ARTICLE
A panel of experts urged employers during a business forum Wednesday to remain vigilant about the opioid and mental health crises that have been plaguing the Lehigh Valley and country. That vigilance, they said, includes heightening awareness of any behavioral changes among workers. And business owners also have ethical and legal obligations to deal with troubled workers, panelists said at a Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce summit on how opioid abuse and mental illnesses are affecting small businesses. Steve Bacak, senior human resources consultant at payroll processing company Paychex, said bosses should ask employees work-related questions and keep an open mind. Employers, he said, should be prepared to find ways to help. “Don’t be afraid to talk to employees,” Bacak said. “If you do these things, you put the human in human resources.” Ed Easterly, an employment law attorney at Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus, advised employers to know their legal obligations. “If you don’t do something and in response you terminate the employee and say, ‘Listen we don’t deal with that stuff here,’ you’re going to call someone like me, because you’re likely going to be sued,” Easterly said. Featured speaker Larry Wiersch of Cetronia Ambulance Corps also drove home the pervasiveness of the epidemic before about 140 people who attended the event at Homewood Suites off Route 309. Wiersch, who is CEO of the South Whitehall Township squad, said so far this year emergency workers at Cetronia, which serves nine municipalities, have treated 150 people who survived drug overdose cases. He played an emergency call of a person who overdosed at work but was later revived by first responders, a scene he said is playing out everyday in the Lehigh Valley and beyond. “That person survived, but there are many more who did not,” he said. For the third consecutive year, overdose deaths linked to opioids rose dramatically in 2017 in Lehigh and Northampton counties, according to a Morning Call analysis of annual coroner reports released at the end of January. Northampton County had 109 drug-related deaths, while Lehigh County had 197 drug-related deaths. The chairman of the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s opioid task force, Dr. John Gallagher, has said the state’s opioid death toll likely will peak in Pennsylvania in 2024. The speakers said no family and no business is immune from the epidemic or its after effects. “There are no boundaries,” Wiersch said. During the panel portion, Maggie Tipton, a psychologist with the treatment center Caron, encouraged employers to provide employees with resources for treatment. “I will not ask questions beyond what you will share,” Tipton said employers could tell employees. “But I will help you find resources.” Donna Jacobsen, a travel agent who works from her home in Upper Macungie Township, manages human resources for a North Carolina-based agency. Jacobsen, who sits on the Lehigh County Drug and Alcohol Advisory Board, has dealt with the ravages of opioid addiction firsthand. Her daughter, Lindsay, has recovered from an opioid addiction. “The shame and stigma doesn’t get the person the help they need,” Jacobsen said after the forum. “It’s we as employers who need to be compassionate.” B.J. Metz Jr., president of Metz Co. in Wilson, who employs 16 people, was among the businesspeople who said many haven’t recognized the seriousness of the opioid crisis. “I haven’t seen it; that doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” Metz said. EARLY WARNING SIGNS Maggie Tipton of Caron Treatment Centers provided forum attendees with a list of earning warning signs that can show up in the workplace of someone developing a mental health or substance abuse problem. Among them: · Not completing work or showing poor performance · Erratic behavior · Unplanned absences or arriving late for work · Loss of motivation To read the article, click here.
A panel of experts urged employers during a business forum Wednesday to remain vigilant about the opioid and mental health crises that have been plaguing the Lehigh Valley and country.
That vigilance, they said, includes heightening awareness of any behavioral changes among workers.
And business owners also have ethical and legal obligations to deal with troubled workers, panelists said at a Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce summit on how opioid abuse and mental illnesses are affecting small businesses.
Steve Bacak, senior human resources consultant at payroll processing company Paychex, said bosses should ask employees work-related questions and keep an open mind. Employers, he said, should be prepared to find ways to help.
“Don’t be afraid to talk to employees,” Bacak said. “If you do these things, you put the human in human resources.”
Ed Easterly, an employment law attorney at Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus, advised employers to know their legal obligations.
“If you don’t do something and in response you terminate the employee and say, ‘Listen we don’t deal with that stuff here,’ you’re going to call someone like me, because you’re likely going to be sued,” Easterly said.
Featured speaker Larry Wiersch of Cetronia Ambulance Corps also drove home the pervasiveness of the epidemic before about 140 people who attended the event at Homewood Suites off Route 309.
Wiersch, who is CEO of the South Whitehall Township squad, said so far this year emergency workers at Cetronia, which serves nine municipalities, have treated 150 people who survived drug overdose cases.
He played an emergency call of a person who overdosed at work but was later revived by first responders, a scene he said is playing out everyday in the Lehigh Valley and beyond.
“That person survived, but there are many more who did not,” he said.
For the third consecutive year, overdose deaths linked to opioids rose dramatically in 2017 in Lehigh and Northampton counties, according to a Morning Call analysis of annual coroner reports released at the end of January. Northampton County had 109 drug-related deaths, while Lehigh County had 197 drug-related deaths. The chairman of the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s opioid task force, Dr. John Gallagher, has said the state’s opioid death toll likely will peak in Pennsylvania in 2024.
The speakers said no family and no business is immune from the epidemic or its after effects.
“There are no boundaries,” Wiersch said.
During the panel portion, Maggie Tipton, a psychologist with the treatment center Caron, encouraged employers to provide employees with resources for treatment. “I will not ask questions beyond what you will share,” Tipton said employers could tell employees. “But I will help you find resources.”
Donna Jacobsen, a travel agent who works from her home in Upper Macungie Township, manages human resources for a North Carolina-based agency. Jacobsen, who sits on the Lehigh County Drug and Alcohol Advisory Board, has dealt with the ravages of opioid addiction firsthand. Her daughter, Lindsay, has recovered from an opioid addiction.
“The shame and stigma doesn’t get the person the help they need,” Jacobsen said after the forum. “It’s we as employers who need to be compassionate.”
B.J. Metz Jr., president of Metz Co. in Wilson, who employs 16 people, was among the businesspeople who said many haven’t recognized the seriousness of the opioid crisis.
“I haven’t seen it; that doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” Metz said.
EARLY WARNING SIGNS
Maggie Tipton of Caron Treatment Centers provided forum attendees with a list of earning warning signs that can show up in the workplace of someone developing a mental health or substance abuse problem. Among them:
· Not completing work or showing poor performance
· Erratic behavior
· Unplanned absences or arriving late for work
· Loss of motivation To read the article, click here.