S1E1: Navigating Burnout and Building a Better Workplace: A Journey with Julian Cohen-Serrins

Overview:
In this enlightening episode of our podcast, Julian Cohen-Serrins delves deep into the critical issue of workplace burnout and shares his expertise on creating supportive work environments. Drawing from his background in social work and research into mental health, Julian offers invaluable insights into the psychological impacts of burnout and the steps organizations can take to cultivate a healthier, more productive workplace culture. Through a compelling conversation, he discusses the importance of balance between work and life, emphasizing that we work to live, not live to work. Join us as Julian outlines practical strategies for individuals and companies to implement, aiming to transform workplace norms and promote mental well-being.

Guest:
Julian Cohen-Serrins is a research scientist and a licensed clinical social worker. His research is in the fields of micro-organizational behavior and occupational social work. Julian received his PhD from New York University, his MSW from the University of Pennsylvania, and his bachelor's degree in Psychology from Dickinson College.

If you have any questions, you can contact him on LinkedIn.

What You'll Discover This Week:

• Explore Organizational Culture's Role in Burnout: Understand how a company's culture can significantly impact workplace burnout, advocating for a shift towards more empathetic and supportive practices.
• Implement Practical Steps for Burnout Prevention: Adopt actionable strategies for organizations to assess and mitigate burnout, including promoting open discussions on mental health and revising workplace policies to enhance employee well-being.
• Emphasize the Importance of Personal Boundaries: Recognize the critical need for setting personal boundaries to achieve work-life balance, stressing the importance of mental health days and disconnecting from work to rejuvenate.

PausePoint: The Podcast
Where Mindfulness Meets Mastery in Work-Life Balance

Connect With Us:

• Subscribe: Tune in on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for insightful episodes.
• Newsletter: Become part of our exclusive network of over 1,000 high-achieving professionals. Sign up today!
• Follow Us: Stay updated via Instagram & LinkedIn
• Contact Us: Have questions or feedback? Reach out directly at info@pausepoint.io!

Learn More:
Visit www.pausepoint.io to discover a wealth of resources and further information on enhancing your professional and personal life through mindfulness.

Transcript

Welcome to PausePoint the podcast, your ultimate destination for reclaiming your time, revitalizing your spirit, and saying no to burnout.  I'm Felisa Wiley, CEO and founder of PausePoint, and I'm here to ignite your journey towards a more balanced and mindful life.  Join us each week as we delve into practical tips, inspiring stories, and expert advice designed to integrate mindfulness into your daily life. 

We'll explore mental health tips, discover ways to strengthen work life balance, and find methods to reduce your stress.  Whether you're new to mindfulness or seeking to deepen your practice, we're here to spark action. It's time to reclaim our time, take more breaks, and infuse our lives with moments of peace and rejuvenation.

Join us starting July 15th for our debut season, where we'll share practical tips, inspiring stories, and expert advice to help you thrive in today's fast paced world.  Let's create a mindful world, one pause at a time. 

Welcome to Pause Point, the podcast.  Today, we are thrilled to have Julian Cohen Sears with us.  Julian is a remarkable figure in the field of mental health with a background in social work and a deep commitment to understanding the complexities of burnout in the workplace. In this episode, we'll explore Julian's journey from his early days as a social worker to his current research into burnout prevention.

Our discussion will focus on how organizations can generally support their employees mental health through an authentic and formulaic approach to enhancing workplace culture. We'll also explore the role of hobbies in maintaining an explorative mindset and fostering a balanced life. discuss the significant impact that COVID 19 had on workplace stress and burnout, and so much more.

Julian, it's wonderful to have you here. Please tell us more about yourself. Thank you for joining us today. 

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me on your podcast. I'm Julian Cohen Sarans, and I, I'm just excited to be talking about the subject. I think everything, everything about your story and everything that you're about and PausePoint is about is definitely part of what I think needs to be a bigger mission.

And that more people are aware of. I always kind of say this to folks that if I walked into the street and I, I live in New York. So if I walked into a busy street in New York and I asked someone like, do you know what burnout is? Everyone's going to say, yeah. Everyone's going to be like, yeah, sure. I'm burned out.

Very few people though, are going to know what to do about it or know kind of how to take steps to really kind of figure it out or address it.  It kind of really, my, my kind of origin story and a bit of made me kind of go into this area as very similar to yours. I started off as a social worker. I did a lot of work in kind of mental health, the mental health settings, you know, sometimes very kind of acute care, a lot of, a lot of serious issues.

And of course it takes a toll and it's, it can be very heavy work. And. People really can, you're witnessing a lot of struggling, you're witnessing a lot of intense emotional situations and almost everybody I saw in the beginning was really suffering and definitely experiencing burnout. So I, what I initially said, you know, I the time.

I was like, well, what do we do about it? And I got a similar response to what you had mentioned, you know, take a break. Or I heard a lot, you know, like that's why you need lunch or something, some sort of like anecdote of like, oh yeah, well that's why I just count to three.  I always kind of said to myself, well, okay, like that's,  that's fine that you're saying that you're not allowing for that to happen.

Clearly that's not an answer. And this just kept building in me. I kept experiencing this, kept doing the work of it. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I'm very interested in mental health. I'm interested in well being of all kinds, but what really just became my passion was how that works in the workplace and how that works for people who are providing care or providing education or really just, you know, in their works, in their workspace, how can they be well and how can they be psychologically well?

And I was not satisfied with the answers that were out there. So I decided to go more into research and lean into kind of the whole process of developing kind of a high level of research on burnout, on what causes it, how to measure it. And that's led to today where I'm really just, I mean, I'm in this space, I definitely see a lot more posts on it.

It's kind of that, that algorithm idea where the more you look for it, the more you see, but there's still not a lot. So I want there to be more attention and I want to be, I want to be out there more. 

These people, they're not. Allowing that to happen. They're telling you what you need to do, but they're not really giving you the space to do it.

And that's one of the key issues that I look at. So what I mean by that is we're looking at something called organizational culture usually. So this is like the shared norms or kind of like the typical things we do at work and that we're allowed at work. And these can be policies, but they're more than policies.

They're the normal way you interact, the tone that's set often by leadership, but also by coworkers of what's appropriate to do in the workplace. You know, what do we prioritize? What do we care about? What do we talk about? All this stuff contributes to what's known as an organization's culture. And when issues like burnout arise, which they arise from doing work.

I mean, it simply is, you know, it's so normal. It's so common. And we can, of course, can get into that later, but there needs to be much more work on organizational culture in relation to burnout. And so even though mindfulness is very powerful, self care is a very powerful concept if it's not.  If it's not facilitated and even encouraged or modeled by those in leadership, by coworkers, if it's not part of the culture is what I'm trying to say, then it is kind of an inauthentic thing to be suggesting.

It's kind of a, it's just suggesting something that you're not allowing them to actually  serve.  

And what would you recommend an organization view to change that mindset? Cause For instance, when I was sitting in the company event and they were telling us to take breaks, in that moment I felt as though I was not really allowed to because I had to be present and like on camera and smiling and looking like I'm having a great time.

Like, what would you say to an organization who preaches this? Because a lot of it I think is just like preaching, trying to stay like trending, be like, look at us, we care. But okay, do you really? Like, how would you get an organization to actually care or to change their practices?  

Absolutely. It's a great question.

Maybe some meta context of the question. For those who are trying to stay trending, trying to put out suggestions without really thinking them through, inauthentic approaches can be worse than no approaches at all sometimes. So a good example is during the height of COVID, a lot of nurses would talk to me about how they were offered a stickers bar as a thank you to try to, Increase well being, try to make them feel less booped out and show that they felt appreciated.

They were wearing masks, they couldn't even eat Snickers bar, but even still, even if they could, it was so inauthentic, 

it 

actually had an inverse effect. Made them feel angry, made them feel marginalized, trivialized, and not supported. And when you're not feeling supported by your employer, you're not feeling supported by an organization's culture. 

