Welcome to the people purpose podcast, the show that explores all the ins and outs of the challenges and opportunities, HR people, managers and all people face at work every day. My name is Julie Devlin, and I'm here with my friend, my colleague, my Steam shirt wearing.
Chas Fields:It's technically orange by the way.
Julie Develin:Embrace it, it's pink. I'm just kidding. Chas fields. Cheers.
Chas Fields:Jules, how are you? Doing? Okay. All right. Tell me something good.
Julie Develin:Well, you notice I'm in a different have a different background today. Right. And I didn't move Chas.
Chas Fields:However, no, I would have known. Yeah, I would
Julie Develin:have told you maybe I am in a place that I've never been before. And I am in a place that's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. And I'm in Maine. I'm I'm in I'm in a resort at Maine for an HR conference speaking. And I'm right on the water and it's absolutely gorgeous here. So well. Have you ever been to Maine? Chas Yeah. You know, oh, yeah, we're
Chas Fields:talking about
Julie Develin:my memories. Horrible.
Chas Fields:I know it is. Let's go get some rest Jules. you try. I
Julie Develin:can't remember what I had for breakfast most days.
Chas Fields:It's because you don't eat breakfast, Julie.
Julie Develin:I know. But that's my something good my something good is that I'm I have another state that I checked off my bucket list here.
Chas Fields:For you. It's so fun. Well get out and drive around because it's it is a gorgeous, gorgeous state just in general. But for me something good actually I have to this morning we did a charity event my wife and I we played in a golf tournament that was a charity event, which was awesome. So we got some quality time together and we played pretty well. The other one is actually something a lot simpler. I got a standing mat for so I have a stand up desk for those of you listening and you'll know if you've ever seen me present virtually that's not a podcast I usually stand right. But I've never had a standing pad and Julie what a game changer. And now at the age we're standing that for my standing desk is is a super highlight of my life now so Wow. I've come a long way.
Julie Develin:Doesn't doesn't take much chat. Simple thing. I swear we are folks, that's where we are. Thank you for listening to our podcast.
Chas Fields:While we're here, go ahead, Jules. Yeah,
Julie Develin:I mean, Chas, we're gonna start the episode today just talking about what we normally talk about. First, which is the business side of the day. And we have to thank our colleague, Karina, Karina Madison for helping us.
Chas Fields:She was really search clean.
Julie Develin:I'm telling ya with this stat. So check this out. According to work vivo 98%. I want you to hear that again. Chas 98% of us. And UK HR professionals surveyed, said they have felt burned out at work at some point during the past six months and 78% are open to leaving their jobs.
Chas Fields:Wow. Yeah. So we're first up, it's 2%. Less than 100? Is everybody
Julie Develin:really good at math? Yeah.
Chas Fields:No, that's really interesting, because I think about what so what what did the 2% have? Right? Like, what would have the 2%? Maybe those 2%? And I don't know the study well enough, but did the 2% Recently leave their job? Right. So that that could be an interesting take. Also, it doesn't necessarily surprise me because we've had the ebb and flow of COVID and what it's done, and I still think Julie, we're dealing with this expectation, a lot of us still are trying to work through that things are just going to go back to the way that they were I was doing a talk last week in Las Vegas. And I had several people mentioned to me like, it's just gonna go back to the way that it was. And I was like, yeah, like, I appreciate you sitting down and talking with me. But it's not like it's just from my experience. What do you think, Jules?
Julie Develin:Oh, it's not going to go back to the way that it once was. What we're living in a different reality now. Something that I don't think any of us have ever expected in our lives. Right and Gosh, I hope that we never have to deal with something like this. Again, I think I think all of us would. Well, many would agree that yeah, when it comes to the collective society or the world in general, this has been the biggest disrupter. You know, since probably 911, right? I mean, sure,
Chas Fields:sure. Yeah. Or 2009, when the stock market crash, that was pretty, that was pretty tough, too. I also think from this work, the boasts that 78% are opening to leave their jobs, I think internally for me, and thinking about people in the workforce, like what what a time to be a recruiter. Right? What a time to like, go and attack the market, you know what I mean? And say, hey, interested, Lehman shirt? Come on over, you know what I mean? Yeah. And it's going back to some of that collective packaging when it comes to, to what we talked about, like culture and impact, but also pay comp, you know, etc, that of 78% are opening to leave their jobs. Man, if you want to get aggressive recruiters, I think now is now is beyond the time if you're really hurting for some of those positions to be filled.
