Teri Viswanath: A recent article appearing in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers magazine, The Invisible Injury, hit home. Hunter Fisk was barely 20 years old when he found his calling as a lineman. At age 22, outwardly in good spirits but masking relationship pain, Hunter ended his life. For his close-knit family, friends and co-workers, the shock and enduring grief are unimaginable.
IBEW Local 47 manager Corey Lavin was quoted, “We’ve done a lot over the decades to improve on safety in the workplace itself, which is vital… But I think we kind of missed the other side — how people are doing in their regular life and the struggles they bring to work.” In the past five years, Local 47 has lost 22 members to drugs and 20 to suicide. There’s a need for real support and to address the mental health issues our utility line workers face, both on and off the line.
Hello, I’m Teri Viswanath, the energy economist at CoBank. And for this month’s special cooperative edition, we wanted to share the insights of our front-line leadership as they discuss line worker mental health. I’m joined by my colleague, Tamra Reynolds, a managing director here at the bank. Hi Tamra.
Tamra Reynolds: Hey, Teri. Today’s podcast was recommended by an audience participant that was really inspired by the presentation at this year’s NRECA Safety Summit. I am so glad we were able to have Johnie Hendrix, the vice president of risk management and training for Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives, and Chad Johnson, manager of safety, training and compliance at Ozarks Electric Cooperative in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to sit down with us. This is the conversation I had with these two guys.
How do you define mental readiness in the context of line work?
Chad Johnson: For me, it’s very much about if somebody’s mentally ready, they’re coming in and they’re situationally aware. They understand the hazards they’re dealing with. They understand what the context of the environment is, the weather, the high stakes game that we’re playing.
They also are able to come in and they’ve got clarity in their mind where they’re not overwhelmed by the different things that that’s pulling at their attention — whether that’s trouble at home or something going on with their children or even some issues at the co-op, which might be pay or anything like that, because those things can really hijack our mental clarity. I know that whenever the big outage comes, when the hospital’s off or the school or the big manufacturing plant, there’s a level of excitement that’s within us, that’s good. It’s good, it drives us, but it can also overwhelm our thinking process. So being mentally ready has all of those things to do with our emotions. And then how our decisions are made are very much based upon those three things put together. Am I am I situationally aware? Do I have cognitive clarity? And am I in control of my emotions? If I’ve got those three things in check, then my decision making is going to be sound.
Johnie Hendrix: I don’t know if I can add anything to Chad’s answer or not. That was fantastic. I think something important is having a strong support network. I remember hearing a guy talk about one time he did a lot of traveling and he was able to go and do his job and he said he had a strong support network from his family that while there were things going on in their lives that he needed to have that clear mind when he was out on the road, doing his job. So, I think it’s the same way in our line of work is you know and is having that culture as Chad kind of brought up already that this supports that. We understand that we want to send guys into the field. We understand that we want them to be ready. So, what does that look like?
Reynolds: When I look around just in normal day-to-day interactions with folks at, you know, the grocery store or driving, it seems like people are more and more distracted and everything seems a bit more tense. And so I have to imagine that that’s been a growing challenge for you all in the last decade. I guess maybe I’ll start with you, Johnie and then Chad, chime in. How do you think the culture sort of around mental health and electric cooperatives has evolved over the past decade? What’s happening that’s different or what things have had to change?
Hendrix: I think just having a place where we can come and talk about these things, right? We’ve seen a shift where we have a culture that’s more open. A culture maybe where guys are not afraid maybe to talk. So I started in line work almost 20 years ago at a co-op, the old school culture was just come in, keep your head down, do what you’re told. Don’t ask any questions.
And I remember asking one time, I was like, why do you think that’s shifted there? And I remember a guy sharing with me said, when you think about when electric cooperatives were formed in the late 30s, what was the big event in our country that happened directly after that? You know, it was World War II. And so, he said these guys are getting drafted, they’re going and participating in the military and the culture of the military is do what you’re told, keep your head down, don’t talk about your feelings, you know, keep it all inside.
You know we’ve seen is those guys come back, they’re leaders in our co-op, done a great job. I think the shift that’s happened or has evolved is we’ve kind of come to a place to understand that employees can’t keep that stuff inside? There’s no way effectively that we can carry those burdens. There’s no way effectively that we can deal with these things on our own. And so when we talk about mental health, the culture around and how it’s evolved, I truly believe that we’re heading in the right direction to a place that we’re creating that kind of space for these guys to be able to talk. And which is a culture thing. Would you agree, Chad?
