“Dealing With Stress At Work” with Marc Zwetchkenbaum of Marc Z Legal Staffing

Jonathan (1s):
Welcome back to Radio Entrepreneurs. I’m Jonathan Freedman And our next guest up needs no introduction. Marc Z, Marc Z Legal Staffing. Always. Great to see you

Marc (9s):
Always great to see you great to be here.

Jonathan (11s):
So you’ve got a interesting sort of topical is always right on the cutting edge of what’s going on in the world. Tell us a little bit of what, what you’ve seen over the last couple of years.

Marc (20s):
Thank you. One of the things John, that you and I had talked about, we’d started getting into the weeds about it last year, when you were talking about just in terms of, cause for your consulting business clients, what they were experiencing, and then you and I were comparing notes in terms of our clients and candidates and our, even our contract employees was stress and dealing with stress, whether it’s, you know, dealing with COVID at home and just the constant testing,

Jonathan (52s):
Not only work-related it’s life-related to these

Marc (54s):
Days life-related, but life it impacts on work. And that’s because on a daily basis it changes. I mean, whether it’s, if, if somebody tested in your family for COVID or you tested for COVID, you might not be able, you can’t go to work that day. If it’s a, if it’s an in-office role, if it’s a it’s worth, it’s a hospitality role in a restaurant or in a, in a hotel or something that’s in-person service. And even if it’s, even if it’s not a, an in-person role, if it’s remote you, then have you have your family that you have to deal with and you have to, you have kids home.

Marc (1m 40s):
So now, because your kids have been exposed to it. And so now you may not be able to do the work and the responsibilities. So you have that, you have the stresses that affects work. I know we have had people who have had COVID I’ve had family members that have had COVID I’ve had colleagues that have had COVID that are constantly dealing with that. And,

Jonathan (2m 6s):
And I think another element that compounds it is the guidelines, as we know, are, are vague and fuzzy and changing continuously. And so, you know, not only do you have the stress of the dealing with the illness or, or the sickness that people have, but it’s like, what do I do? You know, and people are getting

Marc (2m 23s):
Right. What do I do? And, and then, you know, people that I know even that are very thoughtful that we use, and they say to me, you know what I’m suppose I have an appointment to come over. And they were like, just so you know, I have a family member who have tested positive, you know, I’ve taken this test. So it affects people in their personal life. And then professionally again, they’re they can’t necessarily go to work. If, if, if they have COVID, how were they feeling? Some people react worse than others. Some people have a lingering cough and some people can, are so, so what affects their job? So, and then firms don’t know when companies don’t know the ones, you know, shouldn’t we come back now, do we have people fully in the office?

Marc (3m 11s):
And then there were the firms and companies that say, we need people fully into office. We need people in their seats. And now they can’t get talent because the talent, we had a situation, we had a client that said to us, we need somebody who would work at least partially in the office. And so it was a challenge finding that person. And then ultimately I touched base with him. I said, you know, I’d like to strategize and let us know last week that, oh, we’ve hired somebody as a totally remote person. And I was like, well, you would told us this. Well, we know that, but this person fell in our lap. So places are starting to have to think, even if they don’t want to think that way, because the situation is not changing.

Marc (3m 57s):
So that adds more stress to get their people around. When I say, get their people, get their partners, or get their executives to think we’ve got to, we’ve got to think of, of a different schedule, a different way of doing things. And that now wraps on to all this additional stress with, as you probably heard. And people were saying to me, which is, we’ve been experienced a long thing with this great resignation. So all that stress personally and professionally and executives and employees in companies has led to one thing that you and I had talked about, what should employers and employees do to deal with that stress and what you and I were talking about last year and it was starting to emerge.

Marc (4m 47s):
But now with the new year companies and firms are putting in place and really looking into mindfulness, help people or ways for people to deal with stress

Jonathan (4m 60s):
That’s mitigation and stress addressing stress in the workplace and in their lives, and making sure that it’s at the forefront and taking strategies to mitigate that stress. Correct? Yeah. It makes a lot of sense because you know, healthy, healthy minds, healthy people equals better employees,

Marc (5m 18s):
Correct.

Jonathan (5m 20s):
Sorry, sorry, mark. You’re seeing some associations that are that in, in the legal industry that are promoting those types of activities.

