The City of Beverly Hills takes a mindful approach to risk management

Since 2020, risk managers have faced a new challenge: guiding their employees through the unprecedented impacts of COVID-19 even beyond the deadly virus.

One new risk emerging from the pandemic is post-COVID-19 traumatic stress disorder (PCTSD), a syndrome that develops due to the significant strains of the pandemic. Anxiety, depression, stress, isolation and panic are among the mental health issues exacerbated by the pandemic, especially among essential workers.

Sharon L’Heureux Dressel, the risk manager for the City of Beverly Hills, Calif., realized early on that the city’s employees were likely to need access to services to help them cope. She says the city has a history of being mindful of behavioral and mental health issues and proactive about offering resources in these areas to employees.

The City of Beverly Hills employs about 1,200 people, including police and fire departments, which already had access to critical incident stress debriefing services (CISD) through its third-party administrator, CorVel. These services are provided to city employees who witness a catastrophic or traumatic event to help them process the situation and develop coping mechanisms so they can return to work as soon as possible.

The Beverly Hills risk management department leveraged that existing relationship, along with relationships the city has with other community partners, to expand mental health services for city employees in the wake of the pandemic. It was one step that helped this department become one of three winners of the 2023 Workers Comp Risk Management Award for Excellence, an annual recognition program organized in partnership with the Workers’ Compensation Institute and sponsored by Sedgwick and Safety National. Read about all three winners of this year’s award in the August 2023 issue of NU Property & Casualty magazine.

“We started reaching out pretty soon after everyone went home, and we began to utilize the post-COVID-19 traumatic stress disorder services toward the end of 2020 and into 2021,” she says. “In that program, they take you through the physical, financial and emotional aspects of COVID and provide an opportunity for individuals to discuss what those things look like for them and recognize that the pandemic was a multifactor event that impacted different people in different ways.”

Employees were dealing with fear and anxiety due to the prospect of job loss, adapting to new workplace requirements including mask enforcement and monitoring park and public area closures, as well as having to face the prospect of re-integrating into the workforce after a COVID-related exposure or illness.

“When we first started building mental health and behavioral health services, it was really just in anticipation of the likely need and a desire to support our employees,” she says. “One of the things our HR management team had agreed on from the very beginning was that we wanted to encourage engagement even when the staff was now dispersed and sent home, as well as for those who couldn’t be sent home.”

Beverly Hills offered the program to some of its highly impacted employees, particularly field staff such as park rangers and code enforcement officers, firefighters and police officers. Dressel and her department also worked to ensure mental health counseling was available to employees.

“Mental health and behavioral health services nationwide are challenging to get access to,” she says. “It just takes time. If a person doesn’t have an emergency situation, they might have to wait two to four weeks to get in for an appointment.”

In addition to the CISD program, Dressel and her team also implemented a number of citywide services, including mindfulness sessions through Maple Counseling with live guided meditation and mindfulness sessions with a licensed psychologist; an eight-week, self-guided finding balance program offered by Kaiser; and a critical stress debrief program for PCTSD and critical incidents that included individual post-COVID sessions, small group PCTS debrief sessions, and critical incident debrief workshops related to the threat of workplace violence.

The expansion of mental health and wellness services has proved successful, resulting in reduced stress claims and lower costs for the city. Some of these positive trends are a result of the CISD program, which can help avoid the need for additional medical treatment such as medication, psychiatry and counseling.

Average claim frequency was down 16% in 2021 vs. 2020, and the average cost per claim came down 1% over the same time.

Police claim frequency was down 12% in 2021 compared to 2020, litigation frequency decreased by 35% in 2021 compared to 2020, and the average cost per litigated claim was down 46% in 2021 compared to 2020.

In addition, the average cost per stress claim dropped 27% in 2021. Average medical costs for the city’s stress claims in 2020 averaged $8,593 compared to $4,714 in 2021.

Getting physical

Dressel got her start in risk management in 2008 working for a California municipality and has been with the City of Beverly Hills for seven years. She leads a “small but mighty” team of five in the risk management division who handle a wide variety of responsibilities.

The risk management division also is responsible for employee benefits and leaves programming.

One of the biggest challenges she faces as a risk manager is getting employees to engage with some of the programs the risk management division offers.

Dressel says they have experienced some success with physical and behavioral challenges they have offered in partnership with Kaiser.

She adds that she loves risk management, especially the variety of it. “I feel grateful this is my career. There are just so many opportunities to serve the community and employees through risk management.”

See also: How American Airlines prioritizes employee wellness (Part 1 of 3)