Burnout is inevitable. So, I just want to put that out there first. Inauthentic and saying just trendy is actually not going to work out. You have to be authentic in doing this. 

What would you recommend organizations do when you said, don't be inauthentic, like actually care because I'm annoyed for those nurses too.

Like, what is a Snickers bar going to do?  

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, clearly, clearly Snickers was, was hoping that that would have a really good positive effect, but in the case of burnout, it's just not quite, not quite the antidote. Maybe it's good for Halloween, not against Snickers bars. I'm definitely just not for them being solutions to burnout.

So I did, but thank you for reminding me of the question. So I think really other than, so being authentic, of course, is kind of like a prerequisite, but I also always would encourage. Anyone who's trying to really work on an issue like burnout and they have, they have the, the ability to work on it. And I'll get into that more if you'd like. 

The first thing to do is to really ask and assess what's going on. So if you don't know the scope and severity of an issue, it's really hard to approach it and to address it thoroughly. So I think a lot of these things start with conversations. It starts with.  Kind of getting the pulse a little bit of what's going on at work and seeing where some of the issues may be arising from, how persistent they are, are they isolated to just one group of workers?

Is it company wide? Is it, if you're in a very small place, you know, is it, is it about the physical space? Is it about, you know, just not being able to get outside? You have to really do some assessment first. So I, I'm not a big fan of just being prescriptive and saying, just do it, it'll fix burnout. And, and that's really because the context is everything.

And the reason I say that is because when we think about what causes burnout, and here I'm putting all my social work out, I'm thinking a bit diagnostically. When we think about what causes burnout, we have to think about the context. We have to think about the environment that's contributing to an issue before we can even consider diagnosing or treating anything.

But the same lesson can apply. That you want to know as much about the context as possible before you jump into prescribing solutions.  

So, we have a lot to dig into with that. Okay, so first he said, the scope of severity, asking and assessing.  Let's say we have an organization where they don't really have the culture of being open.

Because also, COVID changed the game of a lot of companies, like mass layoffs, people were fearful for their lives. I don't think in an organization where like, you want, if an organization wants to make good change. They need their employees to be authentic, but if they weren't really in an environment where they felt safe, they don't have that ability to be open and honest with those who are asking.

What would you recommend in that sort of scenario?  

How do you kind of create that initial change, or you can even start to have these conversations? And we're going There's a great theory, if folks want to look it up, there's literature on it everywhere, called the fusion of innovation theory. And one of the key components is identifying what are called early adopters, or people who already know an issue is happening, and just kind of getting on the same page as them, saying, Oh, you know, you said burnout was an issue like a little while back, or you're feeling really burned out. 

Do you think that's an issue like around the whole place? And as you can start to kind of build that bit of a coalition, you can start to have bigger conversations. It can start out really small. And I did mention before, when you're feeling, if you're able to do this, I don't, I don't want to tell people that it's their sole responsibility.

It's, and that's also another big thing I'm kind of on is, I don't feel like  burnout is the responsibility of one individual to resolve. Even what you're feeling. Even if I personally, Julian, am feeling burned out. The reasons for my feeling burned out are not just me, it's the place I work, it's the context, it's the culture, it's the type of work that I do.

It's not just that I'm not good enough. It shouldn't be on like one person in an unsafe environment where they're thinking, Oh my gosh, you know, now this person Julian's telling me to go around, you know, screaming burnout or this is a huge issue. No, I'm not saying that at all. What I'm really saying to do is  to try to see if it's there.

You know, try, try to talk to coworkers, try to talk to those who you can, and see if this really is an issue going on in the workplace, and then you can kind of escalate from there if you need to. There are sometimes venues built into organizations where we can start to have these conversations. Team meetings, rounds, check ins, supervision sessions.

It's not every organization, but it is common that there are structures to talk to people about issues that might be happening at work. And sometimes we forget that burnout is one of those issues. So for example, if I put this in the context of social workers, we often talk about issues with clients or issues with resources or issues with insurance companies, but instead we could also use that space to talk about our own wellbeing.

And what this'll do, this'll help to make wellbeing and, you know, approaching burnout as part of the agenda, part of the norms, part of what we expect work to be about, we want wellness to be as important of a metric. As part of timidity and profitability, it's better for everybody. If you think totally like profit bottom line, you don't care about anything else.

This is still a key metric that should be just as important as everything else.  

No, I completely agree. And I think all organizations can just benefit by one, just generally caring about their employees. You care about them, they will care about you. They will feel more relaxed. They'll be able to be their best selves at work.

They will be able to even be more productive. It's just being mentally well is real and healthy. I, that's a really good way to foster productivity, inclusion, and also make people stick around. You can retain talent. Like there are so many benefits by just actually being genuine, authentic and caring about another person. 

It's so true. I, I really think it's one of those things  If I had a magic wand, I would try to instill that right away. I mean, that, that alone would just change so much, and again, it wouldn't mean that we couldn't work, or that things wouldn't work, or that society wouldn't crumble. It would be better, and it can happen, I mean, I've worked in environments where that happens and environments where that doesn't, so I know it can happen, and I know it can be beneficial.

Agreed. I feel like there's also monetary value to caring about your employees and your teams.  

Sure, we can look at the reverse and kind of see it that way. So like burnout is assessed as a multi billion dollar issue across the board. So Gallup has put it in tens, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars, you know, annually in the global economy.

I know just in healthcare, it can be a multi billion dollar issue. I mean, there's plenty of metrics that show the cost of turnover, the cost of absenteeism, the cost of presenteeism, which is when you're there but checked out, the cost of mistakes. All these things. Our symptoms of burnout. So we can look at the reverse and see the costs of not caring, but I agree with you.

It would be so much more powerful if we could say, you know, just by making wellbeing your key metric, you could save this much or you could earn this much. That couldn't mathematically be done. I just I haven't seen it. 

Can you talk about some of the early signs of burnout that individuals should be more aware of? 

Yeah. It's so important to be kind of on it as soon as you can, and the more you know about burnout, the easier it'll be to recognize it. So that is, I think sometimes that is part of the solution, in a way, is educating friends and coworkers about it and or just making it more common to talk about, safer to talk about.

But early signs, very often it'll start with some changes in personality. So maybe you're feeling like, oh, you know, I used to care about this and now I don't. I'm really dreading going to work every single day, not just the day when I have a lot of hard stuff to do, but like every single day. Or if you notice that around a certain thing at work, a thing that's crucial to your job, it makes you just feel irritable, upset, or even cynical.

And then that's like early signs. When you start to feel exhaustion from work, that's kind of a more advanced sign because you're not going to feel that right away. If you're in a toxic work environment and you're brand new. And you're just starting to get these ideas. Oh, this might be sort of a bad place to work, a bit of a toxic work environment.

You might not feel exhausted right away. And this is especially true with younger workers who are new to the field. They often burn out very quickly because their expectations are very high. They, they want to make a difference. They're fresh out of school or they're enthusiastic about their career prospects and they aren't acclimated to the environment yet.

They don't know the culture yet. And so they're super enthusiastic. And you, if you're one of those people, you might feel the opposite of exhausted, you might feel invigorated. If you can pay more attention to those early signs, it's also helpful to kind of take it away from yourself sometimes and see if you see that in co workers.

You notice that, you know, your co workers tend to be cynical, exhausted, talking negatively about everything, feeling unheard. You know, those are good indications early on to think, okay. I might be experiencing this, or I might soon be experiencing this. And the solution can't just be leave work. I realize that's not a real solution, but it's a good thing to be aware of and just know within yourself.

And this is a lot of where like kind of mindfulness and self care can be really important. For those of you out there who listen to this, who think, okay, I need a lot of help right now. Like I understand culture is really important. Culture is hard to change. And I agree with that. So when you're in it, when you're experiencing yourself and you're really worried, and you If you don't want to feel burned out, obviously, this is when taking steps to make time for well being, make time for mindfulness.

