Overcoming the loneliness of line managers: peer learning and problem solving

In this episode of the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing Podcast, Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the University of East Anglia speaks with Dr Katie Elizabeth Green, Senior Lecturer in Leadership Development at Manchester Metropolitan University. Katie draws on her extensive research for the Good Employment Learning Lab to offer insights into the isolation line managers can feel, their wellbeing and the ripple effects of that for team wellbeing. She offers insight into the value of programmes to foster peer learning between managers.  

You can find out more in this report and article: 

Developing collective leadership in an online peer learning community - Katie Elizabeth Green, 2025

How_To_Develop_The_People_Management_Skills_of_Line_Managers_Good_Employment_Learning_Lab.pdf

Transcript

00:00:04:01 - 00:00:29:08

Helen Fitzhugh

Welcome to the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing podcast. This podcast is part of a toolkit of free, evidence informed workplace wellbeing resources provided by the Workplace Wellbeing Research team at the University of East Anglia in the UK. You can find the resources on www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org 

00:00:29:10 - 00:00:52:12

Helen Fitzhugh

Hello everyone, this is Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the Workplace Wellbeing team at the University of East Anglia. Today I've got the pleasure of speaking with Doctor Katie Elizabeth Green, Senior Lecturer in Leadership Development at Manchester Metropolitan University. We'll be speaking about line managers, their own wellbeing and the ripple effects of that for team wellbeing going forwards. Katie, it's lovely to have you here.

00:00:52:14 - 00:00:54:20

Katie Elizabeth Green

Hi, Helen, thank you for inviting me on your podcast.

00:00:54:21 - 00:01:04:08

Helen Fitzhugh

Thank you for coming. Okay, so to start us off, could you tell us a little bit about your career journey and your professional interest in workplace wellbeing specifically?

00:01:04:11 - 00:01:32:20

Katie Elizabeth Green

So I am a Senior Lecturer in Leadership Development. And I've got a special interest in workplace wellbeing. So I'm particularly interested in the sort of intersections between leadership and wellbeing and how we can create, well, healthy leaders and how that has a knock on effect on on the teams of those leaders and the wider organization. So my career journey in this area really started with my PhD.

00:01:32:22 - 00:02:18:06

Katie Elizabeth Green

I completed a PhD that looked at role boundary changes in the NHS and, and the leadership implications of those role boundary changes. And this really sort of led me to develop an interest in the wider effects of emotional and psychological and mental health effects of role boundary changes on NHS professionals. And I was particularly interested, Helen, in issues around like role ambiguity and, and role uncertainty and how that had a knock on effect on NHS professionals in terms of how they felt about their professional identity, their ability to kind of cope with the day to day demands of their role, and, and the stress that many of them felt when

00:02:18:06 - 00:02:47:11

Katie Elizabeth Green

they were uncertain about what it was that they needed to do day to day. And I was interested in kind of what leadership could do about some of those challenges. So this, this kind of really, sparked or, ignited my interest in workplace wellbeing and the way in which leadership affects that. And since, since my PhD, I've been involved in a number of different studies which have tapped into workplace wellbeing and leadership.

00:02:47:13 - 00:02:57:01

Katie Elizabeth Green

And I'm going to talk today about the most recent projects that I've been involved in, which has looked at leadership and wellbeing and and the relationship between the two.

00:02:57:03 - 00:03:16:21

Helen Fitzhugh

Yes, it's exciting because you have recently completed a research project funded by the ESRC, the Economic and Social Research Council, called the Good Employment Lab - Learning Lab - I almost missed out the learning there. I'm sure that's quite important. The Good Employment Learning Lab. And I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about what you were studying.

00:03:17:13 - 00:03:53:00

Katie Elizabeth Green

So, yeah. So the the Good Employment Learning Lab was a project and that was developed to look at line managers and line management training and, the project kind of came about really because we worked with a number of partners in the Greater Manchester area, such as the charter and the CIPD. And from those discussions, it arose that, there was a real kind of lack of understanding around what good training and good learning interventions would look like for the line managers and for people managers.

