Multigenerational Mental Health Differences in the Workplace

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Logos, Constitution State Services. Travelers. Text, A Decade of Disconnect: Understanding Multi-generational Mental Health in the Workplace.

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JUSTIN SMULISON: Welcome to today's RIMS webinar, sponsored by Travelers and Constitution State Services-- "A Decade of Disconnect-- Understanding Multi-generational Mental Health In The Workplace." I am Justin Smulison, business content manager here at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society. A few notes before we begin, if you have a question for the presenters during today's session, please submit them by writing in the question box. Feel free to ask at any point in the presentation. We will gather them, and the panelists will reply to you directly or during the course of the session.

Following the session, the recording will be available through on-demand events page of rims.org. And all downloads and contact information will be accessible to the sponsor. On with today's presentation, our panelists will unravel the pervasive influence of a culture characterized by growing distrust and presumed toxicity, particularly on younger generations, will shed light on stereotypes that can lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, and biases in the workplace. Communication styles and preferences, as well as differing motivations and learning needs will also be explored to help organizations bridge the generational divide effectively.

RIMS is thrilled to welcome a large global audience. Please welcome your moderator, Cora Hall of Travelers.

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Cora Hall's video feed appears in the upper right corner of the slide presentation. She is seated with the Constitution State Services logo on her background.

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CORA HALL: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. On behalf of Travelers and Constitution State Services, we are honored to bring this presentation to you. Five generations now make up our workforce, including Gen Z's, millennials, Gen Xers, baby boomers. And there are still some members of the silent generation working into their late 70s and 80s.

Each generation has experienced different life events, which influences how these workers view the world and what they value. Over the next hour, we'll explore mental health from a generational perspective to better understand new and emerging risks in our post-pandemic world.

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The next slide, titled, Our Panel, shows a photo of each speaker. Text, Panelist, Dr. Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University, and author of Generations. Panelist, Dr. Marcos Iglesias, MD, vice president, chief medical director at Travelers, and Constitution State Services. Moderator, Cora Hall, AVP of Marketing Strategy National Accounts, Travelers and Constitution State Services.

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Joining us is one of the country's foremost experts on generational differences, Dr. Jean Twenge. Dr. Twenge frequently gives talks and seminars on teaching and working with today's younger generation based on a data set of 11 million young people. She is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, the author of more than 180 scientific publications, and seven books. She holds a BA and an MA from the University of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Michigan.

We're also joined by Dr. Marcos Iglesias, vice president and chief medical director at Travelers and Constitution State Services. Dr. Iglesias is a seasoned physician executive and a national speaker with 35 years of experience in workers' compensation and disability management and evaluation, as well as insurance leadership.

His professional interests include the preservation and mitigation of delayed recovery and disability. He leads Travelers medical innovation and strategy team, developing disability management solutions that focus on early identification of risk factors and appropriate early interventions to help employees in their functional recovery path. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto and the Marshall School of Business from the University of Southern California.

Between both of our speakers over the next hour, you will gain a better understanding of generational differences and mental health. We will have some time for Q&A at the end of our program. But for now, let's get started.

Dr. Iglesias, welcome to the program and let's start with you. There's a lot of talk about mental health. What does mental health mean to you? And how do you define it?

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Well, thanks, Cora.

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The next slide shows a woman lying on her back on an exercise mat with her bent legs up in the air. She smiles up at a toddler girl who is lying on her shins smiling down at her. Text, What is Health? Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. World Health Organization. Marcos' video feed appears in the upper right corner of the slide presentation.

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First, let me start by saying that the current state of mental health in this country, in the United States is not a result of the pandemic or the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the decline in overall mental health goes back a lot further; certainly, to the beginning of this century, but even probably into the second half of the 20th century.

For example, suicide rates since 1999 have risen about 30%, and they have actually increased in almost every year since then. Another example, disability awards for mental health conditions have increased significantly since the 1980s, even as those for other conditions have decreased. So what we have today is a problem that's been long in coming, but it's here and we need to do something about it.

Secondly, I'd like to bring mind and body back together. As a society, I think that for too long, we've separated mental health from physical health, and that has had consequences for both the importance of the matter, but also the solutions that we should be pursuing.

