The original version of this article was published in Half Times, the digital magazine for Robert Half employees.

It's always been important to Robert Half to offer benefits that support, lift up and help our employees create and maintain thriving, well-balanced lives, both inside and outside of work. Following are just two examples of how these offerings help to positively impact our employees.

The past two years have brought swells of uncertainty to the Linnemeyer household, as it has for many families. Mel Linnemeyer, a Robert Half branch manager in Boise, Idaho, worried about whether she and her husband, who had lost his job, would stay afloat while balancing homeschooling their two children and keeping healthy. "My husband became an amazing stay-at-home father, so he's been gracious in taking on a majority of it," Mel said. "But it's very stressful, very hard."

Mel's motto is: "The family that plays together, stays together." The Linnemeyers live on six acres and enjoy activities such as road trips, camping and boating in the summer. But an incident in early 2021 tested Mel's resolve: She noticed her 5-year-old daughter was being destructive to one of her dolls and worried that it indicated she was personifying the anxiety that was swirling in her home.

"When I found the doll, in my head, I'm thinking 'red flags,'" Mel said. "And I'm spiraling."

During a virtual lunch, she told a girlfriend what she'd found and discussed how she might respond. Her friend suggested she find out whether Robert Half offered access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) - free, confidential, one-on-one counseling sessions. The next day, Mel visited the Robert Half Benefits site, called the telephone number provided and was immediately paired with a family therapist.

Mel and the family therapist spent the next several phone sessions discussing events that had transpired with her daughter and what was going on generally in the household during this challenging time for the family. "My kids are typically very good, well-behaved, well-adjusted children," Mel said. "I had started skewing things: my concerns, the environmental factors. The therapist essentially said, 'Tell me about you. How are you handling stress? How is your mental wellness?'"

The therapist helped Mel realize that the incident with the doll was just her kid being a kid. "I came to the conclusion that she was too young to understand what she was doing," Mel said. "It was a really good conversation for me to put myself in check. Things are stressful for everyone. Let's find different outlets for the family to be together to feel connected and relieve some of that stress."

Mel highly recommends that her colleagues tap into the EAP as a resource when they need to work through feelings of stress and anxiety. (Robert Half provides up to 10 free sessions per topic with a therapist.) "These are people whose true intention is to help you with what you're going through," she said. "I never felt like I was doing counseling. It couldn't have been easier to start a conversation, especially with something that was weighing so heavily on my mind. It was a way to get some guidance when I had no idea where to start."