00:03:53:02 - 00:04:17:18

Katie Elizabeth Green

And that was kind of really where the project started. This interest in the how do we create effective learning interventions that can really scale and equip line managers with the essential people management skills that they need? But when we carried out that research, it became very clear that there were real day to day challenges that many line managers were experiencing that linked to workplace wellbeing.

00:04:17:20 - 00:04:55:05

Katie Elizabeth Green

And many of the managers that we spoke to felt that they were particularly under skilled or had a particular kind of skill deficit when it came to managing things like, conflict in the team. They were experiencing the sort of emotional and psychological effects of, of, of not knowing how to navigate conflict or feeling that they didn't have the appropriate skills and competencies to manage conflict, how to have difficult conversations with their own staff around wellbeing issues, dealing with sort of the emotional load or the emotional challenges within their their teams.

00:04:55:07 - 00:05:23:23

Katie Elizabeth Green

Many of the line managers that we we interviewed felt that, you know, these were really pertinent day to day challenges, that they really needed good training. And, you know, some of the managers we spoke to had tapped into different types of training on, on different topics. But the overall finding was that there was a real need for good line management training in some of these areas in order for the line managers to really get the best out of their teams.

00:05:24:04 - 00:05:53:07

Katie Elizabeth Green

And yeah, the project took place over, it was over an 18 month period. We interviewed 147 line managers as part of the projects, and we did some in-depth follow up interviews with some of those managers as well. We also carried out a survey with those managers and and also some observational work as well, to kind of really triangulate, data sources.

00:05:53:07 - 00:06:22:22

Katie Elizabeth Green

So to triangulate means to collect, means to get multiple data sources for those who are not familiar with that term, just so that we could really get a strong sense of what the main challenges were that line managers were experiencing and how to develop training that would really, tackle those particular challenges. But, but yeah, workplace wellbeing was was a huge component of the, the lived day to day complexities of management roles.

00:06:22:23 - 00:06:42:18

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. And I think that's something that's come up in our at the, evolve podcasts on line managers. We've had that sense of line management being such a vital and important role to play in the health of the whole company, as it were. You know, in order to have good workplace wellbeing, then people would need to feel that they are well managed.

00:06:42:18 - 00:06:57:10

Helen Fitzhugh

They have good relationships with their managers and their teams. And so there's a lot of responsibility there, that sense of kind of weight that comes with that responsibility. How would you deal with that? So it sounds like you are really picking up on those challenges in your work.

00:06:57:14 - 00:07:23:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

Yeah, absolutely. Well, as you just said that the the role of the line manager is so it's so central, isn't it, to so that the, the, the wellbeing of of a team. And I think there's, there's a phrase that people don't leave organizations. They leave the line managers. Yeah. And on the day to day wellbeing of the team, but also that has as implications for staff retention, employee engagement.

00:07:23:12 - 00:07:48:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

You know, how you know whether people want to stay working in a team or an organization or whether they move on to other things, like the relationship with your line manager is is so fundamental to that employee experience and has a direct effect, on an individual's, wellbeing. Yeah, we see we see stories of people who have poor relationships with line managers and the levels of stress, are very, very high.

00:07:48:14 - 00:08:15:03

Katie Elizabeth Green

Whereas, you know, if you have good, supportive, compassionate line management and a good, you know, good kind of working relationship with a line manager, it can have a really positive effect on how you feel about yourself, your work, your work environment. It can be a buffer for burnout. So it's a really, really fundamental role. And we found that many of the managers that we interviewed in us today were very passionate about doing good line management.

00:08:15:03 - 00:08:37:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

They they wanted desperately to do a very good job, but many of them had been given line management responsibilities or kind of very quickly moved into line management roles and kind of given this team to manage or, a couple of staff members to manage without any training at all. And so there was this real strong sense of sink or swim.