I really like the way that the World Health Organization puts it-- health is complete, physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease or infirmity. And so a helpful way to think about our health adopts a biopsychosocial approach.

It looks at our health and well-being comprehensively or holistically. We're not just-- we're not just bodies, but we're also not just disembodied spirits. We're a complex unit. There really is no dichotomy, and we ought to think about mental health as health.

And beyond that, we ought to think about mental health as a continuum. It's not a monolith. It's a continuum of wellness. So

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New slide. Text, Mental Health Continuum. A double-pointed horizontal arrow starts at the left in green, then blends to yellow in the center, through orange, and then to red at the right. It is labeled from left to right, Excelling, in green, Thriving, in yellow-green, Surviving, in yellow, Struggling, in orange, and Crisis, in red.

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for example, on any given day, I may be thriving, have no worries in life. But may also have cognitive unemotional traits that help me make sense out of the world. And some of these may become a barrier when I have a difficult circumstance.

Other times, I may experience the daily stress that is common to the human condition. Other days, I may have psychological symptoms. So things like anxiety or depression. I may even have a hard time sleeping.

And then at the other end of the continuum, I may have a diagnosable health condition, mental health condition. I may even experience a mental health crisis. So there's a wide continuum. And our approach to the problem, our approach to the solutions are by necessity very different from one end of the continuum to the other.

For example, in the world of work-related injuries, we don't usually have psychiatric illness. Most injured workers or most injured employees do not have a psychiatric condition, but they may have psychological symptoms. They may be depressed. They may be anxious. And even more likely, they may have a psychosocial barrier to returning to function and something that puts them at risk for delayed recovery.

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Marcos' video is replaced by Cora's.

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CORA HALL: Thank you. That's really helpful to set the context for the audience. I want to bring Dr. Twenge in. Your new book is called What Are The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents and What They Mean for America's Future. How do you capture the generational differences in mental health in your work?

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Jean's video feed replaces Cora's. New slide. Text, Generational Differences That Matter. A line graph, titled, Major depressive episode, 18 to 25-year-olds, shows the years from 2005 to 2021 along the bottom, and percent in the last 12 months along the left. The red line shows Women and the blue shows Men. The men's line begins in 2006 at 5%, remains steady until around 2010, then begins to climb, tending at between 10 and 15% by 2021. The women's line beginnings between 10 and 15% in 2006, jumps up and down between 10% and 13% until about 2012, then climbs to about 25% by 2021.

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JEAN TWENGE: Well, I look at large national surveys, mostly in the US, but also around the world. And that's great because we can get a cross-section of the population. We can look at symptoms, as well as, say, CDC data on behaviors. And it's pretty consistent as a picture.
So for older generations, we see a big uptick in depression between the silents-- those born in 1925 to 1945. And the boomers, born 1946 to 1965-- to '64. That echoes what Dr. Iglesias was mentioning.

And probably the most concerning is the very large increase in depression among teens and among young adults. And you see young adults here on the slide. And also as Dr. Iglesias mentioned-- absolutely true-- these are changes increases that began well before the pandemic.

So there's been a lot of discussion of the adolescent mental health crisis and young adults struggling and oh, it's because of the pandemic. And that's not the case. These increases started more than 10 years ago, and they're very large.

So, major depressive episode-- that's clinical-level depression that really requires treatment-- has more than doubled among young adults. So we also see that similar changes in emergency room admissions for self-harm, in emergency room admissions for suicide attempts, and in the suicide rates. So we know it's not just symptoms, it's also behaviors that can be objectively measured. And that helps us rule out the idea it's just because people are more willing to admit to symptoms, say.

So then the question is, well, if it's not the pandemic is the primary cause or the originating cause, then what is it? And my argument is that a lot of it has to do with changes in technology, particularly how changes in technology have impacted how people socialize. So teens and young adults in particular spend a lot less time with each other in-person, face-to-face socializing with friends, for example.

And they spend a lot more time online, often alone, scrolling through social media, say, or doing other screen-based activities. A small amount of those is not necessarily a problem. But when that replaces face-to-face, in-person social interaction, that can be a problem for mental health. It's not a good formula for mental health.

