Time to Talk Day 2024 took place last week, 1st February 2024. It’s run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness and was delivered in partnership with Co-op for the third year running. Across the UK, it’s delivered by See Me in Scotland, Inspire in Northern Ireland and Time to Change Wales.
1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year. And “Burnout” is fast becoming a Significant contributor to poor mental health – In 2019, the World Health Organisation added burn-out to their international classification of diseases as an ‘occupational phenomenon’ rather than a medical condition. A 2022 survey of 15,000 workers across 15 countries by McKinsey Health found that a quarter of employees experienced burnout symptoms.
Conversations start at the top
Despite a growing awareness of burnout and other mental health issues, it’s still hard to talk about. Creating a sense of psychological safety starts at the very top, with senior managers talking openly about their own experiences in an effort to show that its okay not to be Okay.
Establishing a safe environment where people can talk about burnout must be something the company’s leadership team is a part of—they have a key role in leading by example to normalize the discussion.
Take a “listen to learn” approach.
As busy professionals, it can be tempting to offer quick solutions to the problem of stress – to jump in and fix the problem. Yet, burnout is rarely solved with quick fixes, and when misapplied, can even do more harm than good. Talking about stress and burnout should be a two-way conversation. Leaders really need to understand team members’ perspectives without defensiveness. Team members really need to understand that there may be limits to the ways in which leaders can help. Here are a few sentence starters that can help all parties approach a conversation in a way that encourages open dialogue.
- “Help me understand…”
- “Walk me through that…”
- “Tell me more/say more about that…”
- “I’m wondering…”
- “What signs of burnout are you seeing in yourself? In others?”
- “On a scale from 1-5 where 1 is not at all and 5 is a lot how would you rate your burnout?”
- “How you would you rate the burnout of the team?”
- “Do we need to make changes? What kind of changes can we make?”
All of these phrases invite a deeper conversation and help limit defensiveness.
Final thoughts…
Normalizing talking about mental health issues like burnout starts with remembering that your team members are people, too. They’ve got lives and families and responsibilities that have nothing to do with work, just like you do.
The more we all start to talk about managing our workloads in a healthy way, creating a stronger sense of work-life balance, showing up to work as authentically as we can, and importantly, recognizing signs of stress in ourselves and others, the better off we’ll all be.
Latest News
Riskex Limited
100 Avebury Boulevard
Central Milton Keynes
Buckinghamshire
MK9 1FH
What3words reference:
Contact us
Make an enquiry:
Company No. 05174302
VAT No. 844 5092 22
Archive
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- January 2020
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- October 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017