00:08:37:13 - 00:09:07:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

And at the time when we carried out the research, which was just, you know, towards the end of Covid and moving into a new way of working, people were working in a more remote ways, more of a more flexible ways. People were very, burnt out after the pandemic. There was very high levels of stress. Many line managers were moving into line management roles and then having to navigate this really complex terrain of work that was that was rapidly changing in a post-Covid context.

00:09:07:17 - 00:09:32:00

Katie Elizabeth Green

And doing that with having very less, you know, having very little training and very little skill. So not only does good line management have an effect on on the team, but if you think about a line manager moving into a role without having that training in place and dealing with some of these challenges that we've discussed, that's going to have a hugely significant effect on the line manager's own well-being.

00:09:32:02 - 00:09:48:09

Katie Elizabeth Green

Yeah, there's a lack of training. And so the stress around, am I doing this right? Am I following processes correctly, and what's the what's the correct course of action in this particular situation. All of that uncertainty is very stressful isn't it.

00:09:48:12 - 00:10:08:16

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, again in one of the previous, podcasts, I can't quite remember the figure, but I think it was something over definitely over three quarters of line managers were accidental managers. You know, that that really people had moved into that line management role without an induction on what line manager even does sometimes, you know.

00:10:08:16 - 00:10:19:08

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. So that ambiguity can see how that leads to distress and then gets passed on. So let’s dig down a little bit more into the findings of your research.

00:10:19:10 - 00:10:55:23

Katie Elizabeth Green

Sure. Yeah. So I think one of the, the most interesting findings, or what's something that I found particularly interesting in the findings was this sense of a lack of organizational support for line managers and a lack of safe spaces where line managers could process some of the emotional demands of being a line manager, particularly in that that post-Covid context where things were just extremely challenging and many of the line managers we spoke to just had this strong sense of, I don't know who to talk to about these problems.

00:10:55:23 - 00:11:18:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

I've got these very practical problems that I need, you know, to find solutions to. I've also got these these very challenging emotional situations that I also don't know how to navigate. And this came out very, very strongly, in the line managers that we, we interviewed this it was a real sense of isolation and a real sense of, of loneliness.

00:11:18:16 - 00:11:43:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

Many, as you mentioned are accidental line managers, a high number of the managers that we interviewed were indeed accidental managers, and they'd been thrust into line management roles. And for them, that was quite that was quite isolating, because when they were maybe working in a team, not in a line management role, there was peer support. They could bounce ideas with their around with their colleagues.

00:11:43:12 - 00:12:03:10

Katie Elizabeth Green

But then certainly when they moved into a management role, there was that that sense of being one step removed from the people who had previously been their sources of support. And so many of the line managers we spoke to, they were leaving work at the end of the day with extremely high levels of stress and no outlet for that stress.

00:12:03:12 - 00:12:31:05

Katie Elizabeth Green

And so one of the one of the initiatives and one of the interventions that we developed in our programme of research was we, we ran a series of peer learning initiatives where the line managers were invited to partake in a peer community, a group of 5 or 6, or the line managers from different organizations to their own. And we set up these peer learning and spaces.

00:12:31:05 - 00:12:54:14

Katie Elizabeth Green

We actually ran them online because many of the line managers were located remotely and they didn't want to travel. And, we had we ran a series of peer learning sessions over a number of weeks where line managers were invited to to come along with a problem or a challenge that was particularly bothering them or particularly challenging them.

00:12:54:17 - 00:13:21:12

Katie Elizabeth Green

This method was it was underpinned by action learning. And so the, the listeners who are not familiar with what action learning is, it's it's a learning, and development tool where individuals are invited to a space, whether it's a physical space, like a, you know, a classroom or an online space.

00:13:21:15 - 00:13:49:13

Katie Elizabeth Green

And there's typically 5 or 6 individuals, and each individual brings a real life challenge that is proving tricky to navigate alone. And they problem solve that challenge with others in the group. And essentially create a a solution based on the conversations that they have with others in the group. So we use that methodology, in our projects, and we run these sessions for the line managers.