This is when those things can be most beneficial because they can help kind of create a little bit more equilibrium in your day. They can help you to feel a little bit more grounded in your position in life. You don't live to work, you work to live.  

So, it is really important, well, before we get to that, I want to jump back to what you were saying with the signs of burnout that individuals should be aware of, uh, be aware of.

For an individual themselves, they need to pay attention to their own personality changes. You said, just a quick recap, so personality changes, are they tired, are they angry when they open up their laptop or walk into the office, do they  start talking negatively about their environment and other people that, the potential that they work with?

Okay, so like for managers, if you're listening to this, that means, okay, like, look, look, pay attention to your team, like, who, who seems sadder? Did you ask them why they're sadder? Like, just keep paying attention to that. Is someone taking a nap in the break room more frequently? Like, why? Are they okay? Like, just ask them if they're okay.

Let's see, younger workers. I do agree with the statement that younger workers want to make an impact and they have such high expectations. I  Going from college, like the workspace, you're not really taught or given like a really good introduction. There's going to be bureaucracy. There's, there's going to be internal politics that you don't know about.

So how about the young ones pay attention to the interns and then listen to what other people say. 

Absolutely, Donna. Is that a thing? So if people out there are listening, want to look at like a really bare bones definition of burnout, you're going to find exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of inefficacy.

But the truth is. More context is really important because I find when people read those things, they kind of just think, all right, well, if I see those three things, it's happening. But the truth is, emotions are rarely that cut and dry and simple. I mean, exhaustion is a contextual thing in this case. If you go to the gym and you feel exhausted, you're not burned out from the gym.

It in the context of what we're talking about here. So that's why I think it's really important to think about those changes in yourself or changes in others. You know, other emotions that might be similar also can be really helpful. That's why anger and irritability can be a good indicator. In my own research, I found that it's often also like quite a change too.

So somebody, you know, in the past might've really not been that way in their personality and they're snapping more meetings or they're snapping at coworkers. That's a time to intervene. I mean, that, that's a time to really ask what's going on. And I don't mean punishment. I mean, that's not going to help.

It's to really check in with that person, see what's going on and see what you can do to make the environment better, make their job better. It's never just like somebody is just unable to handle it. I mean, really, I think we can sort of put that out of, out of our mind. It's, it isn't somebody who's not equipped.

This is just part of the environment. It can be just part of the work. And you're talking about, you know, Look out for interns. Mentorship is so helpful. If we have solid mentorship programs, you can learn the culture, you can learn the field, you can learn the skills you need, and that will help so much with turnover rates and younger folks having higher levels of burnout.

No, absolutely. And honestly, it's just like an inclusive environment where everyone just wants one another to thrive, and which is the pre occit of toxic work environments. The politics of bureaucracy, all of that to me is just like toxicity and old school, everyone just looking out for themselves, and I'm like, no, we can be better, we need to do better.

We do not live to work, we work to live, in American society in particular. Hustle culture. We, we're part of just the hamsters in the spinning wheel, and corporate America is just grinding us out one by one by one, and I feel like it's also so hard To step away and remind ourselves that, hey, there's a little bit more to life than just like going into an office.

What would you recommend the hustlers of the world start doing in their day to day to kind of sort of break free? 

Yeah. And it really tucks. We're encouraged. Hustle culture is really encouraged and prized in a lot of places still. And that's across almost any sector I've heard of. There's really a lot of emphasis on, you know, rewarding people for working harder.

So I think. In those circumstances, telling someone to like, not be as energetic isn't going to really work. Or telling someone to not try as hard isn't going to really work. Instead, it's to really think about where you're putting your energy, and what is fueling you versus what's draining you. If we can maybe take on some new things, different parts of our job, things outside of our job, we can kind of apply that energy that you get when you're really into that household culture to things that are a bit more healthy and more sustainable.

I also think this is why culture is so important because if you create a culture that models well being and prioritizes well being, if somebody overachieves there, We're doing pretty good. If somebody overachieves at working 100 hours crunching numbers and they're falling asleep at their desk, we're failing.

But if we are, you know, prioritizing, having set boundaries, taking vacation, you know, really making sure we connect to people outside of work. That we, you know, prioritize our own well being ahead of our job. I'm going to say it's more important for you to be well and for you to feel well than to show up to work.

We learned this lesson very well during COVID that if somebody's feeling sick, they stay at home. Before COVID that was a lot less common where people would kind of come to work sick and they wouldn't really care. And that was really part of the problem. That was real hustle culture actually making us sick.

And in that strange way, COVID kind of helped because that we do that. I mean, no. That we shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't come to work sick, but that should include our mental well being too. It's not just if you have COVID, obviously you should go to work. If you're feeling like you can't get out of bed in the morning, because you're so exhausted and maybe depressed or upset, whatever it might be, you have to think about why am I going to work?

This is a good time to have the day off or to rejuvenate. I don't think days off are a solution to burnout, by the way, but I do think that they are important for our well being. Burnout's one component of well being. And, you know, I, I often, because I'm so You know, engaged in this burnout space, you know, a lot of people trying to clarify that with me.

So it's, it's important to say that right out. There's other parts, you know, there's other parts of our wellbeing that are not burnout, but burnout specifically is about the workplace. We are more than the workplace. We are people, we have full lives. We have loved ones and connections and things to do, so it's, it's more than just burnout.

Isn't it crazy though that we have to tell people like, Hey, you're a human, you have need, then it is okay. That should just be standard and accepted. You mentioned having things to do outside of work. Hobbies.  Hobbies are so important, and I honestly feel like people now look at like work as their hobby sometimes.

They go to work, then they go home, they eat dinner, they watch TV, they go to sleep, and then they do the same thing. Because they're so mentally drained from their work day, they don't have time for themselves. And I feel so sad, because like, it shouldn't be that way. How? On Earth, do we now make time for ourselves to have hobbies?

There's only so many hours in the day. 

Even if you have a hobby and you turn it into your job, I'm all for enjoying your work. I'm all for the idea of being passionate about what you do, but work is not a hobby. So I think when it comes to having hobbies with things that are outside of work, it's really important to think about, what are you doing when you get out of work?

Are you mindful about your day? For example. Let's say you're doing that grind where you're just waking up, going to work, going home, eventually you got to get groceries, right? You got to eat. So when you're at the grocery store, this could be a time to reflect and think, what do I like to eat? What do I like to, what am I passionate about?

What's a great dinner to me? What's a great lunch to me?  Take that energy and move it towards something outside of work and little things like that can build over time. Also, I think it's important to keep a really explorative mindset to be curious about the world. If you have the energy to, it's so helpful to learn about something you've never learned about before.

Watch documentary on something you wouldn't normally watch or pay attention to something going on outside your window.  Things are really connected. Knowledge and passion, they're really connected. Let's say you work in finance and you see something on the rainforest. You'll find some connection. You'll find some reason why that's really interesting to you and why you care.

So, you know, really being curious about the world is a great way to try to develop hobbies. And it's really important that that should happen outside of work. Shouldn't be your work. And I think it's also important to say that a hobby  shouldn't be negative. So in other words, like sports can be hobbies, right?

You can play hockey in the winter. Your, your heartbeat is fine either. That's fine.  It shouldn't get to the point where, you know, it's causing harm either. I think it's really important that like, you know, you want this to be restorative to be, to really rejuvenate you. There's great literature on what happens when people take time to volunteer.

So like a lot of companies, not a lot, some companies allow compensated time for volunteering. That can be really helpful. I mean, for some people in some environments, that can be really helpful for others that can make them more exhausted. So it's, it's not, I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and volunteer.