Plus, technology has interfered with our sleep. And we have good data on-- especially great data on teens that they're sleeping less probably because it's so tempting to stay up late or look at that phone in the middle of the night. So we've got really consistent and very, very concerning data about mental health among, young adults in particular, getting much worse in the last 10 years.

CORA HALL: So that is highly concerning. And as we think about what does this mean to the workforce, we'd love your perspective. So can you describe the trends around what these younger generations really want out of their jobs compared to older generations?

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New slide. Text, The Next Generation of Workers and the rise of empathy. A photo shows young adults talking together in an office.

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JEAN TWENGE: We've got some really interesting data on that, too, particularly from a survey of high school seniors. So we're looking at people at 18-- so, right before they begin their working life or before they go off to college. And that's great because we can look at people at the same age but at different points in time.

Going back to the '70s, we have data from boomers to Gen Xers to millennials to Gen Z at the same age. So we know it's not age or development or career stage that's causing any of the differences. So when we look at that, we see some surprises that, for example, younger generations, millennials and Gen Z, for example; are actually a little less likely to say that they want a job that's interesting.

They're actually a little less likely to say that they want a job where they can make friends. Where there's been an increase, particularly for Gen Z, is they're more likely to say that they want a job that contributes to society or that is directly helpful to others. So I think between that and then more discussion of mental health issues, primarily because more of them are struggling, I think that really speaks to Gen Z wanting more empathy at work. They have more of the expectation of that. And I think that really has an impact on how the generation is going to evolve over the next decade because we have this generation that is more focused on altruism and helping others.

CORA HALL: And you have this wonderful quote that technology is just the worm at the core of the apple. So I want to bring it back to the idea that you said around technology is the key factor behind these generational differences and how your research might help employers understand and improve the work lives of people within their organizations from different generations.

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The next slide shows a woman lying on her side in bed in the dark, her face being lit by her phone screen that she holds with one hand. Text, The Impact of Technology.

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JEAN TWENGE: Yeah, so that's really the core theory in my book Generations is that cultural change-- a lot of cultural change comes from technological change, so not just smartphones and social media, but also faster transportation, better medical care, labor-saving devices like washing machines. All of these things are the reason why living now is so completely different from what it was like to live 200 years ago or 100 years ago or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago, when you think about smartphones and computer technology and the internet.

So it's not just technology. It's also that technology has these downstream effects. So it has a downstream effect in increasing individualism-- more focus on the self and less on others because technology allows more independence. It also is connected to a slower life. So there's this theory in psychology about a fast-life strategy where people have a lot of children, and it's just basic survival and that kids develop more independence in an earlier age versus a slow-life strategy.

They have fewer children, nurture them more carefully, and they grow up more slowly. And then that also leads to some impacts.

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A new slide, titled, A Delay in Experiences, shows a line graph titled, Adult activities, US 12th graders. It shows the years along the bottom from 1976 to 2020. The y-axis is labeled, percent yes. The red line on the graph is labeled, tried alcohol, the green line, drivers' license, the pink line, work for pay, the blue line, ever date. Each line is jagged but has a general downward trend. Work for pay does come back up from below 55% in 2010 to above 60% in 2018.

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As you see here on the slide, for teens, it often means doing adult things a little later.

So here we have, again, that big survey of high school seniors. So most are 18. The rest are 17 at spring of the senior year. And we can see, for example, how many have their driver's license by that time. And that used to be about 90%. And in more recent years, it's 55% or 60%.

Fewer have tried alcohol in any significant quantity.

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The alcohol line begins at almost 85% in 1992 and is down to 55% by 2020.

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Fewer go out on dates.

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Ever date begins at 85% in 1976 and is down to about 50

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Fewer have a paid job.

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Work for pay begins between 70 and 75% in 1976 and ends at just under 60% in 2020.

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So that's how it impacts adolescents.

Then in young adulthood, it means that young adults marry later and have kids later and settle into careers later. So they have less life experience by the time when they start their careers. They're still a little bit more dependent on their parents.

And I think that leads to a lot of generational misunderstandings. And there's a lot of grandparents who are looking at their millennial grandchildren. "You know, you're 28 and not married yet." Well, it's not just them. It's that the whole life cycle's slowed down. So I hope that helps generations understand each other a little bit better.