00:13:49:13 - 00:14:13:08

Katie Elizabeth Green

And they came along and many of the issues relate to, to wellbeing. You know, I'm struggling to navigate, struggling to know how to tackle an individual who's, they've got very high levels of anxiety, or I have a neurodiverse colleague and how do I support them appropriately? Or there's a lot of conflict in my team right now, and I'm not quite sure how to tackle that.

00:14:13:13 - 00:14:53:10

Katie Elizabeth Green

So they the line managers, were invited to this session. They would bring a challenge, and each person had a couple of minutes to briefly identify or and explain what that challenge was, and then the other managers in the group would help them to come up with solutions in a practical way forward. And when we when we interviewed the line managers, after having run this, this training, I think the most significant finding was the positive effects they said it had on their ability to manage the overwhelm and the emotional stress that they were experiencing at that time.

00:14:53:10 - 00:15:17:04

Katie Elizabeth Green

Not only did they get practical solutions, which they could then go and experiment with or implement in practice so they could they had these takeaways where they could say, okay, this week I'm going to tackle this problem in this way. It was having that peer support, that sense of, I'm not alone with this issue that really, helped them to deal with the levels of the high levels of overwhelm.

00:15:17:09 - 00:15:47:03

Katie Elizabeth Green

And we developed this this term, a holding environment where the peer learning setting essentially became like a space for for navigating some of the intense emotional experiences that previously the line managers were kind of having to just go home with at the end of the day. And, and, and there was this there was no outlet for. So I think, I mean, one of the, one of the interesting things was that the line managers were working with other line managers outside of their own organizations and.

00:15:47:05 - 00:15:48:06

Helen Fitzhugh

I was going to ask about that.

00:15:48:06 - 00:16:14:13

Katie Elizabeth Green

Yeah, yeah. Very interesting, because we didn't get the opportunity to to run the research within organizations because I think that would have provided an interesting kind of contrast. But yeah, in the interviews, a number of the line managers said, actually, because I knew it was a safe space and I knew that there was this level of anonymity, it wasn't going to go back into my organization.

00:16:14:13 - 00:16:42:18

Katie Elizabeth Green

And I could talk quite candidly about the problems I was facing. I felt much more able to just kind of, share what was going on for me in a very honest way. And had I not had that sort of level of, anonymity and perhaps I wouldn't have felt able to was to be as vulnerable. So there was definitely, a very interesting observation there in terms of working with people outside of one's own organization and the the levels of vulnerability.

00:16:42:22 - 00:17:13:17

Katie Elizabeth Green

And it was really interesting to us as researchers because we thought the opposite would happen. And people are working with strangers. You think they wouldn't feel comfortable. It kind of digging deep into some of these issues. But actually the opposite occurred that, you know, they were very, very quickly building rapport, building psychological safety, building relationships online with people who they've never met before and and finding that to be very valuable in terms of how they navigated the these challenges.

00:17:13:17 - 00:17:41:02

Katie Elizabeth Green

And we were really kind of blown away at how quickly that that happened for them. It was just something kind of unique about how how supportive they became of each of them. I'm wondering if they had a level of empathy for each other, having all very quickly moved into like management roles, whether, you know, that had given them a sort of shared empathy or shared understanding of some of the struggles that that others were experiencing, they formed quite strong bonds quite quickly.

00:17:41:02 - 00:18:00:04

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. And that's fascinating because I mean, on the one hand, I was thinking about our experience of running the evolved network, with HR and wellbeing managers, who, again, would say, you know, I'm the only one of me in my organization or I'm only one in my role. And then to be able to talk to someone in a different organization gives you a fresh perspective.

00:18:00:06 - 00:18:17:22

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. But I was also thinking about if we're thinking about real life examples, how easy would it be to implement it going forwards? Because if you've got, you know, within an organization and you tested it within an organization, you'd have those issues of like, how much do I reveal, how much do I reveal?

00:18:17:24 - 00:18:28:06

Helen Fitzhugh

But perhaps an organization might not be able to set up the kind of, oh, let's do a peer learning line manager session. So I wondered what the challenges were there as well.