Julie Develin:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we've talked about it before the balance of power has shifted from employer to the employee. Yeah. So that makes it all the more important that we recognize things like signs of burnout, and we make people aware of what burnout is, which is a whole other conversation jazz. I gotta write that one. But yeah, but, you know, I think that when we, when we look at that 78% open to leaving their jobs, we need to look at the whys behind that. And, and that's, those are always the billion dollar questions, right? Sure.
Chas Fields:Why, and here's the cool part about it, too, is sometimes people just need to change. Right? Like, that's, that's cool. That's something we often between you and me, julu that we often miss, and we talk about the things we talked about, but there are those people don't feel bad if you need to change like, yeah, that's okay. You know?
Julie Develin:Yeah, I don't I don't think that we're saying, you know, everybody should just everybody's just gonna leave because your your place of employment is horrible. Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. People, people jobs all the time. I mean, it's you look on your LinkedIn feed, you can see all the people taking new jobs. Actually, I've been seeing that a lot more I have to I've been really, really interesting. I don't know if it's time of year or what it is. But you know, yeah, I don't know. I think that we're in obviously interesting times here. Sure. That's just put it
Chas Fields:lightly. Yeah. Okay. So, that being said, it's awesome with the business side of the day. But here's what I want to do, Julie. So actually, we were texting about this. It was interesting when the way that this came out. So today's episode is going to be focused on motivation, right motivation when you need it based on the stat based on burnout based on the power and shifted change. Sometimes we just need a little motivation, Jules. And we were actually asked about this to say, you know, can you just talk about, from your perspective, a personal perspective, but also, generally speaking? How do you how do you stay motivated when you need it most?
Julie Develin:Right, when you're when you're feeling burnout? Yeah,
Chas Fields:yeah. How do you stay motivated when you need it most, whether it's burnout, or you're just tired, right, and you're just on this continuous outpouring, and you're not filling your own cup back up? And so the first one, Julie, this is gonna be a shocker. All right, point number one. Got to start with reflecting. Okay. You and I both know that both of us are big proponents of reflection. What led us here? Okay. I'm not going to say that COVID isn't a valid excuse, but how do we move beyond some of that, right? Like, how do we get beyond? How do we get over that hump of the burnout or the experience when we you know, the negative experience where we need motivation. And I think the critical pieces we get first off, we got to sit down and we got to ask why, like, how did we get here? And then we can start to develop an action plan for ourselves. And I'm a huge proponent of motivating myself, right? Like I love motivating myself in a lot of ways. And for me, it's it's regimented my time, it's time commitments. It's making sure that when I'm home, I'm present in those moments when I'm, you know, out traveling, I know when to shut it down at night, because we all know, Julie, I love to be the last bed in the first step in the morning. But that's that's not conducive to staying motivated, and it's not conducive to me. Not facing burnout. Does that make sense? Let me pause Eric.
Julie Develin:Yeah, it does. It does. But sort of back to that question of the why. So, you know, I think we got to start at the very beginning. And the very beginning here is, what does burnout mean to you? Yeah, I'm posing that question to the listeners. Think about it. What as you're, as you're listening to us speak today, what does burnout mean to you? And in your organization? What does it look like when someone is burned out? Because I think if we look at the different industries, Chas, burnout in the construction industry may be different from burnout, that, you know, a payroll professional or something like that, sure, you know, equally important roles, just very, very different roles. And one, while they can both be physically demanding, you know, it, I think that we have to look at the nuances of the different jobs. So, step one, I think is the is the, what is burnout, right? What does burnout, and we talk so much about individual employees, and how we have to provide individual employees a unique experience and look at look at people for who they are beyond the worker. And this is where those one on one conversations with managers become absolutely critical. Because what burnout looks like to you, Chas, might be different than what burnout looks like to me. Yep, saying
Chas Fields:no, that's, that's really good guy.
Julie Develin:And my needs, in terms of overcoming that may be different as well.
Chas Fields:Some of the some of the things that I think about when it comes to the reflection, and what got us here is pace, right? We, we get caught up so often in the tasks and things that we're doing at a rapid pace, especially if our HR and Payroll people listening, they are marked in like I have yet to find someone who has the ability to slow down, like think about your experience, you've shared your experience multiple times, right? It's, it's hard, right? Like, it's really, really hard. And I know that there's a lot that goes into, you know, a lot of external factors that go into that. But just in general, as a society, I think about my life, even my personal life, it's like, it's always on to the next thing, it's always on to the next thing, it's always on to the next thing. And I never take a step backwards and never, but very seldom do we take a step back. And man like I am going mocked in with my hair on fire. And I keep just pouring gas on it. And I just keep going and going and going. And I like whoa, what at what point did I forget to say no.