CORA HALL: Certainly does. Dr. Iglesias, I want to bring you back into the conversation. Can you describe how we've learned at Travelers putting the employee at the center of care decisions can lead to transformative outcomes? And that kind of ties back to how does all of these generational differences manifest in our workforce? And can you share some of the critical learnings in terms of who is influencing our employees before, during, and after an injury and how we can proactively manage the risks and get ahead of some of these trends?

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Sure, I'd love to.

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The next slide, titled, Who's Getting Injured?, shows two bar graphs. The first is titled, Average cost per claim by age group. Text, Average cost per claim 4X higher compared with that of individuals under 18. 18 to 24 is 2X, 25-34 is 3X, 35 to 49 is 4.4X, 50 to 59 is 4.9X, and 60+ is 5X. The second bar graph is titled, Percentage of injuries by age group. Under 18 is less than 1%, 18 to 24 is 8%, 25-34 is 23%, 35 to 49 is 31%, 50 to 59 is 25%, and 60+ is 13%.

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So let's go back to the idea that we take a comprehensive approach. And injured employee is not just someone with a work injury or with a medical condition. As we discussed earlier, they're a complex individual. There's a lot going on in the life of that individual, both internally and externally.

So obviously, think about their injury. Think about their health in general. Think about the community, family context that they live in, and, of course, their workplace. So all of these things matter. And they matter when someone has a work injury. Using a biopsychosocial approach really helps us as Claim professionals, as medical case managers, to understand what's going on in the life of that individual so that we can help them in the best way possible.

So let me share some of the insights from our 2023 Travelers Injury Impact Report. When it comes to the age of the worker, our workers compensation data shows that it is older workers-- and here we mean individuals between the ages of 35 to 49-- that have the highest percentage of injuries. That's when we compare them to other age groups at 31% and especially to the 18 to 24 age group.

What we've also discovered is that individuals who are 60 years or older have lengthier and more costly claims. These claims tend to be about 15% more expensive or more costly than those for a 35- to 49-year-old age group and 140% higher than for the 18 to 24 age group.

But you can also see that aging in and of itself increases the cost of a claim when compared to younger individuals. And if you see on the graph, it's four times higher for anybody above the age of 34. And this makes sense. It makes sense. As a physician, I can see why that happens.

Older individuals have more comorbid conditions. Those may delay recovery after a work injury. Older individuals because of those comorbid conditions may be on more medications. Those medications may delay or interfere with treatments that are being offered for their work-related injury.

And lastly, there are physiological changes that may make healing or recovery slower. And this is really significant, because as you know, the older workforce is growing and will continue to grow over the next decade.

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New slide. Text, Psychosocial Risk Factors: catastrophic thinking, maladaptive behaviors, fear avoidance, recovery expectations, perceived injustice.

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Then when we look at psychosocial issues, we've also find that injured employees with psychosocial risk factors for delayed recovery. And here I'm talking about things like catastrophic thinking, perceived injustice, maladaptive coping behaviors like passivity or turning to substance use, fear avoidance behaviors, unrealistic expectations about recovery. All of those things matter, and they end up costing claims about 50% higher than when these risk factors are not present.

CORA HALL: Wow, significant. So can you tell us more about what does Travelers do to support the injured employees during a work-related injury? And what does that tell us about the different generations of injured workers?

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Sure. Well, I think first of all, we listen a lot. I think our Claim professionals and our nurses are very good at active listening-- listening for those cues, looking for some of these risks that, again, may not be related to the injury but are going to matter. Three years ago, we developed a-- we co-developed a conversational agent app that we then make available to individuals who are at risk for delayed recovery. So think of it as a virtual coach that we can make available to the employee who has that risk.

It comes alongside them. It helps them to develop resilience, to develop specific skills. So things like how to sleep better, how to deal with anger, how to deal with stress. It is a non-medical app, so it's not intended to diagnose or treat. It simply engages the user in a very anonymous and private way and helps them develop these skills.

