With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic stress has stepped into the forefront of the conversation about mental and physical wellness, but how can we tackle this widespread issue? In this episode, workplace wellness expert and author of The Burnout Epidemic, Jennifer Moss talks about how to recognize and destigmatize chronic stress so that we can find peace and productivity in the workplace.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Jennifer Moss is a speaker, journalist, strategist, and the author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It. She is passionate about fostering happiness, well-being, and healthy culture in the workplace.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
DEFINING TERMS
The term “burnout” is often misunderstood. According to Jennifer Moss, author of a recently-published book on the subject, most define “burnout” as what “whiny millennials” experience when they want more work-life balance. As a result, we’ve tuned out those who are dealing with these major issues. And when people feel stigmatized, they internalize it and don’t speak up.
In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified “burnout” as institutional stress left unmanaged, essentially a syndrome of chronic stress left untreated which reveals itself as high levels of exhaustion and depletion, lack of confidence, and cynicism. Ultimately, these symptoms lead to depression, anxiety, increased suicidal ideation, and suicide. That’s why guest Jennifer Moss says that we must not only identify burnout but also seek to understand and talk about it.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Making it Worse
“One of the root causes of burnout is lack of fairness. I think we’ve seen wage gaps between various groups. And that’s just one of the six root causes. So that’s one of many examples where burnout already existed, but the pandemic did exacerbate it. And when you look at how fast we sped up, it was like it jammed everything into these two years and exploded these issues. I mean, meeting fatigue was a problem before. Now, we’ve increased our meetings by 252%.”
Pandemic Pressure
“The rapid speed that everything changed — we even personally had to accommodate this new adoption of so many different tools and technologies. […] So we’re sort of making things up as we go for a couple of months. Then there became a vacuum of work because it was an acute situation. It was now a chronic situation. And so that created this recipe for disaster. But there were a lot of attitudes around this being ‘business as usual.’ There were still expectations to hit, and we were still supposed to hit all those same pre-COVID goals. But then we were adding stretch goals and people weren’t recognizing that this was a massive chronic stressor.”
The Rationale for Resignation
“Microsoft Trends put out a really interesting report in 2021 and just recently in 2022. And they looked at the global workforce. They were trying to figure out why people were resigning — tens of thousands of people across the world. It used to be in their report that pay was the number one reason why people were leaving. And in this report, it was workload and lack of empathy from their employers.”
A Lack of Connection
“The younger generation — older Gen Zs and younger millennials — they’re saying that it’s the disconnection. They feel like they started the job in a pandemic, haven’t met their boss, haven’t met their coworkers. They have no friendships. Then, they had to isolate and distance for a long time. They just feel like their careers are atrophied and that’s leading them to feel really burned out.”
It’s Always Been There
“I wrote this one article — I think it was 2016 or 2017 — where I talked about remote workers and burnout and how they’re at risk. And so it’s been an issue that people have really connected and attached to for a long time — the idea of a harmonious versus an obsessive work mindset. […] So in 2019, I wrote about how burnout is about your company, not your people. And it’s interesting going back to some of that and seeing that all the things that were real issues then were huge issues in the pandemic.”
Steps Toward Wellness
“The way that we look at burnout prevention strategies is all jumbled into wellness. And so we’re just giving people ice cream when they need water. […] So, you know, all of those downstream interventions — suggestions for self-care like subsidized gym memberships, more yoga, better breathing. Here’s an app that’ll help you breathe and sleep better. That’s great if you’re optimized, but what we’re seeing now is more organizations realizing that it’s upstream interventions that need to happen like paid family leave, better maternity and paternity leaves, […] more teletherapy, more access to being able to have anonymous support around mental health.”
Asking the Right Questions
“Look at where you’re allocating your budget. I say bifurcate between wellness and burnout prevention, figuring out where the upstream and downstream interventions are.
Think more about how to avoid people from falling in the river, versus just pulling them out and treating them downstream. […] We need to talk more about mental illness. We need to have more conversations there. We need to understand that a lot of people are not well, and the data is showing that. Leaders need to start small and understand that it doesn’t need to be an overhaul. No one has time for an overhaul.”
LEARN MORE
If you’re experiencing burnout, you’re not alone. Find resources and join the conversation at www.jennifer-moss.com.