Julie Develin:I hear you. And you know, maybe this is getting a little too personal. But I will because that's what we do here. I do not know how to relax anymore. Chas really? Yeah, really. I because I, you know, I think life has become so busy life, there's always something else to do, right? It's not that I don't want to relax, I do. But whenever I attempt to, or whenever I attempt to, you know, take, say I'm going to unplug or whatever. I'm just somewhere the mental block, but this is where we are as a society. Chess, yeah. Where we are as a society. And this has led, you know, the what led us here? What led us here is our is our culture, you know, as an as us as a society. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's even, it's become even more important. And this is actually a great segue into our next topic, which is this self care and what does self care mean to you? Because just like, the, the, you know, the nuances of burnout, self care for you may be different than what self care is for me.
Chas Fields:No, I think that's really, really good. It's, it's those things. I was just having this conversation with a colleague, how do you shut it off? Right? And it to me like I don't, and to be honest, I don't want to shut it off. In some ways, I guess I can be present in the moment, and enjoy those things. Right. But I think is as storytellers as we are. And I think in the way that we do our job. And, and probably the same for HR and Payroll practitioners. You're always trying to become more efficient, right? Like you're always trying to become more efficient and more productive. But as you're more efficient and more productive, you then fill the gap with another task, right? Like that's the key. So the pace going back to the pace and thinking about self care. Self care for me is taking time to just set aside and maybe it's journaling, right, like maybe it's just writing and I could be writing about something about work or how I want to make something easier or how am I going to help the next company or whatever it
Julie Develin:is, your golf game
Chas Fields:knows I need a lot of that self care going back to the point self care for me is, is maybe it's not the speed that I'm doing it at. But taking the time to just pause, even though I may still be thinking about somebody that taking the time to pause and process for myself. Now, we all know I love personal self care, too, like golf is personal self care for me in a lot of ways, but it's different for everybody. But my point is that those motivating factors for us as leaders, we have to we have to remember what those are, and those may have changed. And if we're not taking the time to recognize those, it's going to be really, really hard for us to be successful. Right? You can't do it longer.
Julie Develin:Yeah, but something that I think is also interesting to think about, sometimes self care for me is working. How about that? Sometimes is working? Yeah. And but here's why. Because if I get bogged down or if I get behind, and if I just walk away from what I'm doing, because I'm stressed or whatever. I feel like I'm going to be even more stressed. If I don't actually do that do the work.
Chas Fields:Do you think that self care though? Like?
Julie Develin:Yeah, but is it? Okay, yeah. Is it not self care? I? It's, that's really I mean, now now we're getting philosophical. But yeah, like it? That's a great question, sir. Audience, we would love to know, your
Chas Fields:society speaking. It's like, oh, self care, you got to get a massage, or you got to do this, or you got to do that. You got to take a vacation. But Julie, like self care for me is writing about topics or reading through LinkedIn. Yeah, I did a post the other day. And I asked, I said, Hey, look like you share some topics like, what do you want to hear from us? Because I want to hear about other people and hearing other people's ideas and thoughts and processing them, to me is somewhat of a self care. So that's, oh, yeah.
Julie Develin:Here's the other thing I'll throw out there. Yeah. Self Care is also asking for the tools that you need to get your job done. Like, like great software, for example, you know, you know, like, if, if you're falling behind, if you're doing performance reviews, for example, you're doing them manually, right? Yeah. Like, that's hard to manage. That's stressful, that's gonna keep you up at night. So it's like, why wouldn't you? Self Care might be asking for help. So
Chas Fields:let's say you're separate. So self care, self care, in the workplace and self care outside of the workplace. You know, that's another episode.
Julie Develin:I think, I think I think we might have just gotten to
Chas Fields:self care in the workplace is very different than self care externally. Right. And yeah, and like, we were just talking, I enjoy working. And in a lot of ways, I enjoy working in a way that helps me gain a peace of mind. Right. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know what I mean? And so it's that balance of the, you know, for me, it's the pace, right, slowing the pace down, finding self care, but really setting that boundary. And I love the point that you just made is asking for help. Right? Yeah. Like, like asking for help is so hard to do for so many people. Yeah. You know what I mean? So
Julie Develin:we've been conditioned to believe that asking for help shows
Chas Fields:weakness. Yeah. So So let me ask you this. Jules, let's let's take it a step further. How would you? How do you feel comfortable asking you for help first, so for those people who are listening, they're like, man, it's really hard for me to ask for help. How would you overcome that?
