MENTAL HEALTH, STRESS & WELLBEING
When we compound this technological influx with globalisation and working in an increasingly interconnected world, it’s easy to see why burnout has become such a challenge for corporations. Murray uses the technology industry to expand on this pertinent point: “In the tech industry we have different parts of the same company working in different countries. They’re communicating to another across different time zones. So, you can have someone who’s getting up at 7am in London but actually they don’t log on to speak to their boss until 5pm and then they’re still working at 11pm.”
“We’re in that particular stage where we have to get very clear with boundaries. We need to ask ourselves the question, what is our working week going to look like? What are the boundaries? How does this work? Because otherwise people will be logging on 18 hours a day and that’s absolutely unacceptable.”
ANY AILMENTS? For all these aforementioned reasons, the
normalisation of stress has become a prominent feature in business cultures. A fine line must be found between balancing the needs of productivity with the mental health of employees. There is an obvious and rather clichéd business magazine axiom that works here: healthy employees translate to a healthier bottom line.
Luckily, an array of organisations and movements are looking to put burnout at the forefront of mental health discussions. Campaigns such as ‘The Third Metric’, led by Arianna Huffington, Founder of The Huffington Post, are attempting to define success away from the two metrics of money and power towards one that encompasses wellbeing, wisdom and creativity. It is hoped that this more holistic, sensitive definition of what it is to be successful will produce a happier and more productive workforce.
The modern workplace is a high pressured, intense and fast-paced environment. For some this can prove a challenge to truly thrive in without the right support. Jill Mead, Managing Director at TalkOut, a charity that is trying to break the stigma around mental health and wellbeing in the workplace believes that, “promoting a more relaxed, transparent working environment, will allow for open conversations between management and employees, and therefore greatly reduce the threat of burnout cases in workplaces.
DeltaNet, an eLearning company specialising in health and safety for businesses, believes a solution lies in training leaders and co-workers to spot the warning signs early and act quickly. Managing Director Darren Hockley says: “Awareness training helps colleagues recognise the warning signs of deteriorating mental health,” noting that addressing the issue in a sensitive and empathetic manner is key. “It also discourages negative tendencies like ‘shrugging off’ mental health red flags, playing favourites with ‘easy to deal with’ staff, or contributing to, or ignoring, toxic cultures that allow bullying and aggression to thrive.
“By demystifying the topic and increasing understanding and esteem around the matter, training
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can empower employees to speak-up about emotional distress and recognise acceptable versus unacceptable treatment at work.”
Hill suggests that whilst traditional techniques, such as taking holidays and regular exercise still apply to some extent, we now have more sophisticated options available to help staff tackle burnout. He explains: “Our overall understanding of mental health is constantly improving, enabling employers to be much more proactive in managing the issue, and there are many more options available to provide that support, including apps that can help employees keep a daily track on their mental health, which can help prevent issues escalating.
“Businesses may be required to take a deeper dive into their working culture to truly tackle mental health in the workplace, but it’s clear that burnout isn’t an issue that can be swept under the carpet.
“Consider making a wellbeing charter that states your organisation’s standards and expectations for wellbeing. It has the potential to show how committed you are to people’s happiness. Similarly, surveying your employees for ideas and feedback will allow you to get a sense of what it’s really like at ground level, helping to gauge the mood and opinions of the workforce,” Hill advises.
Having an environment where employees can speak to somebody, whether it’s a direct line manager or a senior manager, without a fear of judgement is absolutely imperative. Murray warns: “There is this overriding fear if I say, I’m not coping, I feel burnout, that means I am not able to do my job, which means I’m going to get fired. This is where there’s a massive difference: we have worked tirelessly to get people to talk about depression that people are now very understanding about what that entails, and employers say, that’s fine, you take some time off. But there’s still that little perception around burnout that, you can’t cope with your job.”
As she succinctly summarises in her book: “We human beings have a fabulous ability to complicate our own lives unnecessarily and are surprised when we find out that simple changes to how we live can have huge positive consequences.
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