Episode 635: Saving Lives and Saving Money: The Business Case for Investing In Staff Wellness with Kimberly Flear

Meet Kimberly Fleer, an industry veteran and mental wellness advocate. Kimberly shares her personal story of entering the hospitality world at age 15 to find financial support and a sense of family that was absent at home, rapidly excelling in roles from server to sommelier. While the industry provided valuable skills and camaraderie, it also became a means to mask and ignore childhood trauma, eventually leading to severe substance abuse. After achieving sobriety in 2020and losing a close friend to overdose, Kimberly recognized a critical gap in the industry's system of care: a lack of resources, education, and open conversation about mental health and recovery. She now works to address this through her company, Last Call, by helping employers embed preventative measures, normalize vulnerable conversations, and create recovery-friendly workplaces to save lives, improve culture, and dramatically reduce high turnover rates.

10 Takeaways

1. Hospitality as a Double-Edged Sword: The industry offers family and community, but its high-pressure, hard-working, and "play hard" culture can easily enable substance abuse as a coping mechanism for underlying trauma.
   
   
2. The System of Care Failure: Historically, the industry lacks onboarding or continuous resources for mental health, making it difficult for staff to seek or even know about recovery pathways (detox, inpatient, etc.).
   
   
3. Vulnerability is Leadership Strength: Leaders who are authentic and vulnerable about their own challenges (e.g., stress, personal issues) build trust and create a safe culture, countering the pressure for staff to appear flawless.
   
   
4. The Stigma Barrier: Normalization of excessive use makes staff fear speaking up about their struggles, as it's often incorrectly perceived as a sign of weakness or a risk to their job security.
   
   
5. Post-Shift Decompression: Service staff are often in "fight or flight" mode after an intense shift. Employers need to provide healthy, non-alcoholic ways (e.g., group de-briefs, self-care education) to regulate the nervous systeminstead of immediately turning to alcohol/drugs.
   
   
6. Prevention Over Reaction: Proactive measures—starting with mental health education in the onboarding processand daily pre/post-shift check-ins—are vital to prevent burnout and crisis situations.
   
   
7. Run Towards the Storm: A core theme is the need for leaders to face difficult conversations and systemic issues head-on, rather than ignoring or running away from them.
   
   
8. Recovery Boosts Retention: Actively hiring and supporting people in recovery leads to exceptionally high staff retention (e.g., 94% retention in one case study) and creates a more reliable, motivated workforce.
   
   
9. Transferable Skills: The industry attracts and develops highly talented individuals with immense transferable skills, making it an excellent place to build a career, especially for those seeking a fresh start.
   
   
10. Bring the Human Back: The ultimate goal is to "bring the human back to hospitality" by prioritizing the wellness of the people who serve, recognizing that personal health is essential to professional performance.