Julie Develin:Yeah. First is recognizing that you're worth it, that you matter. Yeah. And that your needs matter? Yeah. So, you know, I think it's hard to broadly say this is how you ask for help. Because each person is different. And you have to also consider the source, right, the source, they're going to so is it. Are you going to the CEO, what kind of company culture do you have? Yeah, that kind of thing. Right. But if anything, you know, Chas, we want folks to do listening here is to just start thinking about these things a little bit differently. If you're, if you've been putting off asking for help with something now doesn't necessarily need to be a task. Again, it can be asking for help with some kind of tool that you need to get your job done. Sure. You know, think about instead of, instead of sitting back and saying, I'll get to that tomorrow, do it today. Yeah, do it today, or at least put an action plan in place to do it today. And, you know, asking for help too. If we're going to the work thing. Grab somebody who can be a champion for you as well who can help Have you asked for help there? Strengthen numbers?
Chas Fields:Yeah, I, for me, I think about it. There's a fine line too. I think when people ask for help, or, you know, even demand, it's one of those words we talked about in the past where demand often gets a bad, you know, a bad reputation too. I think about it, if someone's paying you X amount of dollars a year to do a job, and you know, better way of doing it. That should be your motivation. Right? Like, obviously, don't be rude about it. Don't Don't, don't be harsh, but I'm 100% on board for someone being firm, right? And saying, Wait, hold on, you're paying me to do this job. And I'm telling you, there's a better way to do it, and you're refusing to listen, or whatever reason, right? Like, there are good excuses out there, you know, from a company perspective. But if you can go back and say, Wait, timeout, hold on, I'm telling you, this will be better, that that ensues a bigger problem. If they say no, right? There. So they hired you to do a job and do it well. So be firm. And I was talking again last week to some folks. And it's really interesting that the company often forgets like, Hey, I am, I'm not going to give you a quote unquote, raise, but then that individual leaves because they're burned out. And then they spend all this money on recruiting and training, and then they end up hiring someone at the rate at a higher rate than they let the person go for. Right. Right. And, and I had this moment of like, man, that person who left would have been called entitled, yeah, the company set the precedent, right? Yeah. Like, don't call it entitlement. If you as an organization set the precedent. And I say that with the intent of, hey, look, if you're out there, and you have to ask for help to get the tools or the resources, you can be firm in that, but also expect no to be the answer. Right? Yeah. And then what do you think that's going to do? They're absolutely going to leave Julie, right, like,
Julie Develin:they're going to productivity is going to go down? Sure. You know, I mean, any kind of negative consequence you can think of is going to happen, but Right. So listen, we can talk, I think we could talk about this topic for a very long time. But let's just, I just want to summarize for everybody just really quickly, you know, so we talked about, you know, motivation, and that kind of how do we get motivation? How do we bring it back? And I'm not so sure we've answered that question. I think that's a that's a question that you need to answer for yourself. How do you bring back what can you do? But what we're saying is do do these? Do these few things start here? What led you here? Why do you not feel motivated? At what point did things shift? Perhaps? Why are you taking care of yourself in whatever way that means? And are you asking for what you need, and which I think is another extension of taking care of yourself. So you know, I'm a big proponent jazz of HR professionals, making sure that they're taking care of themselves, because something I wish I would have done better in my career as a practitioner. So I will, I will preach that for forever, as long as I have the stage to also
Chas Fields:pastored devil and over here, I know that it's really, really good jewels, you know, overall, when it comes to the outcome, you know, we control our success in a lot of ways. And I love that you think about how did you get here? I also would say question, you know, when were you motivated? Right? And what were the situations surrounding that? And let's try and get back to that.
Julie Develin:Yeah, I love that. I think about a time that you were motivated and try to replicate whatever situation that that was.
Chas Fields:Right. Right. So okay, Joe's, I think with that hate for all of you, Jules, what did you find your purpose in today?
Julie Develin:I found my purpose in today that we're all unique when it comes to motivation and what motivates us and and what what self care means?
Chas Fields:Yeah, I was going to use the self care thing we now need to think about for me finding my purpose in what self care means in the workplace, but also outside of the workplace. And it's crazy that none of this is ever scripted. So you and I are going to have a great conversation about this. When we're together next week, it's
Julie Develin:part two for this one Yeah,
Chas Fields:that's right. So okay, go with that. Be sure to like and subscribe on all your major platforms. Use the hashtag people purpose pod on social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. Don't hesitate to DM Julian I on LinkedIn if you want to and share your thoughts as well. And last, make sure to check out the latest research at the workforce. institute.org Jules,
Julie Develin:you just say for folks that slide into our DMS chat is not
Chas Fields:by I'm sorry I gotta I gotta stay hip with with the people I know hey y'all thanks for listening cheers