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Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini, I, I, I think I might have broken my foot. I we’re not gonna be able to record today. I gotta go see the doctor and find out

Gini Dietrich: because you broke your foot.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I just, I got frustrated, you know, you know, in our past conversation that we were having, and I just kicked something and I, I think that it’s maybe broken.

So I’m, I’m in remarkably little pain though, apparently, because I’m still smiling.

Gini Dietrich: It’s like two, three weeks later. Yeah. And you’re,

Chip Griffin: yeah.

Gini Dietrich: And you’re, yeah. Here, right.

Chip Griffin: But no, in, in all seriousness, , we are going to talk today about how agency owners should handle it when they have employees who have physical health concerns, mental health concerns.

They might be one-offs, they might be ongoing. And this is something that a, a lot of the, the owners that I’ve been talking with this year seem to have… At least they feel like they have more instances of this that they have to deal with. I suspect that’s not the case. It’s just recency bias, on things.

But I can certainly tell you that over the years I’ve had a lot of these issues, to deal with, with team members. And it’s run the whole spectrum. It’s been everything from, you know, extreme mental health issues to extreme health issues, and you know, you gotta try to figure out how to navigate those and, and as an owner.

Particularly in a small business of any kind, that can be a real difficulty.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I, and I would say, I mean, I feel like it’s more prevalent now as well, and come, some of that could be recency bias, but I also think we’re much more open, especially on the mental health side of things about that and about self-care and ensuring that you’re going to a therapist and things like that.

And the first time this actually hit my business was about five years ago when our younger employees would say things like, oh, I can’t make that meeting. I’m, I have a, an appointment with my therapist. And I’d be like…. During the day? Okay. And I remember at the time, and it was during the pandemic, so everything was kind of a shit show, but I remember at the time thinking, really, you’re making appointments with your therapist during the day?

And now I’m to a point where I’m like, okay, if that’s what you need to do. And that’s when they, you can get in and go. But, I do think that some of it is because we, especially the younger generations, do a really nice job of being really open about these are the things that I’m dealing with. These are the things that I’m working on, and here’s how you as my employer can help.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I think that’s a, that’s a great point. And, and it’s also, I think there’s a broader awareness of these yes issues, particularly on the mental health side, but I think on both the mental and physical health side, people are much more open about these things than they were when we were coming up.

In the workforce.

Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chip Griffin: You know, when, when I was first starting out, you know, you, most people, if they were seeing a therapist would never admit to it. Most wouldn’t even indicate, they might say they were going to the doctor, but usually that meant job interview. Right. And if they were actually going to the doctor, they probably didn’t even mention it.

And, and instead they found some other way to work it into the schedule. So, yes. So I think part of it is that, that, you know, particularly for agency owners who are, you know, more of our generation. It’s just that people never talked about this before. So you hear people talking about it.

That didn’t mean that those challenges didn’t exist before, but you weren’t certain about it. You, you’d be sitting there kind of guessing. And I certainly had a number of those 20 years ago where I’d have an employee was clearly having something going on, but it wasn’t really clear what. You know, I, I think it is helpful now because with employees being more open, at least you know what you’re dealing with.

Gini Dietrich: Yes.

Chip Griffin: And you’re not guessing wrong where someone’s just kind of, you know, disappearing for stretches of time and, and you’re not sure why. I had one who I thought had a, a very serious health issue of some kind, and it turned out to be a, a personal relationship issue, that was being dealt with. Wildly different things.

Right. And, and causes me to, to have wildly different concerns. Correct. But back then you didn’t talk about them.

Gini Dietrich: Not at all. Yeah. You didn’t talk about it at all. And I think you’re right that you sort of had to guess. And I’ll say that, you know, in the last five years I’ve done a lot of work myself as a business owner to understand how to support different types of both mental and physical health challenges so that I can be, be a better employer. But it’s been a learning curve. And it’s been a lot of coaching that I’ve had to get on my own to understand like, if you have a person who’s dealing with this, this is the, and you know, I think the big ones are ADHD, right?

