The COVID19 pandemic has amplified work-life challenges for many
work-from-home employees as boundaries between work and home life become
blurred. In these difficult times, the reality is that we need to make a
living, but also need to make sure that we are still “living” to avoid becoming
burned out.
To address these new challenges, many companies have focused on
employee well-being and have associated a work-life imbalance with excessive
work demands. Efforts to address these needs that often include initiatives
such as: bring your pet to work day, a day of wellness, hiring consults to
coach staff on work/life balance, encouraging a healthy diet, and practicing
yoga, and mindfulness. However, these approaches treat the symptoms of work-life
imbalance and ignore the root causes of staff burnout. It is usually not work
demands that result in burnout, but a lack of passion for what we do on a
day-to-day basis and psychological safety.
The Wall Street Journal notes that more than half of American employees
are not content with their jobs. According to Gallup’s World Poll, 63% of the
global workforce is “checked out” and “sleepwalking through their workday.” In
corporate America, there is a large discrepancy between what employees want
from work and their actual work experiences. This discrepancy has created a
workforce where approximately 88% of workers lack passion for what they do
every day.
Work-related stress and burnout are rooted from lack of passion
for the work we do. Lack of passion often
happens when employees are assigned projects and job tasks, not because it
serves the greater cause, but because it provides more revenue for the company.
Over time, this lack of passion results in boredom and unhappy employees, who
act out their unhappiness at work with their co-workers and those they serve.
Many companies overlook the power that workplace culture can have
on employee wellness and instead, focus relentlessly on financial metrics. We
human beings will never be part of those financial metrics. We can only be part
of the culture that is created for us. As a social species, a positive culture
can be deeply soothing for our human body. It creates a sense of belonging and
harmony with those we work with. When we feel that we belong at work, we then
feel our contributions have value and meaning. So many companies fail to
understand that, regardless of their rank, their team is the biggest asset they
have to help them achieve the financial metrics. Money or financial gains
should not be the end results, but instead as a resource or fuel to get the
company a step closer to achieving their mission.
Another cause of work stress and burnout is a lack of
psychological safety. Perhaps the best way to explain psychological safety is
through the circle of safety—an idea proposed by Simon Sinek. Leaders who create
a circle of safety develop a work environment in which people can work at their
natural best. Through this circle of
safety, leaders nurture a positive work culture where employees feel safe to
collaborate and develop a sense of belonging. This circle of safety is what
gives birth to innovation, growth and ultimately success for both the company
and the employee. Innovation requires risk, experimentation, and failure. And
if an employee fears they might lose their job or their place in the work
community when they take a risk and fail, then chances are they will not take
risks, leading to a lack of success for the company and the employee.
To ensure psychological safety, leaders have two responsibilities.
First, they need to decide who should be included in their circle of safety.
For example, when hiring, employees should be chosen to enhance the culture of
the company, those who can be trusted, share and support the company’s
values. Second, they need to make sure
the circle they create expands to protect the safety of the most junior member
of the company. The strongest companies are those with the biggest circle of
safety. Weak companies have a circle of safety that extends only to individuals
in the executive suite. In other words, when the company fails to meet
financial metrics, they first sacrifice the low-level managers to keep
themselves safe. With an expanded circle of safety, junior staff feel equally
safe, invest their energy in work, trust their co-workers, managers, and co-operate
against external threats. When the
circle is expanded, the leadership sends a message that in times of adversity
we are all in this together. It so also sends a message that we will not sacrifice
people for a financial gain, regardless of the difficulty of the external
threat or competition. When the circle is not extended to protect junior
employees, they shift their energy from innovating and cooperating to self-preservation,
and ultimately, valuable employees will leave the company. In other words, as a
leader, you cannot demand trust, innovation, and cooperation, but you can create
a culture that enhances trust, cooperation, and innovation.
The importance of psychological safety can be best explained
through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a
psychological theory of motivation proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. His
theory states that there are five categories of human needs that determine
individual behavior: physiological needs, safety needs, love, and belonging
needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. As a humanist, Maslow
believed that individuals are born with a desire to become self-actualized or
to be all they can be in life. As you can see, our need for safety follows our
immediate basic physiological needs. Physiological needs include protection,
security, law, stability, and safety for our loved ones. For humans to achieve their
full potential in a company, basic psychological safety needs must be met
first. If we look at these hierarchal needs in the context of working in a toxic
work environment, instead of self-actualization, employees are worried about
their safety, and whether they are next in the line for mass layoffs if the
company fails to meet financial metrics.
In essence, there is no balance between work and personal lives
when we do not feel psychologically safe at work and are not working towards a
higher cause. It is the responsibility of leadership to create a culture where
employees feel a sense of safety and belonging which can motivate everyone to
work towards that higher cause.