00:18:28:08 - 00:18:58:16

Katie Elizabeth Green

Yeah, I think I think you raised some excellent points that I, I know for some of the line managers that we spoke to, some of them had actually from not having taken part in the peer learning, they had gone back into their own organizations and set up peer learning. Yeah, and found it, quite beneficial. And, and many were saying that it did have, you know, sort of similarly positive effects, whether I think it would depend on who was in that peer learning session.

00:18:58:16 - 00:19:34:15

Katie Elizabeth Green

Obviously, if you were having like a peer learning session with maybe your own line manager or somebody who was in a much more senior position, potentially there was some power dynamic there. I think that would probably limit your, you know, the sense at which you felt you could disclose certain issues. But I think there's definitely potential for organizations to implement peer learning spaces and whether that's, you know, peer learning networks that are kind of spread across organizations where maybe people are from different departments to, yeah, you need to, to collaborate, to, to come together and, and support each other.

00:19:34:17 - 00:20:11:06

Katie Elizabeth Green

The other thing that we, at the start of the peer learning sessions, we made it very clear to the participants that there was, what was said in the space, remained in the space. And we encouraged our participants to keep that level of confidentiality. So I think some of the ways in which peer learning can be set up, you can you can sort of minimize or you can yeah, you can minimize the extent to which information that's shared in that space ripples out by by creating an environment people feel like this is this is a space where it's anonymous, it's, confidential.

00:20:11:08 - 00:20:17:16

Katie Elizabeth Green

But there are I think there are more of them or, more risks potentially. 

00:20:17:16 - 00:20:39:14

Helen Fitzhugh

It may depend on the culture of the organization anyway. Yeah, yeah. If it's one where people are generally supportive you might feel happy to disclose, but if yes, there is already an undercurrent of cynicism which we know there is in some organizations, then it might not be, you know. But yeah, we've seen things like, coaching and mentoring work when they are cross-departmental rather than internal to a department.

00:20:39:14 - 00:20:47:19

Helen Fitzhugh

For instance, you know that someone, someone in a different place is not as invested in your day to day work in the same way. So it can have that fresh perspective for you?

00:20:48:00 - 00:21:07:01

Katie Elizabeth Green

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think also, it might be that, you know, if a peer learning environment was set up in an organization and even if people were from the same team, it's not to say there wouldn't be benefit, because even if it becomes a space for problem solving, I've got this particular problem. Can anybody help me find solutions?

00:21:07:02 - 00:21:31:17

Katie Elizabeth Green

Perhaps people wouldn't feel that they could kind of reveal the same sort of vulnerability, perhaps, but it could still be a really, supportive space for creating solutions, finding ways around things that people are finding, tricky in their, in the day to day work, in practice. So I think there's still definitely benefit from peer learning when it's run within organizations as well as with external individuals as well.

00:21:35:15 - 00:21:56:17

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah. And I suppose here's a question that occurred to me as we were going along was people in HR will also be listening to this and and thinking, would it be useful to have them as part of that peer learning, you know, bringing a perspective on the people management? Or would it not be because actually what the thing is, is about being a line manager and how you deal with that and your interpersonal skills.

00:21:56:22 - 00:21:58:24

Helen Fitzhugh

I don’t know if you had a reflection on that at all?

00:21:59:01 - 00:22:22:20

Katie Elizabeth Green

That's a really interesting question, actually, because, so that we had, the, the two individuals who were running our peer learning. So we had facilitators who kind of set the tone for the and they kept the momentum going. They kind of kept track of time. Both of those individuals had an HR background, and I often sat in on some of the planning sessions as an observer.

00:22:22:22 - 00:22:49:23

Katie Elizabeth Green

And I noticed at times there were particular situations where those facilitators actually, stepped in with some really helpful practical advice from a perspective. So the others in the team might have, come up with a particular solution. But the facilitator who had the HR hat on could say, well, you could do that, but actually you might hit a bit of a stumbling block, you know, hey, HR policy wise, a different way around it might be this.