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The next slide, titled, Preventing Delayed Recovery, has two bar graphs. The first is titled, Percent of Qualified who Onboarded by Generation. Gen Z, 1997-2012, 38.2% qualified, 6.2% onboarded. Millennials, 1981-1996, 37.4% qualified, 7.8% onboarded. Gen X, 1965-1980, 36.1% qualified, 7.2% onboarded. Baby Boomers, 1946-1964, 36.3% qualified, 5.8% onboarded. Silent Generation, 1928 to 1945, 43.7% qualified, 0% onboarded.

The second graph is titled, Percent of Qualified who Onboarded by Gender. Male, 5.9% onboarded. Female, 8.8% onboarded. Male, 35.9% qualified. Female, 38.3% qualified.

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So three years later, we have screened over 35,000 individuals for these risk factors. And we do that again with the goal of offering them solutions like this app that we've just discovered. But a lot of times, it's just simply talking to the individual, offering them some emotional support that may help them get through this difficult time in their lives.

When we screen these individuals, we find that about 40% of them, who have lost time from work because of a work injury, have at least one of these barriers. And as we saw earlier, these barriers, these risk factors do matter. They matter from a cost perspective, but even more importantly, they matter because they're slowing down that individual's recovery.

Some of the insights that we have from our data are interesting. And going back to the generational differences, it's actually-- and maybe surprisingly for us-- it was that silent generation individuals were more likely to have one or more risk factors. And then that was followed by individuals in the Generation Z age group.

There are gender differences as well. Women are more likely than men to have risk factors for delayed recovery, about 38% to 36%. But on the positive side, they're much more likely to engage in some of the solutions that we offer them; for example, the app, where they will adopt the use of the app 50% more than men do.

CORA HALL: Those are impressive and interesting results. And I want to bring it back to the front line manager.

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A new slide shows an older woman and a younger man working together at a laptop. Text, Mental Health in the Workplace. "How are you?"

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So I know the teams have been-- our teams have been talking a lot about they play a huge role today in the employee health and the workplace. What do you see playing out in terms of the generational differences?

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Yeah, there's still a lot of questions, but we do have some answers. And I think it's important to talk about this. I think at the core, it goes back to the research that Dr. Twenge has done. We need to understand generations better. And as supervisors, managers, employers, we need to do a better job of that.

There are distinctly different feelings on the appropriateness, for example, of bringing up mental health issues in the workplace. And our expectations, our comfort levels may be very different depending on who we are.

And remember, younger workers generally may expect you as a manager to bring things up from a mental health perspective. Younger workers also have different issues that they're dealing with than an older worker. They may be more willing to talk about these things.

Older workers may not want you to bring up certain things-- may feel uncomfortable having these conversations. And of course, these are broad generalizations. And individuals will vary and differ in their needs and styles.

But first, let's address the misconception that most individuals do not want to discuss mental health issues at work. There is data out there that shows that 57% of employees are comfortable with their managers talking and asking about mental health, so that's significant.

The majority are comfortable. And in fact, 41%-- so a large minority-- want their managers to ask about mental health conditions. So we should remember that, because then that helps us to develop the skills, to develop the environment to have frank and open conversations about these issues to create a supportive environment that helps to destigmatize a lot of the stigma that surrounds mental health.

I think we can show people that how to bring things up. And one thing that I have been advocating for several years now is simply coming alongside an individual and just asking, are you OK? How are you doing?

It's just sometimes a way of opening the door. The individual may not want to talk about it, and that's fine. We need to respectfully back off at that point, understand that this is not the time or place to have that conversation.

But becoming comfortable, asking that question. I think, starts to destigmatize these issues; starts to make for a more open environment. It also shows the individual that you want to come alongside them. That there is some empathy. That there is a willingness to listen actively.

And don't assume that people are OK. They may need your help. So I should not decide who to ask that question, but should ask it more broadly because that may uncover the individual that I didn't know could need help. And then, of course, to have tools at my disposal to be able to help that individual, whether that's an EAP, whether it's group health plan resources, an external community or national organization that has the resources and tools to help that individual.

So I think these are the important things that we need to get comfortable doing because it's OK not to be OK. And we need to be a community that is open, that is supportive, that is loving, and that makes mental health part of our everyday conversation.

