Making work more sustainable
Why wellness perks can’t cure chronic burnout, and what we can do about it other than powering through until our next vacation.
via Sunday Scaries Instagram
Image description: Text over an image reads, "Coworker: "Everyone feeling refreshed after the time off?" Me: Image meant to be "me" shows a still photo from the television show Succession, showing the actor Jeremy Strong frowning and looking very tired.
Does this meme strike a chord?
In December, my colleague Erin-Kate Escobar was interviewed about their rest practices. As I read through their piece, I found myself noticing that (despite having many systems in place to help me get the rest I need) I was “powering through” my workdays, thinking, “I just have to make it to winter break.”
But I knew winter break* wasn’t going to magically change anything. No vacation can change the underlying conditions that burn us out throughout the year. Among other things, the onslaught of daily tragic news is still here, requiring massive amounts of energy to process, subconsciously if not also consciously taking a toll on our bodies, hearts, and minds.
As predicted, I remain deeply exhausted, and based on what I’m hearing from clients, friends, and in the media, it’s highly likely that you and your team are, too. Winter is already tough in the northern hemisphere during “precedented” times. How can we get our work done without pouring never-ending additional cups of coffee or continuing to try to “power through” until the weekend or our next vacation?
Some workplaces offer wellness benefits to help staff cope with difficult moments in life. But what happens when life is an ongoing difficult moment? We can’t wellness our way out of this.* Even really good work in therapy can’t solve this. That’s because burnout isn't an individual problem. It’s a structural one. And that means it requires structural solutions. Within the realms that workplace leaders and managers have control over, that means we need to structure our work in ways that are truly sustainable and acknowledge our humanity. Capitalism isn’t structured for this, so it’ll feel counterintuitive — and indeed, to do this fully probably isn’t possible within capitalism. But there are steps you can take as a leader to make your workplace and work culture more sustainable – ie, less exhausting – for yourself and your staff.
Consider:
What hours are you really expecting your staff to work?
Consider both the explicit hours you state as your standard work hours and the implicit messages you send about what hours staff are expected to work due to the nature of how your deadlines and project timelines are set up, when you send emails and Slack messages, etc?
What is your culture around disconnecting?
When staff take time off (whether for vacation, PTO, long-term leave like parental leave or FMLA, or sick leave), is it accepted in your company culture for them to actually fully disconnect to get the restorative time we know humans need? Or is there an expectation (whether explicit or implicit) that they are checking in, doing some work, and/or available for certain things? Again, consider both the explicit policies around this and also the implicit messages you send staff, such as how this is modeled by leadership, what is said about staff who are taking time off, and whether project plans and workloads are built with enough wiggle room to allow people to get sick and be human.
Are you expecting yourself and your staff to solve systematic burnout with individual self-care?
When your work and/or life feels unsustainable, do you try to “self-care” your way out of it with temporary solutions that feel good in the moment? Or do you give yourself a chance to address underlying issues so you can get ongoing relief? How does this translate to what you support your staff in doing to make their work more sustainable?** If, in response to tragic news or learning that staff are burnt out, you’ve reminded your staff about access to mental health benefits, held a town hall, offered a day off, etc, but didn’t also look at structural solutions at the organizational level to help people sustain their wellbeing, I’m looking at you.
Solutions
If you’re feeling like there’s room for improvement in your answers to the above questions, here are some solutions I’ve seen clients implement and/or read solid research about to reduce burnout in sustainable ways:
Prioritize routinely and transparently (and hopefully also humanely)
In October, I suggest that to help staff make space to care for themselves amidst the Israel/Palestine conflict you, “Take stock of what work is mission-critical and what work can take a back seat. Share that assessment with those who work for you and make a plan together to prioritize and de-prioritize your team’s work or re-distribute it temporarily.” You don’t have to wait for an international crisis to do this – in fact, it’s something that I do with my Business Manager, Dawn, nearly every week. Having clear conversations about priorities, project timelines, what upcoming time we’re taking off, and when it’s ok to reach out via what methods for what topics is a key part of our regular check-ins. (And when we catch ourselves making unnecessary compromises to our wellbeing for the sake of our work, we often remind each other that we are not, in fact, working in an ER. Chances are that thing we’re worried about can wait.) This step is crucial if you’re going to consider implementing either of the next two solutions.
