Burnout

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    Linked: 5 Simple Ways to Do More for Your Employees’ Mental Health This Week

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The reason I wanted to focus on this is that it can also be very easy to underestimate how much time people are spending on their work when the work is being done remotely, or in a hybrid situation. Even in the legal or consulting worlds where many of us are billing our time, or at least tracking time worked on projects, it’s not telling you the whole story. There is a lot of time spent on miscellaneous tasks that are getting lost in whatever tool you’re using to track the amount of time worked.

    It’s the 15 minutes I logged in to check my schedule before accepting a handful of meeting requests before heading to bed. The time spent clearing out the inbox over my first cup of coffee, or answering questions for a newer coworker, it’s all very likely to not show up in the “official” time because it happens, and then we forget about it.

    Do you know how much time your people work without considering it time worth tracking? Do you know how much those little interruptions add to the overall stress levels?

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    Linked: Addressing employee burnout: Are you solving the right problem?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    Kudos to McKinsey for the research, but really just for the first line of this paragraph:

    “As an employer, you can’t “yoga” your way out of these challenges. Employers who try to improve burnout without addressing toxic behavior are likely to fail. Our survey shows that improving all other organization factors assessed (without addressing toxic behavior) does not meaningfully improve reported levels of burnout symptoms. Yet, when toxic behavior levels are low, each additional intervention contributes to reducing negative outcomes and increasing positive ones.”

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    Linked – Work burnout rises despite company investments in mental health

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Yeah, remember all that took about being flexible for single parents, the diversity and inclusion projects we talked about kicking off, the efforts we were going to make on remote work to help us be more inclusive? Turns out that required some hard work we weren’t really interested in doing. They see this, they know it, and they are going to look for a place that is better. They no longer trust you.

    Who will you be left with when everyone who wants better leaves for it?

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    Linked: Should employers provide mental health training for management?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The one that gives me pause is the last bullet, but not because leaders shouldn’t have that knowledge, but more because human nature tells me that is the one most likely to be misused and create really uncomfortable situations. There’s a very fine line between being aware of signs of someone struggling and diagnosis. I absolutely do not want anyone in the workplace diagnosing people. Watch out for signs of stress and ways you can support the folks who work for you proactively? Sure. Decide for yourself that they have depression, or should be referred to an Employee Assistance Program? Not so much.

    But, here’s the thing I will fully admit when saying this. Avoiding this type of behavior is absolutely something that solid mental health training should be a part of. I’ve heard far too many instances lately where organizations are reading a lot about mental health, and burnout, in the workplace and then dispatch their managers to have conversations with their teams about it, and zero training.

    Those conversations are dangerous. You have to enable your leaders to go into those conversations with some education and expertise on the subject Just telling them to go and have the conversations without getting them up to speed on how to do so, creates a situation that is likely to end up with some very alienated employees.