Written for the leaders, owners and professionals of the 11 million businesses with between $50,000 and $50 million in revenue.

It's almost Labor Day weekend, but is it also your first summer break? If so, you're in good (workaholic) company, because only 1 in 2 U.S. employees planned a vacation this summer, according to a new LinkedIn survey.

One explanation might be feelings of guilt. The survey found that nearly 40% of younger workers feel guilty for taking time off, although they're less likely than older workers to answer emails while out of office. If you struggle to ever put "OOO" on your calendar, read our guide to The Best Time of the Year to Take Vacation.

Today's Edition...

Psychedelic therapy: Will your employee health plan cover it?

Hit Man: Personalize your approach for a target audience

Psilocybenefits Package: Will Your Employee Health Plan Cover Psychedelic Therapy?

(Source: Shutterstock)

Many businesses offer mental health resources either through traditional insurance coverage or Employee Assistance Programs. With the growing mainstream acceptance of psychedelic-assisted therapy — which experts believe could significantly reduce the symptoms of depression and PTSD — will it, too, become a standard workplace benefit over the next decade?

"The groundwork is being laid for that to happen," explains the Disability Management Employer Coalition. It believes the FDA will approve MDMA and LSD for medical use as the agency did for esketamine, a form of ketamine, in 2020.

The FDA rejected one MDMA treatment for PTSD in August, but experts believe it's only a temporary setback.

Benefits provider Enthea has over a dozen companies signed up for psychedelic coverage, which helps workers access ketamine-assisted therapy nationwide and psilocybin-assisted therapy in Oregon, where it's legal. Many other companies are considering future coverage. (A few very progressive ones are booking ketamine retreats for their entire staffs.)

As with medicinal cannabis, however, nobody wants their pilot or driver to be administering treatment while on duty.

"Employers with safety-sensitive roles — and jobs that are covered by state and federal regulations — should pay particular attention to their policies and procedures for maintaining substance-free workplaces," advises corporate law firm Fisher & Phillips, LLP.

If you assume that "club drugs" are relatively cheap, the versions under medical supervision wouldn't be. Treating a PTSD patient with MDMA will likely cost over $12,000 as it requires over 40 hours of therapy sessions, according to the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School. (Group therapy could fortunately cut that cost by half, psychiatrists estimate.)

Still, psychedelic coverage might be a smart investment for employers — if the FDA gives the green light. As it stands, the economic burden of major depression clocks in around $210.5 billion, including absenteeism and lost productivity. Just for a little microdose of cost-benefit analysis.

Take your SMS marketing to the next level with Textedly

Text message marketing is a great way to connect directly with your customers, but to create a truly impressive text campaign, you need a top SMS marketing platform. The right tools can help tailor your messaging for your target audience, and detailed analytics let you fine-tune future campaigns to make sure they really take off.

Textedly delivers the most important SMS marketing features suitable for any business, and it's all packaged in a user-friendly interface that's easy to learn. Whether you need to send 10 text messages or 10,000, Textedly makes the job easy and effective.

If you're ready to bring your text message marketing to the next level, sign up for a free 14-day trial of Textedly at the link below.

Try Textedly Free.

Hit Man Shows How to Personalize Your Approach for a Target Audience

(Source: Netflix)

Netflix's Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater, is inspired by a true story. A college professor named Gary (Glen Powell), with the personality of plain toast, becomes a master of disguise for police sting operations, pretending to be an assassin for hire.

Gary researches each suspect and crafts a unique persona to dazzle them — transforming into a smooth-talking ladies' man, awkward nerd, rural gun nut, Russian mobster, slick finance bro, etc. — to close the apparent deal.

This strategy mirrors how digital marketing works today, with sophisticated algorithms interpreting user data to provide personalized shopping recommendations and content suggestions. Personalization and customization build trust and foster long-term relationships. Look no further than reward programs from Starbucks and Sephora, which blast out deals and offers based on customers' purchase history.

Even small businesses need to identify a target audience. Just like Gary, tailoring your approach can lead to killer results.

On August 30 in Business History:

1836: The city of Houston was founded. Today, the metro is America's seventh-largest GDP.
1901: Hubert Cecil Booth, an English engineer, patented the first vacuum. It was drawn by a horse.
1930: Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett was born.
2021: Algeria, the last country to allow leaded petrol, halted its sale. The global phaseout has saved an estimated 1.2 million lives per year.