Some people are too busy for that and that's fine. That means your hobbies have to be something a little bit different. Maybe something that you can do from your couch and that's totally fine. But we shouldn't judge people by how good their hobbies are. It shouldn't be things that they really care about and enjoy.

And this is all such personal territory. This is not something that the workplace can prescribe or that you need to do a hobby. I mean, if someone's supervisor says you need a hobby, that's kind of an insult. You know, like the workplace could check in and ask them about, you know, are you making time for things outside of work?

And, you know, encourage them to know work is not your life. That, you know, I want you to, I want you, me as your supervisor, I want you to have a good life. I care about your wellbeing. And that means. sometimes forgetting this place. And I've had great supervisors in my life who have said, you need to get out of here.

You need a vacation. Just do something. Just have fun. Because I don't want you to just be doing this all the time. And it's not because it's good for the company. They weren't thinking of it that way. They just cared about my well being. It was that simple. I want people to just think I should care about the people around me.

Work is another community. So you can make it as positive or as negative as, as you put into it. We, you know, we should try to prioritize each other.  

That was all so beautifully well put. I completely am in agreement that we need to start prioritizing each other a little bit more. Honestly, to me, caring about another person and their well being,  super simple. 

Yeah. Come off as like human, like, should come off as like second nature. What you're talking about, Days off isn't a, um, solution to burnout. And that now we're finally taking, like, time off when we're sick. Because I also experienced this myself when I, if I had a cold before COVID, I would still go into the office and like, that was fine.

It would just take Tylenol. And now, like, my manager's like, oh, you're sick. Oh, take the day off. Like, what are you doing? Like, what's going on? But I also don't know if a lot of companies have increased, like, their, like, sick time off. Like, I don't even know. You, you probably may not know this either because I feel like every company is, in and of itself, doing whatever they want.

But I feel like also, days off or vacation time, limited in the U. S. There's no like, national, longer period of time, like, it's a per company decision. Which is just like, well, I don't think that's fair, but I also don't think it's helpful, and I think that's another,  it's an indicator that a company just like, does not care about you.

Like, if they offer you like, one week of vacation time per year that you work five days, Like, they don't care. They just want you being part of the hamster wheel. 

Yeah, I think that really shows antiquated thinking, by the way. That, that's an old kind of thinking of everyone's a number, everything boils down to some sort of profit margin and surplus profit.

It can't be that simple. It doesn't work that simply. So yeah, when we see a job that offers five days of vacation, now an employer might say, well, that's, you know, I'm paying them for five days of not working. You know, I'm taking that out of my pocket. I think we all understand that at this point, but the fact is if a workforce is that, well, if your people are.

You're going to lose a lot more than that. But I think you also brought up an interesting kind of larger policy point. And that is, it's not this way everywhere. There are some countries that have different norms or different even laws about paid time off and vacation time and how that's structured. So it kind of brings up the idea of the four day work week, right?

So the idea that you'd have a Friday or a Monday off or Sunday during the week off to make sure that you have time away from work. And the research so far, there's a lot more to be done. By no means conclusive, but our activity doesn't seem to drop off. People seem to be able to handle it, and they appreciate that extra day, where they can rejuvenate and be with their loved ones, and do what they're gonna do.

I, I think we need to build an evidence base. We need to combat that antiquated type of thinking. And that does require a lot of research. It requires numbers. I understand why organizations need numbers. I understand why those in charge of large companies or whatever it might be need to see actual projections and changes, but it can be done.

We need to remain open to that kind of data coming in and new ways of work. The nature of work has changed because of COVID and we, there's no reason to fight it. We should be embracing it. And we'll be even better. I think we're going to progress, we're going to be stronger. We shouldn't think that it's like we've lost something and we'll never, it'll never be as good.

We're going to be just as productive, just as innovative, if not more, if we prioritize well being.  

It's so interesting that you said that COVID changed times and there's now a new way to work. That should be the norm that we should embrace. However, a recent trend, a lot of companies, especially like the tech industry, they have been requiring employees to start returning to the office.

The antiquated way of thinking. I think it's going to be around, unfortunately, for a lot longer, only because COVID wasn't the first, like, plague that stopped the world. Spanish Plague of 1918, I think it 

was. The Spanish Flu. The 

Spanish Flu. Once again, people were wearing masks. Things that people learned.

Now we have to wear masks in like stores and like businesses and we have to social distance. History kind of repeated itself. But we didn't learn the lessons from the Spanish Flu. We just had to relearn them again. And I feel like we're kind of sort of stuck in the cycle that we need to break out of for all of our, like, sake or sanity, just to improve, like, the world that we work in and the world that we live in.

How do we start even doing that?  

It is a huge question. I agree completely. You need to change. I think what comes to mind is the initial step. Just one thing we can do is move a little bit away from the short term thinking. Everything is like, you know, a tiny profit cycle. It's like, you know, everything needs to be momentarily beneficial or else it's all not worth it.

We need to allow time to develop, allow time to build. And that's all conducive to caring about each other. That's all conducive to keeping people happy where they work, to prioritizing well being as a society, to just looking at health as a priority in society. I mean, if we think about how much investment we should have had in public health before the pandemic, I mean, imagine if we had, you know, really taken pandemic seriously.

Well, before we knew this was a risk, I thought like the idea of a pandemic had never occurred. There was this banished flow, but there have been many pandemics. I mean, there have been public health issues that have happened all throughout history. And that's one of the biggest understatements I've ever made in my life.

This is part of that thinking of preventing issues, of taking active action preemptively to try to make issues not as severe. This goes right back to burnout. If we design organizations that. normalize self care practices that normalize mindfulness, that normalize supportive culture, team cultures, collective success.

And we do that from the beginning. If we build that into an organization.  It will be incredibly beneficial for when times are tough. A great example, and I've heard this many times from healthcare workers who work in the emergency room, they say, you can't just tell like less people to go to the emergency room.

We can't say, oh, we just feel like lower case limits in an emergency room. Never going to happen. They're for emergencies. There's serious situations. And as many people need to be there are the people that need to be there. And that's exactly right. And that's why Establishing norms and culture thinking not so short term, but what you want your organization to look like what you want work to look like takes longer term thinking about asking people to do mental gymnastics here.

I'm just saying a little bit more long term thinking towards what we want the workplace to be and what's better for us all of us. Ultimately, not just momentarily.  

What steps can an organization take to shift its culture towards one that genuinely supports mental health and wellness beyond just service level changes? 

It's a, it's a really important question. I think that when we think about mental health, we often think very formulaically. We think like, Oh, if I just do X, Y, or Z, mental health is taken care of and I can check it off like a to do list. But the truth is. When when culture changes to support mental health in the workplace, it starts to come up almost everywhere.

And that is a way to understand that culture change is starting to occur.  And I think that the way organization can kind of view it in a way of a kind of, how do you integrate it or implement  a culture change that favors mental well being is you start to look at the processes that you do every day and you think, you know, 1st or 2nd or 3rd.

I was impacting the mental health of our workforce. Like, you know, our employees, it's just the sort of thing that is incredibly difficult. Psychologically causes a lot of stress or is this kind of, you know, maybe a bit anonymous and therefore can kind of take a little bit of of extra motivation. But when you start thinking that way about each of the tasks that you do, you know, that it's being kind of more integrated.

And I think the way it's going to get that started is in the beginning. You want to do a lot of checking in. So you want to, you want to bring it up in meetings. You want to, you want to prioritize its supervision sessions. You want it to just be, you know, front of mind, because if you model it as a priority,  That takes hold, that takes effect.

If you just say it once in a meeting and say, okay, we're going to focus on mental health, never speak of it again, then it's completely disingenuous. And that I actually think that causes harm, right? I think that that really makes things worse. So I, I, I, I don't, I don't suggest that at all. Instead, keep questioning it, keep bringing it up, and  I think also modeling it from leadership is very important.