Marc (5m 27s):
Correct. So I attend regular bars, seminars, or meetings in different states, as you know, and those are the issues that are being discussed. And those are the, some part of some of the programs. Every state is that, and I’m committed to, to several bars, but with, with those states and then they discuss their colleagues. So I would not be surprised if most state bars are, are, are giving the, the, the course of, of mindfulness or suggesting to the attorneys as part of programs that you should be looking at a diversion of your stress.

Marc (6m 18s):
And so there’s th they’re actually giving credit. When I say they’re the bar associations that have mandatory continuing legal education for bar credit, they’re giving mindfulness programs and saying, if you attend this, you will get credit toward your continuing legal education.

Jonathan (6m 38s):
That’s fascinating. I would imagine the industry, historically, wasn’t particularly oriented towards dealing with burnout and stress and things of that nature. So it’s probably a 180 degrees flipped from where they historically had been, you know,

Marc (6m 53s):
You’ve always had, it was the, it was something that was maybe not swept under the rug, but you always had, look, if you have any problems, it, you know, at home or personally, you know, call this number, you know, for our bar dues, they, we contribute to programs that the bar association set up, but they’ve never addressed it and said, we know all of you have some kind of stress. In other words, they’re proactive. Now they’re putting that out there. They’re having, I just attended a Maine bar, live seminar that for their winter meetings and they literally had, and I can tell you, I think they had a hundred.

Marc (7m 36s):
It means not doesn’t have as many members as other states, but I think they had at least a hundred people in this, in this seminar with other attorneys and people from the bar, people that run the bar, but other attorneys discussing suggestions to help with mindfulness, to help with stress relief programs. And so there, there were suggestions every day from if you Google mindfulness, there are programs that are free they’re programs that you can have a subscription there. The bar has activities every, every, every bar that at least the new England bars that I know of have some type of program that they offer to help, to help attorneys with stress.

Marc (8m 24s):
Remiteration,

Jonathan (8m 25s):
It’s great. It’s great. Because, you know, thinking globally what, we’re, what we’re talking, you know, you start to hear the word endemic can, you know, COVID entering an endemic phase, but we may be dealing with a mental health pandemic within the confines of, you know, an endemic going on. So, you know, it’s, it’s something that’s real, it’s something that’s impacting. You know, a lot of people, you know, you hear from people in the profession, you know, people that are psychiatrists, psychologists that are just, you know, over overwhelmed with, you know, patients that are seeking out treatment. And I think it’s also something generationally that has come to the forefront. You know, people are willing to talk about it and to be, to get them to seek out the help.

Jonathan (9m 7s):
So, yeah, it’s fascinating that the bar associations and the industry groups are starting to recognize it. And, you know, perhaps in the, where are we 2020, some things the, the new benefit at work will be, you know, mindfulness rooms. And yeah, I think some of the progressive companies already have those types of things, but looking at stress reduction and making sure that people are feeling good and balanced in their, in their profession, in their professions, in their personal lives.

Marc (9m 33s):
Correct. And, and many of the law firms downtown, the big law firms have designated people. You know, if you go to the HR person, they will actually recommend a mindfulness program and they have people are their role talk about mindfulness or awards or some type of program that could be helpful.

Jonathan (9m 52s):
Great. I would imagine the executive committee’s needed themselves because they’re probably making policy decisions and spending, you know, days and weeks coming up with policies that once they implement them 24 hours later, they need to pivot to something else. So, you know, it’s a, it’s a world of constant change. So I guess our big picture messages, you know, when you’re not feeling top of your game, seek out the help and then it’s available, you know, within the industries and, and, and there’s a lot of emphasis on it. So, great, great insight as always mark, great advice, great suggestions. And people want to reach out and talk to you more about being on the cutting edge of legal environment and staffing needs. What’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

Marc (10m 32s):
Yeah, John, first of all, Google Marc Z MIRC and the letter Z, and we’ll come right up or Mar C, Z legal.com, Marc Z Legal dot com and 6 1 7 3 3 8 1 300.

Jonathan (10m 46s):
Wonderful. This has been a Marc Z moment on Radio Entrepreneurs, and we’ll be right back with another segment on Radio Entrepreneurs.