Johnson: Absolutely. When I started in Ozarks in 1993, this would have never been a topic here in the operations realm, out in the field, You didn’t really talk about your feelings. But as time has progressed and as I became a foreman, there’s been at least half a dozen different guys in the cab of my digger derrick, that that were crying, that we were talking, that we were sharing, they were going through real life things. But it was only in the context of that cab of that truck. Once we got out on the job that wasn’t discussed.
Social media is becoming such a powerful thing in our in our country and in our world. It’s like it’s like we have a cup and it just continually just getting filled up with information. It could be good information, it could be bad information, but it’s full. The information coming to our minds and into our hearts is just overwhelming.
People have to have a place to vent, to share, to be open. And if we don’t give them that, it makes it real challenging. And so from the safety perspective, we talk about distractions. I mean, that’s it, it’s a non-stop distractions for us. And so that’s leading people into a place where it’s hard for them to be mentally ready because there is something waiting to jump on them around every corner.
Reynolds: Chad, when you think about crews, what are some signs that maybe someone around you is struggling emotionally or mentally and what’s the process for you to have a conversation or check in.
Johnson: Great question. Our people is so important. Knowing them so that we can recognize when there’s a change taking place. If a person, all of a sudden, was somebody who never cussed on the job. You start seeing this change where, you know, Jimmy’s, you know, using some foul language on the job. Or maybe he used to never have outbursts of anger, and now it’s like he’s getting mad all the time, he’s throwing stuff around. Or maybe he’s gained a lot of weight or he’s lost a lot of weight. It’s all about knowing our people and being able to say, I see that there’s a change in you. And so, when that comes to pass, hopefully we have already done our legwork on a front end to kind of invest ourselves and knowing these people so that when we do see that change (whatever it is), we can go, “hey man, just I took note of this. I just care for you and I want to ask you about it and are you OK? How’s things going?” And sometimes they’ll say that they’re good. And I’ve also seen them just break down when somebody shows genuine care in them as a human being. It is a powerful, powerful thing.
Hendrix: Two weeks ago I came into the office. I remember somebody in my department, they asked me, you OK today? And I said, yeah, I’m good. Why is that? And she said, well, you just seem a little harried today. And it kind of caught me. I had a lot on my mind, a lot going on. I wasn’t myself and she knows me and so she works with me and she was present. I don’t know if there’s any right way to do it besides just be present, be intentional and as you have those conversations also just something I think it’s just be a good listener.
Reynolds: I have an employee that’s particularly perceptive and he can sometimes pick out when I’m having a hard day. There’s, just those times of the year when it feels like there’s just too much to do and not enough time. And he’ll pull me aside and say, is everything OK? Are you doing all right? And it always comes from the best place. I know that he is actually watching and paying attention and he does it with everyone, which is amazing, you know?
Hendrix: Yeah, if I could just add one thing, Tamra, to your point is, you know, I think you just being sincere and just to your point of you’re the guy on your team is it’s genuine. It’s authentic.
Reynolds: Chad, earlier on in your career you’d had a few experiences with a burn and then a fatality. Is there any of that you can share, you know, just from a personal experience, you know, maybe how that impacted your view on mental health? How do you how do you get through something like that?
Johnson: Well, that’s a that’s where you really need a good, strong support network. And my whole network pretty much was my wife at that time when I got burned. I made a really bad choice working in a substation that left me burned from my safety glasses down across my face, my neck, my chest, both arms. And the thing that really affected me the most about my mental health at that time was #1 the thing that drove me to make the decision was pride. I was just trying to show how capable I was and driven in my work. And I think that’s epidemic in this trade, and but all of a sudden that pride was just devastated because all of a sudden the same people I was trying to impress were saying what in the world is he thinking?
While in my mind, I was being tortured by these thoughts. And so we talk about getting people back to work after they’ve had an accident of whatever it is. That’s a huge thing. I was off for four weeks after my burn. I went into workman’s comp doctor after four weeks and he said you need to stay home for another six weeks, I literally looked at him and said, “there’s no way, I can’t do it. I’m losing my mind.” And I really appreciated him because he allowed me to come back to work. He told me the things I had to do to take care of my — I still had some open wounds on my lips and on my chest and arms.
“So you’re going to take care of this?”
“I can do it. I’m losing my mind.”
But then I had to go back. They sent me right back, thankfully, to the same job I got hurt on. And fortunately, the Lord gave me what it took to to get in there and do the work again. And my supervisor came out and he talked to me about my accident. He was open with me about what he thought I needed to do, and he just told me to calm down, slow down and do that. And so there wasn’t really any tricks that I used, but I did recognize how being at home really, really affected my mental state of mind.