So that can mean, you know, some degree of kind of, you know,  Mentioning mental health more at work, normalizing, mentioning it. I'm not saying we need to normalize people. You know, completely having transparency about the mental health. It's as comfortable as you are. And then it goes to if leaders don't feel comfortable talking about their mental health entirely.

That's that's of course that's okay. But just the idea of kind of bringing it more into the workplace instead of ignoring it is the goal. You don't want it to be something that we're neutral to, or we are blind to, or we are not sympathetic to or that we reject, but instead just we acknowledge its importance and we bring it up on weekend.

And question you mentioned the check ins. Is there a frequency that you may have in mind?  

So I think so it depends how how much the level of resources and organization has to devote to this. If if there isn't much, which is often the case, by the way, often people say, you know, we're already super busy and implementing this changes already, you know, over overloading everybody.

So. You know, if you're in that kind of, kind of organization or setting integrated into the existing meetings, you have bring it into the infrastructure that already exists, but I don't think there's like a magic number of like 3 times a day or 4 times a day. I think that if you have more resources and opportunities to bring it up, you should integrate it into those things.

So it does take somebody with awareness of the organization, looking at at the structures of the organization, meeting times, staff huddles. Retreats, check ins in the morning, informal check ins, supervision sessions, and just saying, okay, you know, these are all these things that we do in our organization.

Is there opportunities in any of these places to bring up mental health a bit more, or just normalize conversation about it and, you know, just, just get it to be a more comfortable thing to bring it to the workplace because we're kind of, we're fighting a type of culture that exists right now, which is that.

The best workers are workers that don't have mental health, like they're just  it's neutrality. They're, they're not, they're not discussing thriving mental health. They're not discussing negative mental health, mental health. It's just mental health doesn't come into the workplace. That's my private life. I don't want anyone to talk about it.

And neither should you. And that kind of don't ask, don't tell approach to mental health is how things get bad. If we just normalize being comfortable talking about it when we want to. Not talking about it when we don't want to, and you're going to have a culture change. You're going to have a new norms in your organization to actually take steps towards  increasing awareness of mental health and approaching mental health issues when they come up in a collaborative and open environment.

And you've written up a good point because I also believe that there are some generational differences within the workplace.  older generations, it was a little bit more normalized to not talk about your mental health and to completely leave it out of the workplace. So we're, we're shifting. We're the millennials in the workplace and now Gen Z, like the paradigm has shifted.

I think I saw some graphs somewhere that show that millennials are the highest percentage of  the generational percentage within the  workplace right now,  

which is crazy. Yeah, I believe that it's true. Yeah. It's amazing how time flies.  But, yes, I do believe that's true. And also, I think with that, what that says is if you have different views of mental health.

So, let's say millennials are more and I'm just going with kind of general trends. This isn't necessarily like a fact here, but let's say millennials are more likely to feel comfortable discussing mental health in the workplace and prior generations are not. Again, that kind of stereotype is not necessarily true.

It's not how the world really is, but just for this example, go with me here. What that means is.  Discussion. It just, it means that we feel we, instead of just saying there's a gap, we can't cross this gap. We can talk, we can communicate. We do it every single day and we achieve great things every single day.

There's, this is not going to be a task that's going to be too much for us. If, if there are differences of opinion on what is appropriate, of course, it's mental health, their own level of comfort. If someone says, look, I've never heard. Ever brought mental health into the workplace. No one's ever asked me how I'm doing.

I don't ask them how they're doing. That's just how I am.  Then, you know, that's their starting point. And, you know, the point isn't to tell them you're wrong or to shame them about what they're doing. It's instead to really inform a discussion of culture change. What's going to be normal? What's going to be acceptable?

Sometimes norms make it seem like it's what everybody's doing. It also relates to what's acceptable. You know what what is okay to say, you know, I didn't come in because I needed a mental health day. Is it okay to say, you know, I've had a lot of terrible stuff happens in my personal life. You know, I, I might be to leave early.

I might need I might need to, you know, kind of do something to. It feel a little better support myself in some way. I did not have that be met with  too bad or I don't care. You know, it's, it's to beat those sorts of those mental health issues with the same type of understanding that we would be physical health issues or, or, you know, other, other permissible issues in the workplace. 

Rouse with a maybe. 

No, that, that empathy, that understanding, that ability to say, you know what? Mental health is as damaging as physical health and it should be taken as seriously. 

Exactly. I think that is, that's, that's such an important way to see mental health. I think we're getting there. I think there's progress on this front, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

And so I think if people out there are listening, you're thinking, well, you know, that's not how my workplace looks at all. How do I get this like started? Like, how do I light the spark? You know, it's, it starts with, you know, some. Thinking, thinking safely. So I don't think everybody needs to run out and start saying, here's my mental health matters, this is what it's about, and here's everything that I'm thinking about, you know, I'm not saying people have to be, you know, completely, 100%,  you know, transparent about their mental health.

Immediately. It's about your level of comfort and safety. And that's actually part of mental health in the workplace. It's considering something like psychological safety. Am I comfortable taking a risk? So. If you're, if you really, you know, it hasn't started in your workplace yet. And there's some people, you know, you can talk about this too.

That's where you start if there's really nobody at all. And you feel like, okay, like, there's, we have a very anti mental health approach in this workplace, then, you know, you're going to have to start with, with a different kind of discussion of maybe psychological safety or.  Productivity related to well being, but that's again, that's if you want to take that on, I think very often.

I get this a lot towards me of, you know, is it my job Julian to do all this stuff? Is it my job to like change an organization's culture?  It isn't.  Culture can only change with people on board. So by definition, it isn't your responsibility. It's everybody's responsibility. I think people in leadership and management positions often are in the seats where they can drive these kinds of changes, but they can't do it themselves either, so there's no buy in for the people who work with them or for them.

It's not going to work either. So by definition, it's collaborative and um, something as sensitive and important as mental health. It does take conversation. It doesn't happen overnight and it does take some willingness. Buy in is what's called some buy in to. To take an initial first step or to just take that initial look at mental health in the workplace and then see what happens from there.

Every organization is going to be unique in this way. 

So you mentioned now you need this to be a collaborative environment and there needs to be buy in. I like that word, buy in. And you also touched a little bit on this, but you mentioned psychological safety to even like bring this up. What are some other metrics that can be used to determine burnout within an organization?

Yeah, that's, that's a great point. So like, what are some ways to know? Let's say you're not measuring burnout directly. How would you know that burnout is occurring through other types of issues? So there's a concept called compassion. There's compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue, they're kind of opposite ends of the coin, where compassion satisfaction is, you're feeling that, you know, your compassion, you're, you feel very passionate about your work, you feel very engaged with your work. 

You're feeling like, you know, what's the difference here? It looks a lot like exhaustion and burnout, but it relates to your compassion to the people you work with typical engagement surveys often have metrics about how kind of how connected you feel to your work. So, lack of connectedness. It's something that often can be like an indicator of burnout.

Also, if something traumatic occurs at work. So if there's something violent, something immensely disruptive, a loss in some way of somebody or something, it's definitely important to pay attention to those things. And to think about just, okay, you know, something quite, quite terrible happened. To the work community here, we should pay attention to that.

And it might have some impacts. I mean, sometimes, you know, these things do happen at work. And again, we don't shut off our brains at work. Our mental health exists at work. In fact, you could really argue, I mean, this is a better way to see it actually is we spend so much time at work. And we develop psychologically at work, work is key to our development, because we're spending so much time there with so many other people, and these co workers become like, and this people will come this not me saying it.

People say a co worker family. So my best friends and my co workers, I have, you know. People who are co workers of mine, who are literally, you know, as close as family to me. So clearly people like that impact our mental health and our well being as well as our development.  

Yeah, it's, it's true. I used to consider no job that I had.

