This article was originally featured on The Nashville Business journal. To read the article in its original format click here.
For perhaps the first time, “burnout” has entered the cultural zeitgeist and it appears to have some sticking power. The rise of burnout is not simply an increase in the number of employees leaving their jobs (though certainly, that is part of it) but it is also a rise in our cultural ability to finally speak with some vulnerability and openness about mental health and well-being. We have been burning out our employees for much longer than we have had the terminology or self-awareness to identify it.
At TRILUNA we work to help organizations keep their employees connected, engaged, and well. So when Arianna Huffington wrote on LinkedIn, “What do you think companies can do to help their people be more connected and engaged?” we had some thoughts. Her post quipped about how the “The Great Resignation” is actually a reevaluation of workplace culture. “What people are resigning from is a culture of burnout and a broken definition of success. In quitting their job, people are affirming their longing for a different way of working and living,” she writes. We agree.
When left unmanaged, stress creates a vicious cycle. It leads to less effective time management and decreased work quality, leading workers to require more time to get their work done — culture puts more pressure and stress on them. And the loop continues, reaching critical mass until employees either burn out, fall into ill health, move on or all of the above. On all fronts, unmanaged workplace stress costs us employee happiness as well as time and money.
So much of what we think is a fact about work and stress is just a default mode we’ve gotten used to. The world is evolving. The way we work is evolving. We were handed a workplace culture that glorifies production at the expense of mental health but we can choose something different. Through our work with companies as large as LinkedIn and as small as local yoga studios, Triluna has identified five areas that must be addressed to prevent burnout and reduce stress:
1. Divest from hustle culture: Culture happens from the top down. We must ask ourselves, "in what ways are we encouraging unhealthy habits at the expense of the mental health of our team?" Anonymously survey teams and leadership to ask them what they need and where they feel they need support.
2. Encourage deep self-care: Our idea of wellness has to evolve to truly care for our people. Wellness is not the same thing as fitness. Stress management, mental health care, and honoring on and off time will do more for your people than pushups and fitness challenges ever will.
3. Commit to your community: Community plays a huge role in employee wellbeing. To build community there must be communication, transparency and vulnerability. Additionally, for that community to have a real impact it must also be inclusive. There must be a genuine interest in understanding the lived experiences of co-workers, employees and friends and a space for people to show up authentically.
4. Support personal growth: A happy or even stress-free workplace would still not be enough for our people. They need purpose, freedom and direction. A workplace that encourages personal and professional development will inspire more than productivity. It tells employees and teams that we care about their progress and we are invested in it.
5. Redefine and offer opportunities to structure productivity: Having time and having capacity are not the same thing. Often productivity is cyclical. When outside stressors are high it is unrealistic to expect that productivity levels will remain the same. We can encourage better work in less time by allowing employees freedom around where and how they work while clearly communicating expectations and offering support. When creating productive teams we follow five rules:
Set actionable goals and record them
Use frameworks for structure
Zone your time for focus
Delegate where you can
Understand your rhythms
We can work hard but with boundaries. We can engage with our passion but use productivity frameworks to get better work in less time. We can work to live without living to work. We can “never give up” by learning to pivot and allowing our goals and mission to evolve with us and our desires. We can flex into business times by resting deeply when you have downtime. All these things together will move us toward a new vision for the future of work that redefines what it means to be successful for both employer and employee.