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Tag: supportive workplaces

  • Restaurant That Gives Second Chances To People In Recovery Gets Rave Reviews

    Restaurant That Gives Second Chances To People In Recovery Gets Rave Reviews

    DV8 Kitchen provides a supportive, flexible work environment to ensure employees are “meeting their goals and staying on a good path.”

    One restaurant is not only giving people in recovery a second chance—they’re doing it incredibly well.

    DV8 Kitchen, which was recently featured in The Fix, opened last September, but it’s already garnered rave reviews and five stars on Yelp.

    All 25 employees at DV8 are in recovery from substance use disorder. Co-owner Rob Perez himself has 28 years of recovery. “I was a binge drinker. I didn’t have to drink everyday but when I did, I would frequently get out of control,” he told The Fix.

    With his Lexington, Kentucky eatery, Perez has created a workplace that caters to recovery. “Our staff don’t leave programs or meetings or houses and come to a foreign environment 40 hours a week, they come to a place where we all speak the same language, have the same customs, and discussions, so it’s a 24/7 program,” said Perez.

    The restaurant functions around the needs of the employees. For example, as Perez explained to the Dayton Daily News, DV8 does not open for dinner service so that employees may attend meetings, and tips are split evenly and added to paychecks instead of giving out cash.

    Schedules are flexible and work to fit in mandatory appointments for court or treatment centers, and each Tuesday a guest speaker comes in, covering topics including health and wellness, financial responsibility, teamwork and mindfulness.

    The restaurant works in partnership with treatment centers, where most new employees are hired from. “We work in tandem with the sober living houses to ensure the employee is meeting their goals and staying on a good path,” Perez told The Fix.

    Perez is well aware that, whether they like it or not, DV8 has something to prove. It’s more than a restaurant, it’s a chance to show people that “second chance” doesn’t mean “second rate.”

    Hoping to establish a higher standard for his restaurant, employees are paid 20% more than they would get at similar fast-casual restaurants, resulting in less turnover and better service, Perez told the Daily News.

    “I think that the customers see a different face of recovery. It is about helping the folks that work here,” Perez told the Daily News. “But it’s also about helping the general public understand that the recovery community is worth a shot. The recovery community can perform good work.”

    Perez believes that with hard work comes self-respect. “When you do a job with quality, you build self respect, self-esteem and pride in a craft you’re developing,” he told The Fix. “In recovery, we need a support system and an accountability system. And the camaraderie you get out of a job when you have common interests, backgrounds and circumstances, is pretty powerful.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • People With Depression Miss Fewer Days In Supportive Workplaces

    People With Depression Miss Fewer Days In Supportive Workplaces

    Researchers examined workplace policies and even varying gross domestic product for a recent global study on working with depression.

    People with depression miss fewer days of work if they are employed somewhere that supports them in their illness, a new study has found. 

    The study, published in The British Medical Journal, looked at workers in 15 countries. It found that workers with self-reported depression who have managers who support and assist them miss fewer days of work, lessening the economic impact of their disease.  

    “Working in an environment where managers felt comfortable to offer help and support to the employee rather than avoid them was independently associated with less absenteeism and more presenteeism,” the authors concluded. 

    Supportive workplaces might have formal policies for handling mental health issues, time-off policies that allow for mental health episodes, or a system for referring people to mental health care. All of these can result in fewer missed days of work and therefore a lower economic impact of depression. 

    “We know that supportive managers and workplace practices are associated with greater openness and disclosure, in addition to more positive attitudes towards employees with depression,” the study authors write. 

    In addition to looking at differing workplace policies, the study authors looked at differences in support for depression in countries with varying gross domestic product (GDP). In countries with lower GDPs, people with depression were more likely to miss days of work, possibly because there are fewer resources available than in countries with higher GDPs. 

    “Country contextual factors such as country GDP and financial resources can also influence the availability of support and potential for investment,” authors wrote.

    While this might be expected, study authors found that managers’ reactions to employees with depression were “at least as important” as a country’s GDP in predicting how often the employee would miss work. 

    Researchers also examined how social pressures impacted employees’ presence at work. They found that employees with depression were less likely to disclose their condition in Asian countries compared with Western countries, likely because of stigma around mental health in those places. 

    “Workplace policies and practices are likely to reflect broader sociocultural attitudes and beliefs about mental health and societal values about investment in prevention and support for people with mental health problems,” authors wrote.

    “This may influence workplace culture in relation to openness and comfort in discussing mental health issues. Previous research has shown that a cultural context which is more open and accepting of mental illness is associated with higher rates of help-seeking, antidepressant use and empowerment.”

    View the original article at thefix.com