understand the status quo. Understand what is your core problem in the company? Is it even sick leave? Is it fluctuation? Because a lot of people leave the company because they are not happy anymore? Is it employee satisfaction? Is it workload? Like really understand? First of all, what’s the problem? And then you have to form a story around it why mental health solutions can solve this problem and also make it measurable. Because most managers want to understand what’s the return on investment. Why should I invest into something, what KPI will go up afterwards? So this is the job of the HR team, to make that tangible and also visible. But on top of that, KPL’s are not always sufficient.

They are kind of the baseline. But after that, sometimes you maybe make them experience it. What do I mean by this? We have, for example, a bigger client of 8000 employees who started with us. But in the very beginning they said our management is not convinced yet, even though we showed them the KPI’s and the numbers. But they said they don’t want to buy it for 8000 people yet. So what we have done, we started with a pilot. We started with a pilot of 100 people and did a lot of surveys around that. And afterwards the managers really realized and also listened to the people who tested it, that they liked it so much and that they really made a difference. And that people started talking about it in the company, that at some point they started to be interested, they started to use it themselves.

And that was the moment when they got convinced as well. So it’s also about individual solutions and really figuring out what’s right for you. But there are definitely ways to get the management buy in.

Thomas Kohler:
I think this was also one of the previous episodes with Maria Kamischke around how to get budgets approved from sea level. So that’s also maybe something to deep dive there. And I think that is really working well if you start with a pilot or also that you said you need to gather data and then create a story. Because I think when KPI’s are looked at it isolatedly, that a KPI is there for just measuring something that’s maybe not the right leverage, right? So you rather want to choose the right measurements and KPI’s to then create a compelling story that somebody’s believing.

Kimberly Breuer:
100% and especially with something like mental health, right. Most of the people do not connect mental health immediately with, I don’t know, productivity or mental health immediately with the costs of fluctuation that I have in my company. Right. So you really, it’s really the job of the HR team to create a story around it and make them understand what mental health has to do with it and how it can be one of the solving factors. And what we, for example, do by now, because we have seen a lot and we talk to a lot of managers, we are supporting the HR teams to compile such a story and tell the story.

Thomas Kohler:
And do you offer there a certain framework?

Kimberly Breuer:
Not a certain framework, because as I said, unfortunately, it’s not as solution, one size, one fits all solution. Right. So you have to really look at the individual situation, because it’s very individual in each company. And what we usually do is we help them to assess the status quo. First of all, really, as I said, understand where are actually the problems. And then we think about jointly. Okay, what do we need to prove or what kind of story, what does your manager have to hear to buy into it? And we come up with, for example, presentations, we come up with certain statistics if we think that is important for their management, but overall, we are helping them to tie it to their overall strategy. That is anyways already in place in the company.

Thomas Kohler:
And on your website you also have an ROI calculator. What is the framework there?

Kimberly Breuer:
So that is actually built by ourselves. We are basing it on different studies and assessments and statistics that have been done by, for example, the World Health Organization and Statista. So really publicly available statistics that we’re using as the base for our ro calculator. And that is taking into account costs of sick leave due to mental illness, costs of fluctuation due to unhappiness, or even mental illness, and also costs, estimated costs of productivity loss due to mental illness or mental burden, because there are by now lots of studies and statistics that have investigated exactly that. So you can find these numbers online.

Thomas Kohler:
And what are the typical customers then working with you?

Kimberly Breuer:
Typical customers. So, to be honest, in the very beginning we thought, hey, maybe there is a certain industry that needs it the most. But what we’ve seen until now is that it’s very industry agnostic. So it’s independent of the industry you’re in. Every company actually needs mental health. And the topic is present everywhere. But we have a certain ideal customer profile, which is between 210,000 FTE. So we’re mostly not working with large enterprises, also not with super small companies. So really in the middle.

Companies that are focusing on employee retention, lowering the fluctuation, attracting talent, but also increasing satisfaction and health in the company to lower sick leave or to really raise the productivity.

Thomas Kohler:
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And do you also have some stories you maybe can share a name or need to, but where you could also showcase after a pilot or after rolling something out? What were the positive effects of focusing on mental health or also providing psychologists or different sessions?

Kimberly Breuer:
Yes. So first of all, there are different case studies also online. You can also find them on our website. And then we have also done a bigger study together with University of Berlin where we really investigated an experimental group and a control group. And we followed these people over a period of three months, which is super short. So we were even curious, do we even see effects within three months because it’s a short period for psychological effects. But we did. And we even found significant effects of, yeah, whatever, with a high effect effectiveness.

