Why your Wellness Program Isn't Enough
It’s been nearly a year since 2.6 billion people were in some form of lockdown. Back in April of 2020, 81% of the global workforce was fully or partially working from home (or not working at all), many collaborating via Zoom, Google Hangouts, Slack, and other virtual tools. Among other deficiencies, this abrupt shift exposed how worn down many people really were — and how they have been for awhile.
Burnout didn’t start with the pandemic but it has certainly been amplified by it.
A recent study conducted by Jennifer Moss, YMCA WorkWell, and Harvard Business Review (HBR) found that since the pandemic began:
89% of respondents said their work life was getting worse
85% said their wellbeing had declined
56% said their job demands had increased
62% of the people who were struggling to manage their workloads had experienced burnout “often” or “extremely often” in the previous months
Only 21% rated their wellbeing as “good,” and a mere 2% rated it as “excellent.”
Even pre-pandemic, The World Health Organization described burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed” in its International Classification of Diseases. This language indicates that burnout is more than just an individual employee problem; it’s an organizational problem. And it requires organizational solutions. Despite this understanding, many business leaders are still prescribing self-care as the cure for burnout. The burden of solving the problem falls almost exclusively on the individual while organizations avoid the responsibility of addressing their own structural inadequacies. Yoga, meditation classes or apps, employee assistance programs (EAPs), and health stipends are effective tools for improving individual wellbeing but not quite enough when it comes to preventing burnout specifically. In order to achieve burnout prevention, proactive interventions are needed at the organizational level in addition to reactive tactics at the individual level.
According to Christina Maslach of the University of California, Berkeley, Susan E. Jackson of Rutgers, and Michael Leiter of Deakin University, burnout has six main causes:
Unsustainable workload and expectations
Perceived lack of control
Insufficient rewards for effort
Lack of a supportive community
Lack of fairness
Mismatched values and skills
So what can be done? How can business leaders start to evaluate their organizational structures through the lens of mental health?
Look at (and adjust) workloads and expectations
It seems obvious but bears repeating, having a manageable workload is one of the strongest predictors of lower burnout. To help overburdened employees, business leaders can communicate priorities clearly and deprioritize tasks or initiatives that aren’t pressing or high priority. Prioritization and clear communication is not a one and done act, but rather something to be done regularly as priorities change and ambiguity sets in.
Also consider reevaluating your meeting culture. It’s been shown that video calls are actually harder on us both physically and mentally than in person meetings. Our brains struggle to process nonverbal cues like facial expressions and body language via video, making it tough to relax during conversations. It comes as no surprise that during the pandemic, meetings have increased substantially. According to a recent study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the amount of time employees spend in meetings has increased by 13%.
So let's try this. Before every meeting (including, and especially, standing or recurring meetings), ask the group:
Is there a clear objective for the meeting? Do you know what you need and/or do others know what they need?
Is input of others necessary to move forward?
Is real-time communication necessary to progress?
If yes, then ask:
Does this meeting need to be a video call?
Does it need 30 minutes or longer?
Who is absolutely essential in the meeting?
Offer autonomy and flexibility
Humans are wired to feel at ease when in control. Psychological distress is more often experienced when people feel unable to control aspects of their day to day lives, including work. With the nature of knowledge work (do you have access to a laptop? Wifi? Nearby outlets? Boom you’re in business), organizational leaders can offer flexibility and autonomy over things like location and working hours. To do this effectively, try focusing on outcomes rather than process, be clear about expectations, and put the right metrics and monitoring in place to keep folks accountable.
Convey a sense of purpose
Respondents in the study cited above said that feeling a sense of purpose helped defend against burnout at work. Burnout scores declined as purpose scores increased. Dr. Romila Mushtaq, neurologist and mindful living expert, explores this correlation in her Tedx talk, “The Powerful Secret of Your Breath”. She says, “Career burnout arises when our external world is not in alignment with our internal soul compass. The way we find our life purpose is being aligned with our internal soul compass; this is the place within us where all the answers reside – some call it your intuition, your gut instinct, or your internal wisdom.” When our life is not in congruence with our internal selves, stress occurs.
Business leaders can help their people understand their purpose and value at work. Consider working through the PERMA Model to be incredibly clear about what purpose means and how the work done everyday has an impact on others
Invest in emotionally intelligent leadership
According to Helen Riess, author of The Empathy Effect, empathy increases job satisfaction, reduces burnout, and is highly correlated with enhanced wellbeing. Empathy is perhaps the most critical leadership skill in a crisis and something that can be cultivated with practice and training.
In addition to empathy, emotionally intelligent people tend to embody these four core competencies:
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Relationship management
Leaders set the tone of their organization. If they lack emotional intelligence, it could have more far-reaching consequences, resulting in lower employee engagement and a higher burnout.
Normalize the conversation about mental health
According to a report published by Kaiser Permanente, roughly 75% of employees have struggled with an issue that affected their mental health, yet, 8 out of 10 workers with a mental health condition say shame and stigma prevent them from talking about it. That’s a problem for individuals, but it’s also a problem for organizations — because untreated mental health conditions cost American companies billions every year.
Mental health needs don’t devalue a person. If someone is experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, addiction or burnout, they should feel comfortable speaking up without internalizing the false idea that they're not worthy of the job. Business leaders can start by modeling the behavior - talk about your own struggles and how you cope with daily stress.
In addition, peer-to-peer programs or employee resource groups (ERGs) centered around mental health can support people in starting the conversation. Training in mental health first aid can be held for those interested in becoming allies for the staff in a crisis. Google’s staff built a grassroots program to destigmatize mental health at work. Their moonshot mission is to get every Googler aware of mental health resources available and feeling comfortable articulating their mental health needs.
For nearly all of us, some level of burnout is inevitable and there is no quick fix. Meaningful change starts with practical steps, both individually and collectively. With organizations being more aware of and active toward fixing the structural contributors of burnout at work, we’re more likely to see positive change in employee mental health.