CORA HALL: And those everyday conversations can be really hard, especially if you're not comfortable with that. So Dr. Twenge, I'd like to ask you about Gen X managers. And they are often training now these younger generations. So what should they be keeping top of mind? And then also, just in general, as you did your research, is there anything that surprised you?

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New slide. Text, Putting Mental Health on Par with Physical. A photo shows a hand placing a small block on top of a pyramid of other small blocks, each with an icon on it. The bottom row has a hypodermic needle, a figure in a wheelchair, and a water drop. The middle row has pills and a heart with a heartbeat line inside, and the top block has a brain.

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JEAN TWENGE: Yeah, so I'm a Gen Xer myself. We were often raised to be tough and to maybe not focus quite as much on empathy and mental health and safety in a way that Gen Z really was. But if Gen Xers think about how we raised our own kids, often those are things that we emphasized. And so then it shouldn't surprise us as much as it does with young employees.

And that really was one of the things that was the most surprising was those trends in mental health that we showed the graph on earlier is just how sudden and large those changes were. And it really suggests that something we need to solve and that we need to focus on. And I think that is particularly true in the workplace because that can have a really big impact on people's ability to be well. And I think Gen X managers have to keep in mind Gen Z is going to bring up those issues more because those rates are higher.

And they, Gen Z, really has this viewpoint-- which I applaud them for-- of we need to have mental health be on par with physical health. That in terms of policies and the way we treat it, it shouldn't be, oh, if you break your leg, you get two weeks off. But if you're depressed, sorry, there's nothing. That's something that young employees just find unacceptable. So we need to start putting those things on par with each other.

CORA HALL: And that has financial implications. So as I think about our audience of risk managers, insurance agents, brokers. So what sort of steps do you recommend these organizations should be thinking about to identify and manage these mental health differences between generations and some of the demands this new workforce is going to want?

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New slide. Text, Managing Differences Between Generations. A photo shows rows of simple paper cutout figures in rainbow colors, some with skirts, some without.

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JEAN TWENGE: Yeah. And there's a lot of things that we can do here that young employees may be asking for, but that will benefit all generations. And we should keep that in mind because those are the solutions that we want-- are things that are going to benefit everybody.

And one of those is having policies, health care systems, et cetera, that place a priority on mental health treatment. That it is really common to have different policies in terms of therapist or doctor visits for physical issues versus mental health issues. Same thing for sick leave and so on.

In this day and age, we really have to place that focus that mental health treatment is going to be covered under those plans, and that it's accessible. And this is a particularly big challenge now, partially because we've had those enormous increases in depression, particularly among young people, that there's a shortage of therapists.

So even when it's covered, sometimes it takes three months to get an appointment. And for someone who's even moderately depressed, that is way too long. So this is a big challenge right now for us in the workplace and in general as a society.

CORA HALL: That is a very long period of time, and I want to give Dr. Iglesias a chance to weigh in on this same question. So what advice would you give to the risk managers and organizations that are listening on how they can help protect their companies and think about some of these big issues?

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A new slide shows a row of dominoes. The first few dominoes have fallen, but someone has their finger on top of the next domino that's still standing so that it doesn't fall, even though the previous domino is leaning on it. Text, Protecting your organization.

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MARCOS IGLESIAS: Yeah, Cora, I want to go back to what Dr. Twenge said about the expectation of parity with mental and physical health, which goes back to where we started. Mental health is part of health. It's comprehensive health.

And so I would ask everybody in the audience-- just to answer this question for yourself-- how likely are you to recommend a screening tool or a screening for common medical conditions like diabetes or blood pressure, high blood pressure? Would you feel comfortable recommending that to your spouse, to your neighbor, to your employee? And then ask yourself how comfortable would you be doing the same thing, offering or recommending a screening for substance use disorder for depression, for anxiety?

And so I think a lot of us need to get better at getting to that place where we ourselves see that there needs to be parity. I think only when we start doing that as individuals, will that then extend into the workplace where we can make a difference in large populations. So I think it's something that each one of us needs to work on.

As far as what we ought to do in the workplace, it goes back again to what we've been talking about-- understand the differences, develop multiple approaches. There's not one approach that will work for everyone. Remember again, younger workers may expect and want their manager to bring things up. Older workers don't. So develop training that understands these generational differences, that gives different tools so that we can use them for the broad population.