And the significant effects that we found were, first of all, and that was not surprising, that we were able to decrease depression symptoms significantly for these people. But another factor that we didn’t expect so much was that we decreased the turnover intention. So what we found is that users who use Likeminded are afterwards more bonded to the employer and want to stay and feel more loyal to their employer than before. And I think that’s a super interesting effect, especially in the times of labor law, a labor law shortage, where a lot of people are looking for people and try to retain their best talent because people do feel a lot appreciated and also high trust when the employer is actually caring about them. I think that’s a very interesting effect for a lot of companies out there.

Thomas Kohler:
And I think I also had some calculations going on with some customers where we calculated the cost of attrition, a missile as well, right? And I think it was at around lower 60 git numbers depending on the function, size and whatever. But it costs a lot, right? If you just calculate it and quantify it. But I can also imagine if you hire somebody, everything fits and then somebody is poaching or a person is leaving because of I don’t know what reason. So this can really be very, very helpful. And I also think that companies that can retain talent and also can prove that they can also grow and add value to the economy and so on. That’s really not so easy to accomplish and to achieve, but also very outstanding if you have there, I would say quite stable and long term numbers.

Kimberly Breuer:
100% and also to keep in mind, since we all started to become hybrid companies, where most of the people stay at home like two or three days a week. Of course, the identification with their own employers is decreasing a bit, right? Because people are not that present anymore. Maybe the relationships are not that strong anymore to co workers and so forth. And that’s another factor why a lot of people might not be as loyal anymore, because they are not as close anymore. And I think investing in initiatives that show that you care about your people is a great factor to compensate for that.

Thomas Kohler:
What do you think about the four days workweek?

Kimberly Breuer:
That’s a very good question. I’m even accompanying right now the german four day workweek study. There is a huge study going on where some experimental companies are participating. I don’t know if you heard of that, but I actually became part of the advisory board, not because I’m a big fan of it, but because I’m interested and because I want to be close to the results and what we learn about it. Because I have to say I have two, two hearts in my chest, because first of all, I’m a psychologist and I do know all the studies about productivity where it’s proven that if we take enough breaks, if we do not work more than 8 hours a day with breaks in between, we can actually be productive. But everything beyond that is actually not as productive anymore because at some point your brain just cannot handle it anymore. Yeah, of course, they are always outliers. So from a psychological standpoint, I do believe there’s something about this four day workweek.

But I have to say there is also the entrepreneurial mind and heart in me. As an entrepreneur and founder myself, I wouldn’t know how to represent a four day workweek in our company, for example, and how to stay competitive, because when we look at our competitors in the greater market, also in different countries, in the US, even in the asian markets, where people would never start working four days a week, you are a bit skeptical as an entrepreneur and a founder, whether this might work and whether you don’t have a competitive disadvantage about it. And there is one more aspect that I’d like to emphasize or maybe give as food for thought. I think this four day work week could have a positive effect in the short and in the midterm, because in the beginning you would have this positive effect of something is new. Now I have one day more as a weekend, and maybe not everyone in the country has this long weekend but you. So your Friday is actually quite empty, quite quiet, so you have a lot of time to focus on yourself, to do some self care. But now imagine everyone in the country would do it and we would have a weekend starting from Thursday evening until Sunday. So it becomes normal after a while.

And my hypothesis is that once it has become normal, we would be just as busy with social activities and leisure times on the weekends as we are now. So we wouldn’t have this Friday really for ourselves anymore, but go party with friends, which is great, but still is no self care. And then at some point maybe people would start complaining, hey, actually we need only three days per week to work, and I think maybe it’s the wrong focus to start cutting time and instead start learning how to become better in self care, how to become better to balance your work and your personal life. I think that would be my starting point. Instead of cutting the time.

Thomas Kohler:
What is your framework for that? Or what did you see work best?

Kimberly Breuer:
Also here? I have to say I think I’m still figuring it out. Being a founder is definitely a way that you choose or way of living that is filled with a lot of work and indefinitely also from time to time, very stressful. So I’m still figuring out how can I balance that. And what I figured out for myself is I think there are phases in life. So I think my goal is not to have twelve months of perfect work life balance, but I rather take it as a sprint and then as a marathon from time to time. So sometimes there will be month, three months, for example, April, my June, is for me a sprint phase where I know it will be a lot, where I know there will be many conferences, there will be many asks, and still my work in the company. And I will just have to manage to have enough energy for that time. And afterwards I will make sure I will take some breaks to then re, you know, regenerate and also to energize again for another sprint time. And that is a concept that so far is working well for me. And another thing that’s very important that I learned over time is setting clear boundaries and communicating them.

Thomas Kohler:
Saying no is hard, but effective. Thanks, Kim. It was a great episode and I really appreciate your time.

Kimberly Breuer:
Thank you, Thomas. It was great to be.