00:22:50:04 - 00:23:14:05

Katie Elizabeth Green

So there was some real benefit there. And having having somebody with HR expertise to kind of, step in and actually lay out what the, the legalities were with regards to particular issues. So I think there's definitely, there's definitely value to be had in having individuals from different backgrounds, different professional roles as part of the learning experience.

00:23:14:07 - 00:23:15:06

Katie Elizabeth Green

Yeah, definitely.

00:23:15:06 - 00:23:34:22

Helen Fitzhugh

It's like a pretty healthy mix because sometimes people might recommend something, but the the policy won't allow it or the law won't allow it. Or you know, that something might disadvantage someone else. So yeah, having that extra little layer of perspective with the really useful peer learning, probably done with a light hand, you know.

00:23:34:24 - 00:23:37:08

Helen Fitzhugh

Yes. So it's a good idea.

00:23:37:10 - 00:24:07:23

Katie Elizabeth Green

Yeah. I think the point there you raise about a light hand, this is really is really key because you want the peer learning space to have its own energy, to direct itself. And you want the initiatives to arise from the conversations between the line managers. But absolutely, when there's a particular solution that might contravene policy or might be problematic from a perspective, it's very, very valuable, isn't it, at that point for somebody to step in and say, I wouldn't approach it that way, here's a better way of doing things of that.

00:24:08:03 - 00:24:17:03

Katie Elizabeth Green

And as you say, kind of not directing the course of the conversation, but stepping in at appropriate points with you some useful information.

00:24:17:08 - 00:24:25:06

Helen Fitzhugh

So, if you take the analogy, it's not being a helicopter parent. It's just it's like, hey, I will help you learn. Yeah.

00:24:25:11 - 00:24:28:19

Katie Elizabeth Green

That's excellent. Yeah. Right.

00:24:28:21 - 00:24:49:20

Helen Fitzhugh

That all sounds absolutely fascinating. And we'll put some links to that in the blurb about the podcast. But I will just move us into, the tricky question I'd like to ask towards the end of our podcast, which is always thinking about the future. So looking to the future, what do you think the pressing workplace wellbeing issues are going to be?

00:24:50:01 - 00:25:16:05

Katie Elizabeth Green

Such an interesting question. I think I think there's a couple of a couple of real pressing challenges. I think we're seeing higher and higher rates of burnout in teams at the moment. And also in, in management roles, people having high levels of stress that have continued for such a long time without adequate periods of recovery. And I think some of that is, is post-pandemic.

00:25:16:05 - 00:25:50:11

Katie Elizabeth Green

You know, the world of work did change very quickly, didn't it? And I think we're still calibrating to some of that change in how we navigate and much more kind of blurry life, home life, remote work in context. But I think, yeah, burnout rates. I, I read a statistic the other day that said 70, 75% of the workforce at some point had a claim that experienced burnout and, burnout rates, particularly for mid-level professionals, are increasing significantly because people are just juggling so much,

00:25:51:15 - 00:26:16:17

Katie Elizabeth Green

very, very busy roles, increasing workloads as well as, demands and challenges outside of work, whether it's caring responsibilities, whether it's health issues. And I think it's it's a real problematic mixing of, of challenges that, tipping people's stress, long term stress levels into, into a danger zone. So I think it's a real challenge for organizations how they tackle this.

00:26:16:17 - 00:26:45:09

Katie Elizabeth Green

And I think a lot of organizations I don't know if you would agree with this, but say, organizational wellbeing as an add-on rather than something that's really needs to be embedded in everyday work, in practice. And I think, you know, like the peer learning spaces that I talked about, how those kind of initiatives can be, can be beneficial for workplace wellbeing, but they're often deprioritized when workloads are high and initiatives are kind of on the backburner.

00:26:45:12 - 00:27:04:24

Katie Elizabeth Green

And I think the sort of related point to that is sometimes workplace wellbeing is seen as an individual's problem to tackle, you know, oh, you've got high levels of workplace stress. Oh, go and take a mindfulness course. Well, no, actually let's look at the structural reasons why that person is experiencing high levels of workplace stress. 