I would say they were my family. And after the first round of layoffs, I was like, no, my family would not treat anyone like this. They are not my family. Culturally, they like to, a lot of companies like to, you know, give off that impression because it helps reduce the level of turnover. However, in reality, it's like, no, a job is a job.

It is a place where you develop psychologically. I love how you put that. Because you spend the majority of your life there, five out of seven days of the week for eight hours a day, you are there. And that's where you put all your mental energy to. Unless you did talk about the importance of saving some of that energy for like hobbies outside of work.

But yeah, the majority of your mental capacity, the mental load is given to your job. That's a very interesting comparison. I've never actually thought of it that way. So thank you for, for pointing that out. And how should burnout prevention strategies be tailored to different departments or roles in an organization?

Yeah, so I mean, that is essential. I think that Again, there is a little bit of this idea that there's a prescription for this, that if we just do one, choose three steps, burnout's resolved across the board. If that was true, we would not be having this podcast. There is no way I would be talking to you right now because this would be a thing of the past.

This would be, this would be an ancient issue that we'd read about in history books. So the fact is it needs to be tailored to the work that we're doing. The work that we do can prohibit or inhibit certain types of approaches over others. And. That has to be this, like, one of the early points and thinking about burnout in your workplace or how to assess burnout and how to address burnout is going to have to be tailored.

Um, that doesn't mean you can't use things from the world. We should use all the evidence that we can. If something works somewhere, take a look at it. Maybe it can be applied. I'm not saying it by any means, like, you have to re invent the wheel every time, but you should think about the unique aspects of the places that you work and how that might affect.

Your ability to create a, an approach to resolving burnout or start to implement an existing approach to burnout that's worked in other places. You want to consider how your workplace is different. So that starts with assessment. So, I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but so much of the time, this process just starts with taking a real assessment.

The more metrics you can use the better, but I understand that everybody can do that. Take an informal assessment,  scan the environment, scan the people around you. Take some time to just absorb some of that data, get into data gathering mode and just kind of think what's around me. Okay. What are some issues that I've been noticing?

What's unique about the place that I work? Where are some of the issues happening? If you're thinking about this first and assessing first, then you're going to know much in a much easier, more intuitive way of what approaches might work and what approaches might not work. So I can give an example to help illustrate this.

Let's say you work in an emergency room, and a lot of the approaches to burnout in healthcare relate to reducing caseload. An emergency room can't say, we're not taking people anymore, you know? Enough emergencies, we don't care. Emergency rooms tend to just take people as they come in, because they're emergencies, and so they can't really control caseload very well.

It's very hard for them to say, You know, all right, you've seen enough people you haven't. It's just not, it's not normal in the way that they approach their work. So, a better approach could be the way that the workload is kind of broken down. How people are assessed, how people handle paperwork, how people are escalated, who they see and who they don't, at what stages do they see different types of providers?

How are they rewarded for their work? How strong is the teamwork component?  How supportive are they are of each other? How appreciated are they for the work that they do? You can think of all those other things in an emergency room and caseload just might not be the thing that works for them. So, you could do a similar thing in a school where if it's about work hours and schools and session from, you know, 8 to 4, then, you know, those are the hours to begin with.

You can't say, let's have a school day. That's half the time and then all the teachers would be feeling much better because they're working half the time. You can't control that component. You can't control the time, the hours at schools and sessions. You have to look at other approaches that relate to the work environment.

So that, that's why, you know, let's say we dove into the research right now. What works for burnout?  We're going to see a bunch of different approaches that work for specific types of environments. It's the work of researchers to try to categorize these things in as an accessible way as possible. Try to make it as accessible as possible so that somebody can look at a similar environment to theirs.

And say, oh, this reminds me of my workplace. Oh, this intervention was really helpful or this approach is really helpful. That's what I'm going to I'm going to bring this to our next staff meeting and see if we can talk about maybe implementing something like that. That's the, that's the power of research in this field.

It can help to clarify and refine what works, but. It's never going to be a one size fits all. I mean, it just, that's not how complex social issues work. It's not how big health interventions work. Uh, that's not how something as complex as the workplace is going to be either. 

Let's say someone within a company, they recognize the need for change.

So they've done like a little mental assessment. Now what team should be in charge of saying, Oh, I'm going to go further into this, I'm going to actually do the research at the data behind it and now start, make, start taking action to make a difference.  

It's a great question, and you know, I don't mean this in any way as a dodge, but it does depend on how much, how many resources, the kind of resources that organization has.

So, that organization has staff devoted to workplace well being, and a lot of that initial research might fall more towards them, but it's really important to think of it this way.  Your workplace is your community. Your coworkers at every level are stakeholders. If you want to know what's going to work for them, you have to ask them.

You can't assume that, you know, what's going to work for them. So the more participation, the more insight you can get from your community, the better you're going to know your community and the more you're going to know something's going to be effective or not. So you're lucky that when you're in the workplace, you go there pretty much every day.

You're in this community a lot. So you probably can know pretty quickly.  Who are the workers there? What are their positions? Where do they work? And a little bit of how they work. Now in a huge multinational global organization, maybe that's harder, but you're likely not going to make a decision like this for the entire global organization.

You would start a little smaller, start with what's around you and then, you know, assess out. So it's, it's, it's so important to think about  who is, you know, what perspectives are out there.  In my workplace and how can I bring them in and engage them? And I would say with the last piece, the final part of this, of my recommendation here is make sure that the approach, the approaches of the time you're taking are not adding to the burden. 

It's so, it's so much, it's so easy to just pull somebody and say, okay, your job is this it's also to handle burnout. It's also to be my, yeah, it's, it's, it's only going to make the issue worse. It's it's that, that's not going to be helpful. So you have to understand that this is something that they are doing in addition to their, to their work.

And that has to be extremely safeguarded and respected. So it can't. Interfere with their duties. It can't add a burden to them. And, and, you know, you have to be able to check in with them about that. And you have to also intuitively design these types of meetings to make sure that they're, they're, they're minimizing that extra stress as much as possible and that you're reiterating and normalizing people telling you if it's too stressful.

So you have to walk the walk from the beginning. It is not something that can be done in a disingenuous way. You have to be so authentic in taking these approaches.  

And so let's say we have a company who has the budget for it. Uh, do they put this on someone internal who knows the organization, or would they hire someone outside of the company to come and then do some assessments for them? 

I think it depends on the severity of the issue. So, so if an issue is Very severe,  and there's a lot of toxicity going on, um, and to the point where it might impact trust, it might impact how people view each other in the organization.  An external person can be very helpful in that sense. They can be kind of this neutral 3rd party. 

If this is more preventative work, then maybe that can be done more internally. Um, and no matter what.  There will be collaboration. In other words, let's say you bring someone outside and let's say you ask me to come to your organization. Hey, Julian, tell me what's going on. I'm not just going to say, oh, it's this person's fault and walk out the door.

I'm going to need to talk to people. To understand what's going on to have  contacts in different places in the organization, have a point person for the project. So, no matter what, there's going to need to be collaboration. If you bring someone from the outside in. Um, and then also you need to know if you're bringing some of the outside in.

One of the benefits is that neutrality and so therefore they have to be given the opportunity to give their honest opinion. It's very easy to pull somebody in with a preconceived notion of what needs to get done and just say, see, I told you so, this outside person confirmed it. You have to be very careful of your bias there, because that could come off as really inauthentic and again, do more damage.

Um, it can seem malicious. It's not going to contribute to, um, fixing the problem. If you are able to work internally, if you're in that situation where you don't think you need outside help, that's perfectly fine, depending on the situation. But in that sense, you still want to take a very fair, a very transparent and fair approach.

So you want to go about, you still want stakeholders, you still want to gather opinions, you want to be very transparent in what you're doing and why you're doing it, what the scope of what you're doing is, so that you're not just viewed as someone who's like assessing people. Oh, I'm just going to watch you and I'm just going to assess you and see, you know, what you're doing wrong.

