It’s TIME to END Workplace Burnout!
I recently spoke as part of a panel at a quarterly forum on Mental Health in the Workplace. The theme of this particular session was optimization - How do we optimize humans, teams and workplaces to advance greater well-being and mental health? After 45 minutes of excellent discussion from all of the panelists, we came to our closing comments. I hadn’t prepared to say this, but feeling both charged and drained by the passionate ideas shared, I found myself honestly saying, “I’m impatient... I’m tired of talking about the mental health and well-being crisis and how workplaces contribute to it rather than improve it. I want this problem to end. We have decades of research and science telling us what humans need to thrive. Why is that businesses still tend to do the opposite? Please join me in changing the narrative. It’s time! Let’s do this!”
Those words have become a hashtag for me in almost all of my social media posts - #itstime #letsdothis. Because we are LONG overdue for a major change in how companies treat their employees. I’m ready to join the growing movement to END workplace burnout. Are you? Then let’s dig in!
Stress is all in your head!
When I started writing this newsletter, I promised we’d look at some of the systemic causes of stress and burnout in the workplace and some practical ways to address them rather than putting a bandaid on them. In order to understand how to identify and resolve systemic workplace stressors, we need to first understand stress. What’s at the very root of stress and burnout? Our brains!
That’s right - stress is all in our heads!
What we all feel as “stress” is essentially a flood of hormones in our body that our brain releases in response to perceived threat. Or, as the World Health Organization defines it, stress is “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation” and also a “natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives.”
Stress is simply the result of our brain doing its job to protect us! In many cases, stress is NOT a bad thing. It can be a motivator and heighten our focus and performance and help us get things done faster. It can also signal to us when we need to leave a situation that is harmful.
The problem we are facing in society right now is that the frequency, intensity and duration of the stressors we are experiencing has led to literal brain overload…. i.e. burn out. You see, the brain is NOT designed to deal with CHRONIC stress. Those hormones it emits - cortisol and adrenaline among others - are harmful to the body in multiple ways, and they contribute to diminished cognitive function. They are fine in small quantities, but over time they are a dangerous and destructive cocktail.
So what does work have to do with that? I’m so glad you asked!
Workplace Stress
There are many, MANY causes of stress in our lives, much of which we can’t control - trauma, divorce, illness, finances, global conflicts, social unrest, navigating the complex intersection between Taylor Swift and NFL football…. Need I go on?
No.. you get it… but the point is that your employees are carrying the weight of ALL of these things on their shoulders every day when they start work. Their bodies are already saturated with cortisol and adrenaline which means their brains are distracted and having a hard time focusing, making decisions and tapping into positive emotions. The LAST thing they need is for work to be another SOURCE of stress!
And yet, sadly, work is filled with dozens of additional micro-stressors. In fact, according to the American Institute of Stress, “job stress” - which is described as the perception of having little control but lots of demands - is the major source of stress for American adults.
Let me repeat that….. Job stress is the major source of stress for American adults!
Think about it -
unreasonable or unclear performance expectations
inefficient, misaligned and complex work processes
back to back meetings with no clear purpose or agenda
performance “ranking” or “rating” that pits employees against each other
constant organizational changes and layoffs
broken systems that expend effort on needless workarounds
lack of transparent communication
All of these all too common workplace conditions contribute to feelings of dread, frustration and lack of control. Not to mention the ever present fear around disagreeing with leadership decisions or of making mistakes or of damaging your “brand” by being too negative or too vocal.
These workplace stressors are viewed by the brain as potential social/emotional threats, which means that all day while your employees are at work even MORE of that toxic cortisol and adrenaline cocktail is pumping through their bodies. Who pays the cost? All of us!
Bottom Line: Burnout impacts YOUR bottom line
Employees in these stressful workplace environments often can’t control or change the other stressors in their lives - like global warming, inflation, political unrest, health issues or family strife - so what CAN they change? They can quit their jobs. Or, if they can’t quit, they can mentally disengage. The basic human need for autonomy kicks in and people will seek to control whatever IS in their control.
And then what happens to your organization?
When employees leave or disengage, YOU get stuck with the bill!
According to Gallup research, companies end up paying anywhere between 1.5 to 2 times the cost of their salary to replace them OR, they lose approximately 18% of each employee's annual salary to disengagement! And that’s just the cost to your organization. What is the cost to those employees’ mental well-being? What is the cost to society and the world?
Whew…. I know…. That’s a lot! So what can you do?
Become a Workplace Haven
I shared this data on stress NOT to stress us out more, but to name the real enemy - which is not necessarily you as the leader. I know you don’t wake up every day focused on how you can add more stress to your employees’ lives. These stressors within the work environment are simply processes that we all have tolerated for decades because it is “just the way we do things.” But it doesn’t have to be that way.
In order to combat this ever increasing stress load we need to END the unhealthy normalization of workplace stress. It’s time for MAJOR change. It’s time for SYSTEMIC change. It’s time for what Sally Clarke, co-director of Human Leaders and co-author of the 2024 Global State of Workplace Burnout calls “a collective uprising.”
I’m ready! Are you?
My call to action is simple:
See workplace stress for the problem that it is
Be willing to OWN addressing the problem
Reach out if you need help to begin the process of change
Sometimes we all need a guide from the outside to come in and start the conversation and look with new eyes at what we may have stopped seeing. I would love to help you start filtering all of your processes, policies, procedures, systems and structures through a HUMAN lens instead of the outdated “industrial” lens we have used for decades. My passion is to help rebuild workplaces to meet THREE core human needs - safety, purpose, and connection. When workplaces meet these needs, they can become havens instead of stress producing hamster wheels.
It’s time to rethink work and workplaces and I’m here to help. Let’s do this.
Subscribe to or share this newsletter to continue the conversation as I’ll be sharing more on the foundations of becoming a Regenerative Workplace in future editions.
