From 'time off' to 'time in': how to replace burnout culture
To avoid this, a number of big names including Nike, Bumble, and LinkedIn have made headline news over the last 12 months for shutting up shop and giving their entire company a week off. But the benefit of a holiday soon vanishes, and doesn’t address the causes of burnout or workplace stressors.
Taking time in
A sustainable solution that will provide an effective culture change is sorely needed. Having spent most of my career invested in the science of behavioural change, I know sustainable change comes most significantly from education and training. We first learn what the benefits of change will be, and then we learn and practise the skills to facilitate it.
Rather than taking ‘time out’ of the business to destress, at Fika Mental Fitness we advocate training businesses in how to take ‘time in’ their work day, to reduce stress and burnout. We start with training leaders so they can role-model behaviours because culture starts at the top, and training leaders to take time in will create a culture where this is normalised. But what does it mean to take ‘time in’ at work, and how can we do it?
Taking time in is a way to ensure an ongoing culture of mental fitness exists, rather than the reactive burnout culture so many companies unwittingly foster. We need to train and model ‘time in’ for our leaders and staff, to achieve a culture where making time for our mental fitness is the norm.
Four mental fitness training techniques you can implement today, for yourself and for colleagues:
1. ‘Having a Fika’ is a great place to start taking time in. This positive Swedish tradition means to take time in your day to stop working, talk and connect with your team (usually over coffee and sweet buns).
For those of us with hybrid or fully remote workplaces, making sure we schedule virtual coffee breaks with colleagues to share and catch up is vital to build and maintain relationships. These opportunities build our connection skills through active listening, a known stress reducer. More importantly, they give us an opportunity to bring our full self to work. We can share about our lives and interests beyond work, which can help us to understand each other's strengths but also external challenges we may face, which in turn can affect our work.
2. The powerful impact of sharing in our work culture extends to knowledge sharing between leaders and employees. Leaders sharing knowledge facilitates the sharing of ideas, and using knowledge as a source of connection, along with building authenticity.
For many of our leaders this may seem like a challenging concept, so we need to support them, typically through training, to become more open and confident with their teams. High levels of knowledge-sharing and trust can reduce emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and intention to resign, creating meaning in work activities and reducing burnout.
3. Keeping the focus on leaders, investing in leadership development is key in preventing burnout, as good leadership skills reduce the risk of experiencing burnout for both leaders and their teams. When delivering our leadership training at Fika we focus on training mental fitness skills like connection and stress management, through exercises in active listening, effective communication, giving feedback and positive role-modelling.
4. Most of us know our staff log in to work while on leave, but do we actively encourage the opposite - i.e. do we encourage staff to use flexible working? Do we take time in our own days to do something other than work?
Encouraging senior leaders to actively and openly train their mental fitness or physical fitness during their work day is a key facilitator to get your staff to do the same. For senior leaders in your business, taking time in might be as simple as calendarising their use of flexi time, e.g. “Walking kids to school until 9.30am” every morning or “two-hour date lunch” every Thursday. We all have access to our colleagues’ calendars, and personally I love seeing non-work events sitting comfortably in a work diary.
The current burnout culture we allow to exist places an expectation on employees to use their leave and time away to recover from their daily work-life and return refreshed. Imagine affording our employees the opportunity to work in a culture of wellbeing where they begin their holidays already refreshed.
The author is Dr Amanda McNamee, senior mental fitness scientist at Fika Mental Fitness.
This article is provided by Fika Mental Fitness.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Fika
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