We Need to Talk About Mental Health

WineJobs.com Summit, November 2023

According to John Hopkins Medicine, about 1 in 4 adults suffer from a diagnosable mental health disorder in a given year, yet we’ve heard from a number of HR executives that they’re seeing low percentages of employee utilization of the mental health resources offered to them through EAP and other resources. Unfortunately, there’s a stigma around asking for and or utilizing mental health resources, plus some employees might not be used to or comfortable with online care options. We’ll review steps on how to offer holistic mental health resources, and how you can help reduce the stigma of mental health at work and encourage use of these resources.

Presenters

  • Executive Vice President, Trefethen Family Vineyards

    Vanessa Shimer is the Executive Vice President at Trefethen Family Vineyards a family-owned estate vineyard and winery in the Oak Knoll District of Napa Valley.

    Shimer started her career in human resources in hospitality with Auberge Resorts at Calistoga Ranch and Auberge du Soleil. Prior to joining Trefethen, she was the Director of Human Resources at Carneros Resort and Spa in Napa Valley. She first joined the wine industry in 2014 with Constellation Brands where she supported their Napa winery collection as well as their winemaking division.

    Shimer has over 15 years of experience in human resources and earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Sonoma State University with a concentration in Human Resources.

  • Founder, A Balanced Glass

    Rebecca Hopkins is an experienced wine communications strategist, speaker, moderator, host and writer. Raised in South Australia, and a graduate of wine business from the University of Adelaide, Rebecca spent 15 years in the Australian wine industry in sales, marketing, distribution and communication roles before relocating to San Francisco with Constellation Brands as the Vice President Public Relations and National Events in 2007. Five years later, she joined national fine wine importer, Folio Fine Wine Partners, leading the US market communications strategy and programming for the 20+ family-owned producers prior to striking out on her own in 2022. Today Rebecca represents small, luxury global wine producers in developing and sharing their unique brand stories.

    Rebecca has moderated and presented speaker panels in the US, Italy and Australia, and her work has been published in Wine Business Monthly (US), SevenFiftyDaily, Meininger’s Wine Business International magazine and Wine Business Monthly (AU).

    With a three-decade career in the wine business spanning Australia and the U.S., Rebecca founded and launched A Balanced Glass in March 2018 with a mission to provide education and resources to wine industry colleagues to help maintain health and wellbeing while working in the beverage alcohol industry.

  • Founder, Healthy Pour

    Laura Louise Green, LPC is a psychotherapist, organizational consultant, and the founder of Healthy Pour. After working in creative, professional, and precarious industries for two decades, Laura utilizes her knowledge and skills as a trained mental health professional to facilitate training, growth, and healing within the workplace - hoping to create safe and healthy environments.

    Shortly after receiving her license to practice as a psychotherapist, the death of Anthony Bourdain prompted Laura to turn her sights on the hospitality industry to provide free psychoeducation to the community at large. This psychoeducation eventually transformed and evolved into Healthy Pour, a consultancy that helps organizations and professional communities address issues of well-being in the workplace. Since then, Healthy Pour has expanded to service all workspaces and industries, with a fondness for creative, high-pressure, and precarious careers and working environments.

  • Vice President of Employee Benefits, USI Insurance

    Emily is an Employee Benefits Consultant with USI Insurance Services. She has over a decade of experience in the wellness industry and employee benefits sphere. Her focus is on partnering with clients to help identify and implement long term strategies that balance cost control with culture and retention.

    Emily earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology from Texas A&M University. She currently serves as the Vice President of Professional Development for Sacramento Area Human Resources Association (SAHRA) and serves on the Board of Directors for United Way California Capital Region. Emily is involved in her local church, local schools and Finance Executives International. Originally from St. Louis, she now resides in Lincoln, California with her husband and children.

A Balanced Glass Community Survey

“Can Working In Wine Be Good For You?”

We surveyed the A Balanced Glass Community to see what are the challenges when it comes to managing health and working in the wine business. This is what they told us.

The State of Things

Books we love

  • Dare to Lead

    BY BRENÉ BROWN

    In this book, Brené Brown explores the world of work through our emotional life, dissecting why leaders are armored in cultures of scarcity and toxicity, and the impact of vulnerable, empathetic, and thoughtful leadership. This is a must read for anyone interested in the intersection of mental health, emotional well-being, and success in the workplace.

  • Permission to Feel

    BY MARC BRACKETT

    Our emotions impact our relationships, behavior, and well-being, so it’s surprising that we not only neglect to learn about our emotional lives but actually suppress them. Marc Brackett offers a wealth of psychoeducation about emotions, how to build emotional intelligence, and ways to implement emotional intelligence throughout our lives.