I think that as we become willing and able to talk to younger workers about these issues, maybe that will extend to us talking to older workers as well. We become more comfortable. We ourselves start to remove some of the biases that we've had.

One other thing-- and I think this goes to some of the work we've done with our conversational agent app-- is don't assume that older workers, that older generations don't use technology when we're talking about different solutions. We didn't see that, for example, in the use of the conversational agent. It's been used across all generations fairly evenly.

So even older workers like me are willing to adopt technology solutions if that's the appropriate solution for a specific problems. We will and do use technology. So think about ways that you can craft a comprehensive message, a positive message. But ask yourself as an individual how comfortable are you with the whole topic? Because that's where we need to start.

CORA HALL: Well-said. I want to give you each a chance to bring in your final thoughts before we go to the Q&A. So Dr. Twenge, I'm going to start with you. What are some of the most important takeaways?

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A new slide shows a silhouette of a head in profile with balled up pieces of paper in rainbow colors over top. Text, Final Thoughts.

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JEAN TWENGE: Well, first, it's just generational differences are not about stereotyping. They're not about criticism. They're about empathy and understanding somebody else's point of view.

And I think seeing it from that perspective makes it really powerful and helpful. And one of those ways is recognizing that there are these trends in mental health. They're real. They're not just people whining; that they show up in behaviors as well, and that we have to take those very seriously.

And given that, I think if technology plays a role, which it seems to have certainly played a role-- particularly, in that increase in depression-- then how can we find a better balance with technology? Not give it up, but make sure that it's not taking over our lives. And that can be a real struggle.

So to try to prioritize those face-to-face in-person social engagements over trying to do some of those things electronically. And then, I always have to pass on my number one tip for everyone, not just for teens and young adults, but for everyone, is get your smartphone out of your bedroom at night. You will sleep better. We know that from a ton of studies.

And what most people say next is, wait, but I have to have my phone in my bedroom overnight because it's my alarm clock. Buy an alarm clock. You can buy it on Amazon on your phone and then put your phone away and get a good night's sleep.

CORA HALL: That makes sense. Dr. Iglesias?

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Yeah, that's great. I need to do that, Dr. Twenge. I'm going to buy one of the old alarm clocks. Again, I go back to encouraging each one of us to develop an approach that essentially makes these conversations natural.

It'll take work, right? But we need to talk more about mental health. We need to be open about it. We need to create supportive environments where others, feel free to seek help, but also to give help. I think that's something that we didn't talk a lot about.

But in giving help, we ourselves gain from it, as well as create that community that we want to be a part of. During the height of the pandemic, we heard this-- or at least I heard this a lot-- we're all in this together.

Well, we still are. We're still in this together. All the generations are in the same boat, and we can support one another. We can find out how to communicate with each other better and how to really be in this together. And I think that will create a very positive environment, and it will make us all feel much better.

CORA HALL: Makes perfect sense. So we do have-- thank you both for your great insights. We do have some questions. Dr. Twenge, I'm going to start with you. How does the trend toward slower development play out in the workforce?

JEAN TWENGE: Yeah, so what we have is a generation of young adults who just don't have as much independent life experience and experience with decision making when they enter the workplace. So there's clearly some advantages to that slow life strategy. And most public health experts and parents are pretty thrilled that not as many teens are drinking alcohol.

However, them, not going out with their friends as much, less likely to have a job, less likely to have had a driver's license, all of those things. You know, I hear this everywhere I go. So I give talks on college campuses.

And the student life staff will say I have more and more students who can't make even simple decisions without texting their parents. I heard this from young managers. You know, I like lot of things about this generation, but I really have to be very specific when I tell them what to do. And I see that in the undergraduate students that I teach as well that you really have to spell things out for them a lot more.

10 or 15 years ago, the young employees-- and it was much more possible to just say, OK, go and figure this out. And this generation really wants much more precise instructions and much more guidance. And give them that. They can actually really do a great job much of the time, but you have to start often with that realization that they're going to need more careful guidance and help.

CORA HALL: That's good advice. And I want to go into another question that came up in the chat about the silent generation and some of the depression trends we're seeing there. And I think you were educating us around folks are working into their 70s and 80s. And so I want to give you both a chance to respond. I would guess of that population there's probably some that are choosing to work and some that have to work, but I offer that question to either one of you.