How, how do you deal with somebody in the workforce who has ADHD or ADD? How do you deal with somebody who is on the spectrum? You know, how do you, how do you handle other types of, of mental health issues like, bipolar or things like that. So I’ve spent a lot of time as an, as an employer understanding how to manage and lead those types of the, the people who have those types of things.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I would throw anxiety into the mix is a, is a big one. Yep. Depression, that, that rears its head in the professional world.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And, and so I, I think a lot of this goes back to things we’ve talked about in the past. You know, where you have to, to learn how to manage each employee individually.

Mm-hmm. ’cause they not every there’s no one size fits all management technique. Certainly there are some general principles that you can follow, but you really do have to customize the plan to the individual and what they respond to. Because some of them, if you, if you raise any kind of constructive feedback, they may freak out, right?

Yep. And just be like, oh, I, I can’t, I can’t handle that. And so you may have to, to find ways to, to gently tread into that territory. And I’ve had owners say, well, I don’t want to, I just need to be able to tell them what I need. Okay. That’s what you need. And, and if, if that works for you, that’s great, but if it doesn’t…

If it doesn’t get what you want from that team member, who cares whether it’s the way that you want to do it or not, right? You get to pick, you can either keep working with that individual and, and work with them in the way that suits them best, or you can do it your way and, and either lose the employee or lose their productivity.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think one of the things that we’ve always done really well is, you know, personality tests, especially when somebody starts, give them a personality test so you understand sort of where they fit in the bigger scheme. And I think adding in this other piece of it is really important now so that you understand not just the personality, but how, how they deal with things.

And if there’s anything that’s gonna cause them to, you know, we, we had, I had an employee for a while who, if you gave her direct feedback, she would spiral. And, and even if it was like, We just, I want you to be thinking about this or want you, like it wasn’t cons, it wasn’t criticism, it was just feedback.

She would completely spiral and she couldn’t function, so I had to find different ways to provide feedback that she was able to accept it and not spiral into this mound of depression where she couldn’t function.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and, and I, I think that, you know, we all need to, to remember that there are, there are different layers to this as well that we need to be thinking about.

Yes. Because certainly there’s, there’s the practical of, you know, how do you get the most from your team members and, and get the results that you need for your clients and for your business. But there’s also legal and regulatory issues that often crop into this. That we need to be aware of and sensitive to.

So, yep. You know, one of the things that I always say is, you know, particularly if, if you’re having a really difficult time with someone and there is some health component of some sort, whether it’s physical or mental, or otherwise. It behooves you to get some professional advice from an HR consultant.

Yes. An employment lawyer. Yes. Someone who can help you navigate those things because things that, that you think might be obvious and reasonable and common sense just might not be.

Gini Dietrich: Yes.

Chip Griffin: And, those are the kinds of things that can get you into a lot of trouble. Mm-hmm. Particularly in 2025. Mm-hmm. So really pay attention to that sort of thing.

Gini Dietrich: Yes, indeed. Yeah, I mean I think that’s really sound advice is to really understand and you know, you have Patrick on every once in a while and he’s great for just bouncing those kinds of ideas off of, to be able to understand like. What should we be thinking about? How should we handle this? Help me create some structure around this.

Create a policy around it. And then it’s something that if you have a team, if you have people who are leading or managing other people, they have to understand that too. So it’s not just the training that sort of the states require, like, you know, the state of Illinois requires sexual harassment training and mental health training, and there’s one other.

I can’t remember what it’s called, but it, the state of Illinois requires that of everybody who’s working in Illinois. So it’s on top of those things too that you need to talk to an HR professional about what kinds of things that you, that you and your leaders need to go through so that they’re cognizant of what, what things they’re doing that might affect the people that they’re leading.

Chip Griffin: Right. And, and there’s a difference between long-term health issues and short-term health issues and Right. And how you handle ’em. And a lot of it frankly, starts with my first advice always when, when dealing with employees with challenges is say, look, start by being human. Right. So, so accept that particularly, particularly for short-term acute things.