And I’ve certainly learned that since I’ve come into safety, it’s really hard to keep your mind on your work when you’re dealing with that kind of thing. But it actually helped us to become really, really aware of the hazards in the job.
Reynolds: Johnie, what are some maybe successful health initiatives or programs that you’ve seen folks implement either you know within your state or that you know just from your resources and contacts across the country?
Hendrix: Chad kind of alluded to this a while ago creating that space, our co-ops are busier than they’ve ever been. We need to get that work done. We’ve got people waiting, you know, or a storm blows through and there’s outages going on and while all that stuff is true and those things need to be done.
I think one of the best initiatives we can take is to say, look, we’re just going to carve out time. We’re going to create space for our employees to be able to talk about these things. Then make it a priority within your cooperative to be able to, like I said, just create this space and just to have these and make people aware of it, creating a culture where they trust. This work can wait till tomorrow. What’s important today is to make sure that you are clear mind, ready to work.
We brought a speaker into a conference to talk about emotional intelligence with a room of 100 line superintendents, operation managers and somebody who was there participating in the conference came up to me and he said, “Johnie,” he said, “have you been out of line work so long that you thought it’d be a good idea to bring somebody in to talk to a room of ex linemen about emotional intelligence?”
And I just grinned and said, “that’s exactly why we did it.” We have the technical side down. We have guys in our industry that have doctorate level degrees of line work, they are at that point where they have a complete understanding, but the struggles they have every day are interacting with their employees.
Reynolds: We just wrapped up our September podcast last week and it was on leadership. You set the pace from the top and that you’re an example when it comes to mental health. What can cooperative leaders, how can they foster a culture of openness around this very topic that’s often very difficult to talk about?
Hendrix: I believe in selfless servant leadership. I think of a C.S. Lewis quote that “humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”
I would say four things… First of all, be present. So be present in the life of your employees. Be present at work. Don’t just be there but be involved. Then be intentional. A lot of the things we do don’t really have any intentionality to them, you know, and so they may just be busy work or whatever, but when we come to this culture intentional. And then listen. God gave us two ears and one mouth for a purpose, you know, so we should listen twice as much as we talk.
We talked about a while ago was creating space for employees to be able to to have that space where they can talk. That also means that as a leader I’m going to have to create that space too, right? So be present, be intentional, listen, be a good listener. And then also lean in. Don’t be afraid to do whatever it takes to help. Everybody uses this quote and is a favorite of mine, but nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
Being present, being intentional, listening, leaning in when we have the opportunity and then being consistent with those things, I truly believe will create or foster that culture.
Johnson: Thanks, Johnie. Good words. I appreciate that. I notice that a lot of CEO positions that they’ve become less focused seems like on accounting and engineering, and they’re leaning more towards these soft skills that people can have of communication.
I think that’s a part of that. And so for us, I think if you were in that, in that role as a CEO, general manager, something like that, to be able to say, I understand that my guiding the culture has a lot to do and what the people, when they look, they’re paying attention to who I hire for this job, they’re paying attention to how the org chart is laid out and they’re going. They’ve made this a priority. People can still see your commitment to these kind of things by your hiring processes, by how the org chart’s laid out, by our strategic plan and things that we make important in our in our values and in our mission.
Viswanath: The bottom line is that mental readiness and emotional well-being are crucial for our line workers. Chad makes a compelling point that “mental readiness” involves situational awareness, cognitive clarity, and emotional control. He highlights that distractions, whether from personal issues or work-related stress, can hijack mental clarity and emotional control, impacting decision-making and safety.
Reynolds: That’s right, and the daily tasks of juggling responsibilities and managing all the information coming at us…. well, it makes that job even more challenging. Line work is dangerous work but a statistic I came across as part of my research really brought home how important it is to be intentional about mental health. It noted that line workers are five times more likely to be affected by a mental health condition than an on-the-job fatality. This seems like a clear call to action for utilities to take proactive measures to support services focused on mental health.
Viswanath: You’re right. Tamra, you made an excellent suggestion for this month’s special edition, thank you. I do hope that all of you have enjoyed this program and will join us next month. We are recording the NextEra-GridLiance Symposium panel, “The Energy Balancing Act” taking place October 20th in Colorado Springs. Our guest speakers for that panel will include Umatilla’s CEO Robert Echenrode; John Hewa, the CEO at Rappahannock and Tri-State’s CEO Duane Highley. Also, joining that discussion and helping us unpack electricity supply solutions is NextEra’s Petter Skantze, the senior vice president of Energy Resources.
Reynolds: Join us then and goodbye for now!