That's going to, that's not, 

It's going to be kind of weird, like a little fly in the wall, but you just, you know, you're being watched. 

Yeah, it's a spy in the organization. That's, that's terrible. You don't want that at all. So that transparency and being able to take that approach of I'm doing this for this reason.

I'm doing this for all of you.  And I want to be, I want this to be as successful as possible. Give me your opinions and feedback. That's, that's a much more effective way to think about it than you're just going to be this silent evaluator judging people on the border. It's so easy for that to happen though.

It's so easy for somebody to just say, okay, I'm just going to write down all my notes about you and not tell you why I'm doing it. And then give my report to the boss. And I did my job, not going to work. It's not going to be effective. There needs to be  conversation, collaboration,  acknowledgement. Then.

And and and sharing, you know, sharing the information there. There's a concept called organizational justice and it relates to  it relates to perceptions of fairness in the workplace, but it's often broken down into 4 kinds of components. So there's distributive justice. That's like resources. Our resources share of the organization.

There's procedural justice, so that's how policies and rules, how fair they are. There's interpersonal justice, how you're interacting with or someone else. And then this last point is why I brought it up, is there's informational justice. So there's knowing the information you need to know and having access to it.

If you're, if you're being kept out of key information that you need to know, you're not going to feel that your workplace is fair. And organizational justice and burnout are highly correlated. A very unfair work environment. Is very related to environments that have more burnout if an environment is perceived as very unfair because no one knows why Julian's in my room right now writing notes about me, it's going to be a problem.

You can't, you have to share this information. It's part of creating an equitable work environment, which is. You know, more related to a healthy and supportive work environment. 

And I'm sorry for laughing, but every time you say that in my head, I literally envision you standing in a corner with office workers, just like writing things down.

And it is in my head, it's awkward. So in person, that would be an awkward moment too. But I like that you,  you separated out the different types of injustices because. Now that you broke those out, it's very easy to have these injustices. And I haven't actually worked in a single company where I haven't recognized a single one.

It's a great concept that needs a lot more attention in my opinion. 

You mentioned the impact of COVID 19 on burnout. Can you elaborate on how the pandemic changed the landscape of the workplace mental health and what new challenges have emerged? 

Yeah, it's such an important question and it's an ongoing process.

So even though maybe some of the more acute phases of the pandemic are, might seem over or might be over depending on your circumstances, um, it doesn't mean that we just can wrap this up and forget about it. These things have lasting effects,  traumatic effects. That's more of a psychological effect, but they also affect the way we organize work so that they change the way and the norms around what's acceptable work.

So. It's changed the way we interact with each other. It's changed the way we introduce to each other. You know, handshakes versus kind of like, like, like an elbow bump or  when to wear masks and where not to these are all conversations we think about now and that are part of our, our conversations at work.

So, what's so important is to recognize that cobit did change the workplace. We shouldn't try to pretend it didn't happen or pretend, you know, it couldn't have had an effect that they can that's that that's going to leave you unaware of potential consequences or impacts for the pandemic. 

Psychologically speaking, COVID is a perfect example of what's referred to as a shared traumatic event. So a shared trauma is something that you go through, it's a traumatic event that you go through individually as a person, and you go through professionally through your work. So an example could be, let's say you are a nurse,  During the beginning of the pandemic and you're at a large hospital, let's say  that nurse is both afraid of their own potential infection from COVID that they might get COVID themselves and what that might do to them personally and their family and their friends, but also they have to care for and react to and support the people that they care for at work.

So a shared traumatic event is it's a, it's a pretty powerful thing to go through and you should expect that it has effects. It can, it can make people feel uneasy being in office or crowded spaces.  It can also make people feel more comfortable working remotely or in a hybrid way. And so, again, rather than just say.

I'm the boss, this is how we're going to do it. I always and again, I'm just sound like a broken record. I always favor assessment.  Ask people what's going on, ask people what their needs are. Have, have these conversations or collect this data in any way you can. I mean, if you, like, let's say you really, you're out there listening and you say, Julian, I have no time to ask anybody anything.

Okay. I get it. I don't know. I don't know what everyone's work is like that could be possible. If so, I understand this might not be so, so helpful for you. So instead that can be through an email, a questionnaire. That can be through Slack, that can be through some quick chat, just to, you know, Hey, can we talk about this or can we brainstorm about it any way that it can be brought up is helpful because then we're going to learn other people's perspectives and begin to understand how it's affecting the organization as a whole. 

COVID happened to the world.  It happened globally. Nobody's going to say. You know, oh, what was COVID? I have no idea. You know, it's absolutely nothing. I guess if somebody does say that, just, you know, that that's sometimes a lack of data is actually very telling. So if somebody really says, I have no idea what you're talking about, please ask them more questions.

Please follow up with that person and say like, oh, you You're unaware of this that happened because maybe it's not affecting that person at all. And it's affecting a lot of other people that could be something to bring up. So again, any data, even a lack of data is telling. So collect data, assess, talk about things.

That's how you get a clearer picture of what's going on. And we, we try to avoid this at work. We try so hard to say it's not my department. And it's not my job. And I understand for some people it is not their job, but change takes, it takes community, it takes teams, it takes collaboration. So if you think a change needs to be made, then some assessment probably needs to be made and some conversations need to be had.

So taking those initial steps, again, in a safe way, I'm not saying people should, you know, take on a second job as chief well being officer that they're not paid for, I'm not saying that, but conversations, bringing it up in meetings a little bit in ways that feel safe. These are ways forward. These are ways that it can get to people who can start to make policy changes or can just make the conversation bigger.

And that is worth it. If you're talking about it more after listening to this podcast, that's a good thing.  If you're really, you know, unsure of how to bring it up again, you can ask, you can ask a coworker or a friend anyway, any, any place that you're, that you're comfortable with, but again, doing nothing.

It's just not going to help. You can't just hope burnout goes away. You can't just hope the impacts of COVID go away. It's that, that's not going to be enough. We do need to have conversations and we do need to think about what actions are necessary. 

Incomplete agreement. Kerouac left a stain. It kind of bothers me when some people try to brush it off and they try to return to They try to return to, like, the norm, because before COVID, the norm was you go into an office, you work nine to five, you're there, and you go.

The norm changed. The norm can always change and evolve depending on what global events have happened or just what events happen. It doesn't even have to be global. It could be just national. But, like, this return to norm that's currently Going on in some companies and like the norm has changed and we have to acknowledge it.

And if we don't acknowledge it, like we will never progress forward. 

It's absolutely right. Lack of acknowledging things is a great way to let issues get worse. Um,  when, when, when we are neutral to two things that are happening and we try to say it's not happening, I don't see it. It's not, you know, it's out of bounds.

You're, you're putting yourself in a position to not be able to, to handle it or to be prepared for it. So, I mean, really. The key that the 1st step, because I really when I always get asked that is what's the 1st step. How do people start once the, once things are going, once things are rolling, there's a lot of pre made steps.

There's there are surveys. There are scales. There are assessments. There are focus groups. There are interventions that exist. There are programs to reduce burnout. All those things are out there and all those things can be designed. Often. The 1st step is really hard. And that is where it takes. Cheers. 

Being willing to have a conversation to interact about it, don't ignore it. And it's funny, like, that shouldn't be like some sort of radical thing to say,  but it currently is, it currently is a radical thing to say. So  I, I like to say this whenever I can is just  awareness, acknowledgement of issues like burnout in the workplace are where we start.

That's, you know, if that, if that can happen, I think that's The whole, the whole world of work would improve just based on that. 

I 

completely agree. 

Earlier when I said that millennials are like the largest generation in the workforce, I actually got the statistic for that. By 2025, millennials will account for 75 percent of the global workforce.