Give people space. Give people time.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And, and it is if, if there are going to be prolonged repeated absences, that’s something that you need to deal with differently than someone has, has either themselves had a health crisis or in some cases it might be a family member has had or is having a health crisis.

If it’s short term, just do your best to roll with it because that’s the human compassionate thing to do and that will come back and benefit you over time. If it’s going to be months or years long that, that this is gonna go on for, now you need to try to figure out how to find some common ground with that team member that is, you know, certainly within the law and the rules that you have to follow, but also that makes sense for the business. And these are not always easy, particularly for small businesses, because for us, if we have someone who is, you know, either out completely or you know, partially absent for a few weeks, that’s a much bigger deal than it is for a thousand person business.

Gini Dietrich: Right, right.

Chip Griffin: And, and I’ve certainly, I think I’ve shared on, on the show before how in the past I’ve had numerous occasions where I’ve had people, particularly, who had to take extended maternity leaves for various reasons. That can be really difficult because certainly as an, as an employer, I wanted to bring the person back.

Legally, I have to be able to, in most cases, bring that person back. But somehow I need to get that work covered. Right. And it’s not the same as having someone gone for a week or two. We can just ask everybody else to step up and put in some overtime. Right. Right. And yet, small businesses generally are not able to, to bring in temporary help in the same way that a larger employer might say, Hey, bring you in. You’ll work three or four months on this, and then you know, we’ll find another account for you to work on, or something like that, right?

So it is much more challenging, but you’ve gotta try to find the best way forward that that really serves your interest as a business, while also respecting the individual and their needs.

Gini Dietrich: I think that also brings up a good point about the agency owner themselves, because in the last couple of years I’ve had four, four friends diagnosed with breast cancer, four, and they all run businesses. And when I went through it with my first girlfriend, you know, we kind of set the structure of here’s how you’ll manage it inside the agency. Here’s what you’ll ask your team to do. She actually brought in a consultant to run the agency for her for about nine months while she was going through treatment. And then here’s how you communicate it to clients. And she, and she didn’t lose any clients because of the way she handled it and ensured that everything was covered.

And so I went through that with her, and then I had my next girlfriend call and say. I’ve just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I said, I have the template. So I’ve been able to help all four go through the process of understanding that you probably are going to have to hire somebody to help you run the agency, or maybe you have somebody internally that can step up to that, right?

But there is going to be somebody that needs to take your, fill your, your shoes, so to speak. There’s a way that you communicate that to your employees. There’s a way that you can consistently communicate with your employees so they always know what’s going on. ’cause it’s scary for employees. They think they’re gonna lose their job.

At the same time that they’re scared for you. Right. And then how do you communicate that with clients? For the most part, most clients are pretty cool about it. They don’t, they, their only concern is, is the work going to continue to be done and done well? And you know, and if you’ve set up your agency the way that Chip and I have talked about over the years, which is where it’s not solely the reliant on you, then it’s not, it’s less scary for the, for the clients. But again, consistently communicating, helping them understand what the process is, and then just keeping them updated because they’re gonna wanna know.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I mean we always say this, but it’s, it’s true that, that most clients are far more understanding of challenges that arise, whether it’s our own health issues and employees health issues. Right. Employee turnover, mistakes. What employee clients are generally far more understanding and accepting than we give them credit for.

Absolutely. And that’s because there are, there are the select few who are not, and, and those are the ones that tend to stick in our memories, Uhhuh. And so we, we, we tend to, to overthink that and, and believe that, that more clients are like that. And the reality is that the vast majority are not.

The vast majority are human beings who understand that stuff happens.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. And in fact in all those four relationships, there was only one client out of all four that was a jerk about it. And I gently suggested that maybe they shouldn’t be a client. Yeah. And I don’t think they are today.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I mean, I, I think that, that as an owner, if you go through these sorts of things, that also helps you have a better template in your own mind for how to work with team members.