JEAN TWENGE: Well, I mean, the good news is the silent generation has pretty good mental health overall. So during the pandemic, there were some huge surveys. And even though they were the most affected by the pandemic, it was their age group who was most likely to be hospitalized and die. They were most likely to have to be on lockdown and really not do that much.

Their anxiety and depression rates were actually lower than other generations. We have other data on that too. And in terms of their happiness and suicide rate and everything is lower than the boomers, even when we control for age. So they really stand out as being a generation that just struggled less with mental health, maybe based on their kind of historical position. So that's kind of a piece of good news for that group.

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Yeah, I think they've been able to develop resilience, which is such a big factor in keeping a good mental health state. So I think that's there. However, let's not forget too, though, that a lot of those individuals in that generation do struggle with depression, do have a fairly high suicide rate.

And I think some of the reasons for that are no different than what we've been talking about. It really is affecting us as a nation across generations. So things like technology, things like isolation, and, of course, economic and other social pressures affect us all equally. Some of us and maybe that generation does have more resilience to be able to bounce back, but they are affected.

And then, of course, just from a physical perspective, the body does affect the mind. And that age group obviously has more comorbid conditions, has more medications, some of which can cause depression or other mental health symptoms. So we need to be careful. Again, as Dr. Twenge said, we shouldn't be stereotyping. There are going to be even-- there's almost a bimodal distribution in that age group of people who do very, very well and then others who are really struggling.

CORA HALL: There was a-- I want to build on the comorbidity piece that you just mentioned because there was a question in the chat about how our-- particularly, issues around obesity playing into some of these trends. If you could just offer some thoughts there.

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Obesity and work-related injuries, specifically?

CORA HALL: Yes.

MARCOS IGLESIAS: It's a huge risk factor. And I don't have the actual numbers at my fingertips, but I know that increasing weight, not just obesity, but overweight and obesity-- there's almost a linear correlation between it and the number of work-related injuries. So that's the first step.

The second step is that then that those individuals with overweight or obesity have longer duration of disability, a longer recovery to getting back to where they were before the injury. So there's no question that is something that has been a huge problem, not only in workers compensation, but just in the health of the nation.

CORA HALL: Absolutely. One more question for you, Dr. Iglesias. "Why do women take more help when offered than men, even when the data suggests men need it more?"

MARCOS IGLESIAS: Ah, because they're smarter.

CORA HALL: [LAUGHS]

MARCOS IGLESIAS: And I hope my four daughters and wife are listening to this. No, but I do think they're emotionally smarter than men. And we've seen this. And I mentioned earlier, the adoption of the app. And it's something that's very well recognized in the literature going back at least 40 years that I can think of.

Women are much more likely to seek help, especially around mental health issues. There are a couple of investigators, about 30, 40 years ago, suggest that may have to do with the role of women in the family, where they take more of the social-emotional leadership in the family. I think a lot of this could be. And I'm not an expert, but I think some of this could be based on gender roles in society, but there's no question men do prefer to deal with a lot of mental health issues on their own, and I'm not sure that that's the best approach.

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CORA HALL: OK. Well, we are going to wrap up. I want to thank everyone for joining us today, especially our two presenters. You shared a lot of great insights back to the group. And there's a number of questions in the chat about this being made available. So Justin will share some insights in a minute on how we can share the content.

But for any additional resources on managing evolving workplace risks, please visit travelers.com. I would encourage you to check out the replay video of Building a Better Workforce-- or Workplace. This was from our customer breakfast that we hosted at Risk World 2023. So we did record it and make that information available. And it featured a live discussion with the director of the CDC sharing a lot of their latest research and trends to watch and great Q&A from risk managers across the country. So that will be available, the Building a Better Workplace link in the chat.

For all attendees, once again, on behalf of Travelers and Constitution State Services, thank you for joining us today. Justin, back to you.

JUSTIN SMULISON: All right, that was great. That link is in the chat now for everyone. I would like to thank Dr. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and Dr. Marcos Iglesias MD from Travelers, and, of course, our wonderful moderator, Cora Hall.

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