Implement a four-day workweek
A widely reported 2022 study found that organizations that shifted from a five-day workweek to a four-day workweek enjoyed improved product quality and customer service, a reduction in absences and sick days, increased job satisfaction, improved work-life balance, and reduced employee stress. Does this sound totally outside the realm of possibility for your workplace? Check out Harvard Business Review’s practical guide to implementing a four-day workweek. (Or talk to me about how I do it for myself!)
Set core hours
Having flexible working hours is a great way to be more inclusive. But without clear boundaries to go with the flexibility, this can lead to a 24/7 work culture of staff feeling like they need to be available all the time in case someone needs them. To avoid this, in addition to having flexible schedules that allow staff to get work done at times that work best for them, you can also have core hours: times when all staff are generally expected to be available for meetings and in communication with each other. Importantly, this can mean that staff are NOT expected to be available for meetings and in communication with each other outside of these hours. One crucial way to implement this policy is to prohibit sending communications (emails, Slack messages, etc) outside of these hours. Staff can still write communications and do work outside of these hours, but they’ll need to schedule their communications to be sent during communicating hours. Why is this important? Because it means that there are hours during each day when staff don’t have to worry that they’re missing important communications or not showing up for colleagues who need them when they are attending to non-work needs or focusing on a work task that requires their full attention. And that does wonders for our brains’ and bodies’ abilities to relax and restore.
Close your office more
During Thanksgiving weekend, I was catching up with a friend who started a new job in February. She remarked that even though she’d taken a week-long vacation over the summer, Thanksgiving and the day after were the first days she actually felt like she could relax into a day off. I asked her if she thought this might be because she knew that nobody else on her team was working. Ie, that she felt confident she’d be returning on Monday to an inbox that looked pretty similar to how she left it, whereas when she took her summer vacation, she knew she’d be returning to an inbox full of new tasks that had accumulated while she was away. Bingo! Enter the magic of true office closures! Many offices are “closed” the week between Christmas and New Years, and even people (like me) who don’t celebrate Christmas look forward to this time of year precisely because we know that when we return to work on January 2, our inboxes will look very similar to how we left them on December 24. That means the part of our brain that is usually thinking about work can actually relax for those eight days in between! We don’t have to wonder if our being away from the office is making it harder for our colleagues to get their work done, or if we’re letting our clients down by being away. This is a big reason why many offices also shut down for a week each summer. (Or two weeks, like TED!) If you don’t already close your office for the last week of December, consider starting! If you do, consider adding another week or two at other points during the year, like the summer. Then think about what it could look like to mirror the conditions of a long office closure during shorter time periods, like a day (if you’re implementing a four-day work week), a weekend, or an evening (if you’re setting clear communications hours). This can do a lot for our abilities to get the restorative rest we need!
Disable phone notifications
If your workplace isn’t going to adopt the above suggestions (and even if they are!) you can create some of these boundaries for yourself. My go-to method for myself and the first suggestion I usually give my coaching clients is to block work-related notifications on our phones. (Most commonly that means not getting pop-up notifications when new work emails or Slack messages arrive.) You might also set app limits so that you can’t even check work-related apps during non-working hours. At a minimum, this means that you’ll be able to focus better on your work, and it’ll be easier to be present in the activities you do outside of work – asking your brain to do a lot less task switching, which we know takes a huge energy toll.
If you found these ideas helpful, please feel free to share this post with your friends and colleagues, and make sure you’re signed up for my newsletter so you’ll get future posts sent directly to your inbox as soon as they’re published.
Want support in making your workplace more sustainable? Much of the ongoing advisory work I do with my clients is focused on customizing these and other structural changes to their workplaces so that employees – especially those from the underrepresented and marginalized groups that already experience a disproportionately high share of burnout – are better supported in doing their best work. Reach out to learn more about how we can work together on this!
*Nevermind what happens during winter break! Spending holidays with family is relaxing for a minority of people – it requires a lot of emotional energy for most! The saying, “I need a vacation to recover from my vacation” is common for good reason.
**For more on the unsustainable nature of modern “wellness” check out this episode of Code Switch. The summary: No bubble bath, glass of wine, and/or spa vacation will make your work any less depleting when you come back to it. We need true structural changes in our workplaces to achieve that.