  • The Burnout Challenge

    BY CHRISTINA MASLACH & MICHAEL P. LEITER

    Despite popular beliefs that burnout is treatable through rest, time away, and individual interventions, but it’s actually an organizational and environmental issue that requires cultural and institutional exploration. Maslach & Leiter are the premier researchers on the subject, and offer expansive and helpful strategies to reduce burnout in your organization & community.

  • The Fearless Organization

    BY AMY EDMONDSON

    While the concept of psychological safety isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s certainly gained traction in the last few years. As socio-organizational trends change, we’re seeing a significant growth in communication systems, how we feel at work, and how we feel with each other. The fostering of a psychologically safe workspace can help improve well-being, collaboration efforts, innovation, and belonging. Must read!

  • The Power of Giving Away Power

    BY MATTHEW BARZUN

    A quick though essential read, Matthew Barzon explores social power dynamics and challenges traditional hierarchical models of power distribution within organizations and communities of practice. Rooted in interpersonal and social communication, this book encourages leaders to not horde their power, but instead give their power away in an effort to transform the workplace.

  • Mindset

    BY CAROL DWECK

    Anyone embarking in change - be it organizational, behavioral, or social - needs to read this book. Dr. Carol Dweck’s work on Mindset significantly disrupted how we understand motivation and behavior. Understanding mindset helps us to identify barriers to change as well as our strengths, making the change process more growth oriented.

Illuminating Articles

Helpful Worksheets

worksheets for work/life balance, satisfaction, and identity

  • Life Satisfaction Exercise pt 1

    It’s too east to let work take over your life—especially when you love what you do. This exercise will help to visualize how you use your time and with the help of included thought prompts, think about how you can find more balance in your life.

  • Daily Worksheet for Life Balance

    For those of us who love to do lists but always feel crummy when we don’t finish them, this is the sheet for you. It includes limited and focused to do space, micro-journaling, life balance visualization for time and mental space, and trackers for emotional and physical nourishment. This can be used daily, or when finding balance is particularly challenging.

  • Life Satisfaction Exercise pt 2

    An accompaniment to the Life Satisfaction Exercise, this sheet give space to further assess how satisfied you are in different areas of your life. When used after Pt 1, it creates a clearer picture of the aspects of your life that might require more attention. Includes thought prompts for further processing and discovery.

  • Identity Building Worksheet

    Our work has a sneaky way of taking over our time, resources, and even our identities. Especially in hospitality or the arts, we whittle our identities down to simply bartender or chef or brand ambassador or actor, when we’re so much more than that. This exercise will help you to explore all that you are beyond your job.

worksheets for building our emotional skills

  • Emotional Processing Worksheet

    Why are we so great at identifying and articulating flavors and tasting notes, but can’t do the same with our emotions? This worksheet is formatted like a tasting grid for you to work through. Remember, building emotional intelligence is a skill that you can build! This worksheet will help you.

  • Mindful Drinking Worksheet

    For most people—especially those working in the hospitality, food, & drinks industry—their relationship with alcohol is multifaceted and complicated. This worksheet is useful when you’re hoping to untangle the “whys” around how you engage with your relationship with alcohol.

  • Coping with Grief

    Grief is an overwhelming experience, but especially challenging for those who utilize emotional labor in their careers. This guide helps to better understand grief and how to healthily move through and cope.

worksheets for rethinking, reimagining, and problem-solving at work

  • Healthy Pour Workday Processing Sheet

    This worksheet can be used to not only process the challenges and wins of the day, but is a wonderful tool to communicate feedback and needs to management. Use it as part of a checkout SOP or keep a journal for yourself to build emotional intelligence and coping skills. So many options; the sky is the limit.

  • The Perfect Workday Exercise

    We often get too deep in the woods to see the trees, and sometimes it helps to zoom out a bit. At work this means we can get accustomed to challenges that are unnecessary. This is a powerful feedback tool, but also helps personnel to disrupt their day to day challenges by asking: what if everything goes right?

  • Intervention Development Guide

    When addressing issues in the workplace, we need to look at the problem from multiple angles, which means they need to be addressed from multiple angles as well. This worksheet helps to approach a problem from individual, organizational, training, and community interventions.

the healthy pour institute is a social learning network: an educational platform integrated with social networking capabilities all in one place.

help improve well-being in the workplace

Our FREE Workplace Well-being Kickstarter Course is an easy way to learn accessible and immediate strategies for improving your workplace.

Who is this for? Well, anyone who wants to learn more about how to positively impact a space! Leaders, emerging leaders, and advocates are all welcome!