H E A LT H C A R E SPEC I A L SEC T I O N
Those who align themselves with the research and science will reap the rewards, and those who ignore the signs will continue to struggle as we shift collectively into this new era of work.
What to Do Recognize that work culture is shifting. Multiple factors are contributing to this, including the transition of generations in the workplace, COVID-19-related personal and professional stressors, the recognition of mental health (seen in high performing/striving athletes and professionals alike), and the outdated and broken “over-striving/overworked” leadership cultures we have been contributing to over the past few decades. We have reached the law of diminishing returns in relation to work hours, productivity, and positive outcomes that originate from “striving.” We need to back off, step back, and shift our approach to work if we are going to meet the challenges of tomorrow. It will demand more creativity, strategic visioning, and complex problem solving—skills that all thrive when cultivated through providing ourselves space and time for both personal and collective reflection and inquiry. Take Action: Familiarize yourself with recent trends and research on work stress and ways to combat it. Some favorites include the following: 1) Dying for a Paycheck by Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer, organizational behavior professor at Stanford University, 2) Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte, New York Times bestseller, award-winning journalist, and director of the Better Life Lab at New America, and 3) the International Labour Organization’s World Employment and Social Outlook Trends report for 2021.
Where to Start It’s important to support yourself and your teams. Self-care and wellness programs are not enough. While self-care is important (largely because it improves our energy levels that in turn increase physical, emotional, and mental reserves), self-care alone doesn’t change the structure of how we engage work. I often use the example of “bubble 42 | December 2021
baths and Friday night unwinds.” While they feel great, they won’t shift our workloads. For the structure to change, we need to implement work boundaries and honor others to do the same.
It is not enough to practice self-care outside the office; we need tools and strategies to support people directly within the corporate setting. Take Action: Understand how self-care, awareness/attention, and boundaries intertwine and work together. Self-care and awareness are the first steps towards setting boundaries, and they work in tandem. We need both the time and space to tend to our own needs, as well as the time and space to reflect and focus our attention on solid solutions for our situation. It is not enough to practice selfcare outside the office; we need tools and strategies to support people directly within the corporate setting. We also need to honor time between meetings and cultivate the space needed for true strategic and creative work—something that will benefit individuals and organizations alike. Case Study: Work boundaries arise when we combine strong selfcare with a commitment to internal reflection and awareness of our situation. Work boundaries require both. The challenge is often we start with self-care and as soon as we start to feel better, we stop. A good example of this is seen with the example of Mary (the subject’s identification for the study, changed for confidentiality purposes). Mary averaged fifty-hour weeks and her
days were intense. She had planned well and organized herself in advance so she could claim a well-deserved vacation. She was able to “mostly unplug,” but still took the occasional call and checked email out of her concern for being overwhelmed upon return (a common scenario for many professionals; we work on vacation simply to avoid being inundated after the break). She was able to find some much-needed downtime and it offered her relief. She had a joyful time and even identified some personal life epiphanies. However, upon return to the office, that feeling of space, calm, and joy vanished. She was right back in the “rat race,” and despite her epiphanies, had trouble shifting her day-to-day work patterns. Mary’s story is much too common and reflects a clear pattern. Self-care (in this instance a vacation) begins to provide us energy. When this energy is combined with reflection time, we often stumble upon some new awareness (epiphany). The challenge in Mary’s situation was she stopped short after her discovery of the epiphany due to the inability to maintain her self-care and space needed for reflection/awareness. Many of us can likely relate to this concept. We simply end the reflection/awareness process too early, resulting in a sort of neverending cycle of short-term relief with no long term solution. In order to actually shift our work lives and begin to implement changes to how we work, we need a continued commitment to this process. This means we need to find, protect, and maintain boundaries that allow us to commit to our own self-care and reflection/awareness process.
Expect Pushback and Get Creative It will take time to shift our work cultures. Many of us have become inured to overtime and weekend work, and we’ve come to expect others to always go the extra mile. Make no mistake about it, striving for excellence is still vital and critical at different stages and moments throughout our career. However, if our trend lines show that the striving is constant, and extreme effort has become the norm,
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