Who have issues. even if it’s not a one-to-one, you know, may, maybe you’ve been through, you know, a heart issue or a health, a cancer issue, or a mental health issue, that whatever it is, those all help you in dealing with it. Doesn’t, doesn’t mean you can’t, if you’ve been perfectly pristine, healthy for your entire life.

It doesn’t mean you can’t deal with those things, but those are, you should take lessons from your own experiences and try to think through, you know, what challenges did you have? Yep. And, and how would you have wanted to be treated? Yeah. Because that will often serve as a good roadmap for you in how to work with your team and to, to show that understanding while still realizing that, that there is still a job that needs to be done in some fashion.

And, and so I think a lot of it is to the extent that you can. Get an understanding from the employee what, what it means professionally. You don’t, you don’t want to, and you probably shouldn’t ask a lot of questions about whatever the actual underlying issue or issues might be. All you need to know is what does it mean for me as the employer?

What does it mean for your availability? How can we help you to make sure that we’re covering things, that we’re planning appropriately? Maybe we can shift your schedule in some fashion, and we do have to accept that, you know, you to the point that you made earlier on in this episode about, you know, someone going off to see a therapist during the workday.

The reality is, and my wife and I were talking about this recently, there are a lot of professionals out there who don’t maintain schedules that are particularly friendly.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: To the workforce.

Gini Dietrich: That is true. Yes.

Chip Griffin: And, and we were talking about the specific example of like dentists, right? How many dentists are open on weekends?

Gini Dietrich: None.

Chip Griffin: Very, very few. Yes. If I was ever a dentist, I’d be open on the weekends. Right? Because guess what? That’s more convenient mm-hmm. For a lot of people.

Gini Dietrich: And evenings, yes.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And evenings. Mm-hmm. And it’s sort of like, you know, you, you drive people, people complain about, you know how Main Street America, the shops are disappearing.

Well, part of that is because if you go to a lot of Main Streets in America on a Saturday or Sunday, they’re all closed. And I get that, that owners want to have normal weekends.

Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes.

Chip Griffin: But guess what? That’s, that’s when your customers typically can come.

Gini Dietrich: Correct.

Chip Griffin: Depending on, you know, who your target audience is, right?

It’s the same thing, you know, we were, people I think know that I have a side business of, of doing photography. And we’re working on, you know, this is the peak season right now for senior portraits and that sort of thing, and we had a parent who said to, to Jen, who does the bookings for it. She said she offered up some weekend dates.

Oh, Chip does these on the weekends? Well, yeah. But there are a lot of photographers who don’t, who won’t? They wanna work Monday through Friday.

Gini Dietrich: Well, then they need a different job.

Chip Griffin: I get that impulse. But you know what, that’s a much more difficult time to get, you know, students and families or whomever together. And there are, there are genres of photography that, that don’t require that, right?

If you wanna do professional headshots and those kinds of things, those are much easier to do during the week. You’re not gonna get someone, you know, who wants their headshot typically on the weekend. Happens occasionally, but it’s, it’s much more common to do that during the work week.

But when you’re talking about more personal ones. You’ve got to set up your business around when your customers want you. With employees, you need to start thinking about, you know, how can, can you accommodate the fact that most of the, the business world apparently doesn’t think the same way that you or I might. Yeah. And so if the only time that there’s availability to go to the doctor is during the week, you need to make that available to your team members and not make them feel guilty about having to take some time off during the week to do those things.

No, that’s, that’s just because we’re all working much more flexible schedules today, whether, whether we as employers like it or not.

Gini Dietrich: Right. That’s exactly right. One of the things I, you brought up maternity leave earlier. And I think that that’s a really good lesson for most business, for most agency owners, because there will be a time where you have to give parental leave.

And the first time it happened to me, I remember freaking out because we needed to hire somebody to fill that role ’cause she was going to be out for at least three months. But I also couldn’t afford to be paying for both, and so I invested in long and short-term disability for all our employees so that when things come up, they have they, and so they, they can have it on their own, of course, but we also did it through the business so that when things came up.