00:27:05:02 - 00:27:19:21

Katie Elizabeth Green

Is the workload too high? Is it that the relationships within the team are challenging? So I think understanding some of the more systemic drivers for workplace wellbeing challenges is, is going to be really important as we move forward.

00:27:20:01 - 00:27:37:17

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah, it's very much in line with what we've been talking about at Evolve. So I'm very glad to hear you say that. But obviously not glad for the people who are suffering that. Yeah. And with regards to the frequency of burnout at the moment, that sense of there not being a contingency like everyone is working flat out.

00:27:37:17 - 00:27:58:02

Helen Fitzhugh

And if something like a machine is working flat out, it's going to at some point go wrong. Well, we, you know, your human systems do that too. Yeah. And so having that sense of, a couple of times you said throughout, you know, people for a long time being stressed and then not getting a chance to recover that I think we need to do that learning going forward.

00:27:58:04 - 00:28:04:00

Helen Fitzhugh

I think it's like, you know, that that it just can't keep carrying on.

00:28:04:02 - 00:28:30:00

Katie Elizabeth Green

Absolutely. All right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think if you reflect on your own levels of stress at times, we can we can tolerate stress, can't we, for a period of time. But I mean, naturally, we designed that way too, you know, sometimes to be even motivated by period of stress. But with that then needs to be that time to to rest, restore, bring, bring the body out of its fight or flight system back into balance and equilibrium.

00:28:30:00 - 00:28:58:20

Katie Elizabeth Green

But many of us in today's world of work, there isn't that recovery period, that period to to come out of that stress response. And the body can only stay in a stress response, pumping out high levels of of cortisol and adrenaline for, for so long before it begins to feel very depleted. And I think that's where we see, see burnout rates because people of being at high levels of stress for, for a long time, without time to, to replenish and to and to recover and to to restore.

00:28:58:20 - 00:29:36:01

Katie Elizabeth Green

So, so it's it's it's it's really critical isn't it. And then, you know, when somebody does reach a burnout state and then perhaps off work, it's not for a couple of weeks is it. It's it's potentially for months. And absolutely the effects of that on that individual in terms of their own emotional well-being, taking time off because of this and how that affects somebody's confidence and self-esteem, but also the knock on effects on the organization in terms of the remaining staff in a team and how that workload is redistributed or how the organization responds in terms of bringing in additional staff.

00:29:36:01 - 00:29:39:24

Katie Elizabeth Green

So it's it's very complex, isn't it?

00:29:39:24 - 00:29:45:06

Helen Fitzhugh

So it's having an eye to the long term. Definitely. And what those effects might be is.

00:29:45:06 - 00:29:46:09

Katie Elizabeth Green

Absolutely.

00:29:46:11 - 00:29:57:13

Helen Fitzhugh

Great. So final question. If the listener only takes one simple message away from this podcast, although of course, we always hope that they will take more… What would you want that simple message to be?

00:29:57:15 - 00:30:26:13

Katie Elizabeth Green

That's a great question. I, I think the simple message that I would, I would hope that people would take away is that workplace wellbeing isn't about fixing individuals, it's about fixing the conditions of work. And for my research, line management is very fundamental to those conditions. So getting getting good line management right. Good line management training right is a really, really fundamental part of workplace wellbeing.

00:30:26:17 - 00:30:36:18

Helen Fitzhugh

Yeah that's a keystone part of the whole thing going forward. Great. Lovely. Well I've really enjoyed hearing about your research. Thank you for telling us about it.

00:30:36:20 - 00:30:38:07

Katie Elizabeth Green

Thank you so much for having me.

00:30:38:09 - 00:30:41:02

Helen Fitzhugh

Great. And good luck with your projects in future.

00:30:41:02 - 00:30:45:23

Katie Elizabeth Green

Thank you.

00:30:46:00 - 00:30:53:04

Helen Fitzhugh

Please do visit. www.evolveworkplacewellbeing.org 

We look forward to seeing you next time.