And 35 percent of the U. S. workforce are millennials. So globally, I feel like once millennials start hitting the, well some of us already have like directors, vice presidents, presidents, CEOs, I have hope for the future of the workforce when it comes to like mental health and taking it very seriously as our generation is going to get into the positions of power.

I couldn't agree more. I think there's always so much Sort of headlines and maybe even a little bit of a hysteria sometimes that new generations aren't going to be up for it, or that they're, you know, they have these huge issues, major problems, you know, what's wrong with them. We're going to get it done.

Every generation is going to get it done. And it might be, they might look different. It might be very different. It might be very similar.  We know that we need to get our work done. We know that we.  Need to keep things going. We need to, you know, we need to have our society. We, we, we know how important these things are.

We live in the world to every generation does. So it's much better to take intergenerational differences. As an opportunity to collaborate and to have discussions, maybe uncovering what those differences are instead of just saying they're so different, we'll never see eye to eye. It's just not that the evidence is against that.

We work every single day with a whole range of people from different generations and different backgrounds. We walk down the street, we go to the supermarket. We, you know, get on a bus. These are all places where tons of different people are interacting and getting things done. We can do it. And it's so easy to just let yourself get into the minds that if it can't be done, it's a generational gap, you know, all right, we're never going to get through, through to anybody.

We're all just on a different page. That's not human humans interact. We collaborate, we're social creatures, right? We're social beings. We, we can, we can have conversations. We can bridge gaps. And it, it takes, it takes safety. It takes the ability to feel comfortable speaking up. But with these small conversations, they can become bigger conversations and they can create changes.

Absolutely. And you know what? Millennials are putting the human back in humanity. 

I think so. And I think, I think as much as, again, I hear a lot of hysteria about Gen Z. I think the same thing will be for them as well. I'm not sure about their share. The, uh, the workforce yet in the U. S. or globally, but I'm confident that they will also get it done.

And the generation after that, and the generation after that, they will get it done. We don't need to think that they're incapable of anything. They will be capable of doing what they need to do. And that's because They're also part of the world. They're learning from all the generations before them. We always do.

And we invent new things in collaboration. That's the other thing that I kind of want to get away from is that, you know, one group can be innovative. The other group is wise. That's not how it works. I mean, these things are interconnected and they're complicated. If you know something really well, you can be more innovative with it.

If you're, if you, if you don't know something very well, you might be more adherent to, to, to the past or to, to kind of rules from previous situations. There's no way to make it just like a one size fits all. 

There's no, we  

should collaborate again. If all these conversations about how we can't, we can't, you know, connect A and B, we can't make bridges if those were just phrased as.

We can talk together. Let's see. Let's see what the differences are not even make a judgment. I'm not saying anyone has to say who's right or wrong. Don't even go there. Let's just let's just start find. Let's just look at how we see the same issue. Do we see it differently? Do we see it the same? And  In my experience and in my research as well, you will be surprised how often we all see things in similar ways.

Again, there can be differences. Differences are great, but we are not living all on different planets. No, we are not. We are living right here on earth. Um, we're friends and neighbors and we have jobs to do and we all know that. 

Yeah. And another thing to put into perspective, so burnout, the concept of burnout, it did not gain like legitimacy in the scientific community until the 1970s.

And my mother, she was in her, I'm going to age her, sorry, her like late 20s and the 70s. So she didn't start hearing about this concept at all. It didn't really exist until her late 20s going into 30s. And then for, for you and I, I'm like, Oh, I, I've been familiar with this since I was at least like 15, 16, 17.

I was burnt out even then. So I will say one difference between like older generations is these new advances within the mental health and like psychology and scientific communities. Like, These are all kind of new for them. I 

think it's very important to remember that, that, you know, people who've been working longer, they've experienced more changes.

So there, there, there are things that might be newer to them that might not feel so new to a younger generation, because they've kind of always had it. The thing to remember there is that burnout became a concept, a measurable, scientifically validated and researched concept based on Work from, from generations that come before millennial Christina Maslach, you know, Herbert Freudenberger, Jack, I can go down the list.

I'm not going to, it's going to do a bunch of scholars, but their work put this on the map 

and 

they've done incredible work since they haven't stopped. They're actually, even, even though they created and coined these terms, they're still innovative. They're still ahead of the curve. And, and the fact is it will be because they know it so well and new people like myself who are coming into the field and really trying to think about things a little differently, we share much more than we differ.

So, even though I might have a little bit of a different view on how to approach burnout, then, then someone like Christina Maslow, which I don't even know if that's true, by the way, um, if you are listening, Dr. Maslow, we might agree on everything, but the point is, is that no matter what, we're going to agree on much more things than we think.

And so again, collaboration, teamwork, community building, these are the ways forward. You know, all the early research, the first research on burnout, all those researchers, they still say that every single one of them still says that none of them say, Hey, just resolve it yourself. It's your own problem. It's your own inefficiencies.

That's never happened. I've never read an article that says burnout is your fault. And that's, that's the end all be all of it.  

No. And, and I do appreciate your approach to it. It's very formulaic. 

Thank you. 

It's it's, it's, and it works. It's like collaborate, assess.  Keep the communication open, refine as needed, and don't ignore.

Yes, exactly. If, if, if we can follow some of those simple steps and take those to heart and we start to model them, that will change a culture to being more supportive, more fair, more responsive, more tailored. Again, we, we need those, those kind of, you know, We need that groundwork. We need those lines to develop from, and then people are going to be fine.

Again, there are so many scales and interventions and things to do about burnout. There's so much literature to read about it that we will get there, but it's often those initial steps of, you know, what are some of the core things to think about? How do I begin to structure an assessment? How do I begin to talk about an issue  that are very challenging?

And I, and I appreciate that they are very challenging, but they're not impossible. Thank you. It just takes thinking about the issue in a structured, transparent, and safe way. And from there, you usually, you can pick up some, some momentum. 

We'll get there. We'll get there. I'm going to end us on this last question.

We could go on for at least another 30 minutes, but I'm not going to. I'm going to save this for the next, next season. But  do you want to share like any information where listeners can reach out to you? To talk about the subject more. 

They can feel free to shoot me an email. They can catch me on some of the socials.

LinkedIn is easy. Any collaboration, any, any discussions about the issue of burnout. Obviously, it's very important to me. I care about it tremendously and I'm happy to talk to people. From anywhere in any background. So, I mean, I'm, I'm open and available to discussing it and learning more about, you know, kind of some ways they might be approaching it or some questions they may have these conversations when they happen in a workplace.

That's great. They don't have to, you can talk to a friend, you can reach out to somebody you've heard on a podcast. Hey, I heard your podcast. I'm interested in this situation. I mean, we're all just people out here. I mean, I'll be happy to respond and. You know, help as much as I can. 

Well, thank you so much, Julian, for your time.

This has been an amazing conversation, and I can't wait to reconnect with you. 

I would love to keep this conversation going if there's a next season. There's so much to say, and there's so much depth to this topic. It's not a simple thing. So again, for all your listeners, you know, just by listening to this, you're probably ahead of the curve because you're, you're, you're thinking about it.

You're, you know, you're, you're interested in learning more. That accounts for so much. So. It's, you know, thank you for letting me be on this, this podcast. And thanks for including me in the conversation. You know, you know where to find me. So let's, let's, let's keep talking about it. 

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of pause point. The podcast, our debut season is packed with enlightening conversations, featuring thought leaders, burnout prevention, specialists, authors, and mindfulness coaches  together. We delve into topics like effective stress management, burnout, goal setting, and transformative mindfulness techniques. 

Pause point is dedicated to enhancing well being. Being by seamlessly integrating mindfulness into your daily routine. Our innovative tool sings with your calendar to identify optimal times for mindfulness breaks, making mindfulness and integrated part of your day without disrupting your schedule, your journey to a more balanced life starts here.

Thank you for listening. And don't forget to visit pause point. io to begin your mindfulness journey today. We look forward to having you with us next time.