Karishma Patel Buford

▶0:01HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Karishma to the Built By People Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could tell us a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:55GuestAbsolutely, Dave. Thank you so much, first of all, for having me. Uh, excited to be here. So my journey has had quite a few twists and turns. I started my career as a clinical psychologist, and during my postdoc, I started seeing various patients through our employee assistance program at the University of Pennsylvania and realized that I wanted to move from the clinical world to executive coaching. So, I actually joined Korn Ferry PDI at the time. I spent 4 years there doing many, many assessments with leaders and learned the science of leadership globally, partnering across industries, before I went internal to a very large defense company, BAE Systems, 100,000 employees globally, joined the US subsidiary as manager of talent management, Ultimately supported succession planning and high potential programs before I joined Groupon. I wanted a really exciting turnaround situation, and I got it at Groupon, where I was hired to lead global talent development, and 30 days later, I was asked to lead global DEI, and a year later, global recruiting. So my team went from 10 to 100 pretty much overnight. But that experience actually helped prepare me for my first chief people officer role, which was at a fintech company based in Chicago. Spent 3 years there building the HR team from the ground up, took the company public via SPAC, and then I was ready for my next challenge. And by then, we had had a global pandemic, and the space of mental health had completely shifted in terms of the employer's role in supporting mental health. And Spring Health opportunity came up, and it was truly the perfect intersection of my life's work to go back to the poll as a clinical psychologist, but then also have the perspective of the buyer from a benefits perspective. And COVID gave the gift of being able to be in a role like this and not have to be in the same city. So I started when we were in Chicago and have now moved to Atlanta, and I'm in New York pretty often, and it'll be 3 years in April.

▶3:09HostLove it. How do you foresee the role of mental health evolving in workplace environments over the next few years, and particularly in 2025?

▶3:18GuestYeah, absolutely. So, you know, once, as I mentioned, after COVID, we had many of the early adopters recognize the importance of mental health and supporting employees in mental health. And, and I think the, the continued focus is going to be recognizing that link of supporting our employees, it's the right and empathic thing to do, of course, and there has to be a real strong business reason as well. Both of these things need to come together, and I think that that message is being heard more clearly and more loudly around when people are at their mentally healthiest. We know this, right? When we're feeling anxious or depressed, we're not doing our best work. We're not our best selves. We're not as engaged and productive, and the being able to be your best yourself means you're doing your best in the workplace and in life. And so I think that that message, and truly the ROI that comes with that, is going to be a message that we continue to double down on and the importance of supporting your employees in a time when the world is constantly challenging us, right, with various pressures, this remote world, political divisiveness, global, right, war, and what is coming at us. And so there's never been a more important time. And I think that those challenges and and pressures will continue to come at us.

▶4:38HostCan you share some examples of how leading with empathy can positively impact company culture and employee wellbeing?

▶4:45GuestYeah, and I'll talk about a few examples. One, as it relates to mental health in particular, there's something that we do at Spring Health that it's probably my favorite thing we do from an employee experience standpoint. And we have mental health summits where we have panels with senior leaders and our team members talking about their mental health journey. And what this does is create a deep sense of compassion and empathy and permission for people to actually talk about who they are, their mental health experience, the support that they need, and create that community. And the power of hearing from senior leaders is game-changing, right? Because there is a perception of senior leaders, you have to be you know, always in check and not necessarily show vulnerability, but there's so much power, so much power in connection when senior leaders talk about their mental health journey, their challenges, and their, they, they show vulnerability. So I think that those two things go hand in hand. Another example of empathy is around change management. So I, I, I think it's so critical to deeply invest in change management when you have so much change, which is every organization of every size. Right? The heart of change management is understanding what does it mean for the person who's impacted by that change? And that starts with empathy, right? Putting yourself in the shoes of that person and understanding people may not agree with the change, but they need to understand why. They need to understand the purpose and they need to understand how they're impacted. And so the core of all change management, I think, starts with empathy.

▶6:20HostWhat are your thoughts on the integration of AI and therapy? And how do you think it will shape the future of mental health services?

▶6:28GuestYeah, so I go back to when I was seeing patients many, many years ago and how could— now I think about that in terms of how could AI help me, right, as a clinician and as a provider. And I think the very first thing that AI can do is help optimize care by empowering the provider. Even things as basic as notes, right? And being more efficient and being able to capture exactly the most critical points in a therapy session to optimize the care and the intervention that comes from it. Personalized matching, right? Which is something that certainly we do at Spring Health when it comes to precision mental healthcare and making sure that people have exactly the right intervention at the right time when they need it the most. And so continuing to leverage AI to enhance that capability is something we're going to see more and more of. And truly, I think it's just the beginning when it comes to the role of AI in therapy.

▶7:27HostHow can organizations tailor their mental health benefits to address the diverse needs of their employees?

▶7:35GuestYes, it's never one size fits all. That is so understanding that it's not just the here's the benefit, let's drop it in. We did our part. Every employee has this many sessions. It's really thinking about holistic care. And so 20% of the workforce is neurodivergent. We have 14 million people who need more complex support and specialty care. So eating disorders, complex PTSD, right? Substance use. So making sure that the solution and the intervention matches what the needs are, and in this case, the diagnosis is really, really important. And that starts with understanding, really understanding the diversity of your workforce. What are team members asking for? We do that through engagement surveys. We call them Thriving at Spring Health. And so really understanding, we do specific benefit surveys as well. So really understanding what do people need and what will help them do their best work at our company.

▶8:38HostWhat is the sandwich generation and what are strategies that companies implement to better support employees who are part of that generation balancing responsibilities for both their children and really parents?

▶8:52GuestExactly. That's it. That's the sandwich generation, right? You're in that group where you're really toggling and trying to do both. And one is challenging in and of itself, right? I'm a mom of 3. My kids are 9, 7, and 3. And, you know, my parents are elderly. I'm not there yet on that part of the generation, but it'll come, right? And so you're balancing all of these needs while having a potentially intense career or full-time job. And so how can companies and employers support that group? I think flexibility is certainly important in this new remote world. It— I strongly believe it's less about hours that you're working, right, in an exempt population, hours that you're working, but performance and How are you delivering? And so it has to be flexibility and compatibility. So flex— offering that flexibility of when you're going to work or when you might need a few hours off in the afternoon to pick up the kids from school or to support your parents. I think that is important, and negotiating that in a compatible way is important. That piece sometimes gets lost, is how do you actually negotiate with your manager and with your team around what the expectations are and how you can kind of try to do it all. And then, of course, the benefits of things like therapy, things like childcare, right? Things that we do at Spring Health in providing the benefits that can help be additional resources for team members is also critical.

▶10:24HostCharisma, any parting advice that you'd like to share with our audience?

▶10:28GuestAny parting advice? I think probably what I always say is listen, listen, listen, and act. Don't ask the question unless you're going to do something about it and close the loop with your team.

▶10:41HostKarishma, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure having you involved.

▶10:46GuestThank you so much, Dave. Appreciate it.