I had that ability to pay them while they were off on whatever leave they needed, but also have the budget to be able to hire somebody temporary to fill that role. So that was one of the big saving graces for me, is having, providing that, investing in that insurance for my team.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and look, I mean, a, a lot of things have improved in, in recent years in handling these kinds of short term coverage situations because, you know, we’re, we’re not in an environment where the short term replacement has to show up in the office.

You know, 20 years ago when you were doing this, you, you wouldn’t really dream of having a replacement who worked remotely in most cases. Now, you certainly can. And there’s a lot more people who are open to taking those kinds of short term engagements than there were a couple of decades ago. So you, you certainly do have a lot more flexibility to cover them.

You do have the cost issue, right, because you, you know, you can’t double pay. And obviously a lot of small businesses simply don’t pay for parental leave. Which, look, if you, if you’re not in a position to be able to do that, I, I’m not gonna fault you for that. Right. If you’re able to, to put together something where you can offer disability insurance, that would cover during parental leave situations, that’s fantastic and you should certainly be looking into that.

But either way, you have a lot more options today to fill those gaps, and you shouldn’t hesitate to do that when you know it’s going to be a fairly well-defined prolonged absence. Absolutely. Because that, that makes things easier on everybody, on your team.

And, and I can tell you from experience asking everybody to step up for months on end, that’s just, that’s not sustainable.

It’s not sustainable.

Even if they say, of course I’m willing to help out, you know, Sally or Joe or whoever it is. Yeah. They, they’re gonna end up resenting them to some degree, you know, by, by week 11 or 12.

Gini Dietrich: Oh yeah, for sure. And you will too, because everybody’s gonna be burned out and exhausted. Absolutely. Right.

Chip Griffin: Right. And, and we have to, I mean, we have to keep that in mind too, that, you know, there are, that, that people are feeling more burned out at times, and we need to understand why that is. And I, I think in some cases it, it may be, this won’t be popular, but I, I, I think that some people have been coddled, in their lives.

And so they’re not used to having to, to work hard for a full 40, right? That does happen not nearly as often as most owners think, though. Most often when you have an employee who is feeling burned out, it’s ’cause you’re asking them to work way more than 40 hours a week. Yes. On a regular basis.

Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes.

Chip Griffin: And so you need to understand the difference. Because look, if, if someone is saying they’re burned out and they’re only working, you know, 20, 25 hours a week and they’re, you know, kind of coasting the rest of the way and that’s the actual fact, not just what you think in your head, but what they’re reporting on time sheets.

Because you are doing time tracking. Right. Right. If that’s the case, that the solution there is very different because you need to understand where that feeling of burnout is coming from. Whereas if they’re working 50 to 60 hours a week on a regular basis. You darn well know where that feeling of burnout is coming from.

Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just have to pay attention. I think you’re right. You raised the point earlier that you can’t really ask, but if they’re sharing information about their physical or mental health, you can definitely use that to help you understand how to better lead and to give them this, the resources they need to be successful.

And just be an empathetic human being because we all go through things, we all have personal things we have to deal with. We all have to go to the doctor’s office, all of us. So just be empathetic to the things that you, we all have to do. And I think you’re right too, that if you provide the flexibility to be able to do that, you create much better loyalty than you would if you said, Nope, you have to do it after 6:00 PM.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. Well, hopefully we’ve made owners feel a little bit better about these kinds of situations and understand they’re not alone and there are options and there is a path forward when you have to deal with these things for a team member. I, I know that it’s, it’s already made my foot feel better, so I don’t think I need to go to the doctor after all.

I think, I think maybe it’s not broken. Maybe that was just in my head.

Gini Dietrich: Nice full circle there.

Chip Griffin: See, sometimes I even remember what my opening was so I don’t have to wait for the transcript to find out.

Gini Dietrich: Oh, love it.

Chip Griffin: On that note, we will draw this episode to a close. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.