“You don’t fix burnout in an individual. You fix the system the individual is in.”
~ Dr. Christina Maslach (Psychologist and burnout researcher)
Hi all!
April is Stress Awareness Month. Many of us might react by thinking ‘I really don’t need a specific month to be aware of my stress, I’m aware of it all the time. In fact, being reminded of it is kind of stressful…’.
But, as organisations, we can’t ignore the impact that stress is having on our workforce. A McKinsey piece suggests that while we have been focussing on absenteeism as a symptom of high stress and burnout in our teams, the research shows that presenteeism is also prevalent, whereby your employees are in work but not performing at their potential.
Fittingly, the theme this year is #LeadWithLove, tying into our core Purpose of leading with heart, which is how we approach all our work. It also puts some responsibility on the leaders rather than just the individual (how many times have you been told that meditation, long baths or yoga will sort you out?).
So, we wanted to take this opportunity to look at stress through the lenses of the four elements of sustainable cultural change that we specialise in and explore it from a systemic standpoint, looking at how you can effectively invest in wellbeing and support your employees to thrive.
Mentally Healthy and Resilient Workforce: Organisations can often rely on their individual employees to manage their mental health by providing activities or resources. However, if you are already working at capacity, these can seem an impossible drain on precious time. Instead, creating environments in which employees can share about their mental health and stress levels can open the door to courageous conversations between line managers and their teams so that targeted support can be provided. Line Manager training in mental health, empathy, emotional intelligence will make these conversations more effective.
High Performing Teams: Research from the McKinsey Health Institute has shown that one of the core elements of burnout is job role ambiguity. Lack of clarity on your responsibilities can lead to confusion, unnecessary overload and ineffective communication. When you are really clear on what is expected of you, you are more confident, feel more capable and have more autonomy – another factor in job satisfaction and a mitigator of burnout. This therefore is a step that requires no additional investment but can have a huge impact in reducing stress and increasing the performance of your team.
Diverse Equitable and Inclusive Cultures: Our individual experience of stress is based on many aspects of our lives – i.e. it is not a level playing field. Those that experience bias will be exposed to more stress factors with intersectionality compounding this. Neurodivergent or LGBT colleagues may be masking their experiences for fear of judgement or retribution for example, something we know increases anxiety and stress. Being aware of this and working towards more inclusive workplaces can contribute to reducing these stress factors.
Creating a Positive Impact: Sustainability and social value are key responsibilities of organisations in today’s world. Initiatives that support this rely on long-term thinking, just as stress management policies do. Reducing stress for your employees is more likely to give them energy to engage in sustainability and social impact initiatives, have more innovative ideas around social change and give them the headspace to make more conscious choice that are better for the planet. Employees working in an organisation whose initiatives align with their own personal goals around sustainability and in which they feel that they are making a positive impact are likely to also reduce stress levels.
It is clear then, that there are many steps that organisations can be taking to support their employees in reducing their stress without making it the individual’s responsibility. Creating systems which have stress-reduction built into them rather than tokenistic wellbeing programmes is a far more sustainable way to reduce the risk of burnout and maintain productive teams.
How is your organisation taking responsibility for reducing the stress of your employees?
Liz x