The R3 Continuum Playbook: The Interplay of Stress and Burnout: What they are, How they Relate, and How to Combat Them

Shane McNally: [00:00:00] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX studios, here is your R3 Continuum Playbook. Brought to you by Workplace MVP sponsor, R3 Continuum, a global leader in workplace behavioral health, crisis, and security solutions.

Shane McNally: [00:00:13] Hi there. My name is Shane McNally, Digital Marketing Project Lead at R3 Continuum. On this episode of The R3 Continuum Playbook, we’re going to hear a segment from a recent webinar that was done with R3 Continuum Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer, Linda Saggau. This webinar was titled The Interplay of Stress and Burnout: What They Are, How They Relate, and How to Combat Them. It may not be widely understood the differences between stress and burnout as they often go hand in hand, but they can have some significant differences. This webinar highlighted these differences and took a deeper look into the impact and effect that burnout can have on your employees and your organization as a whole.

Shane McNally: [00:00:53] And kind of like on that of doing self-assessments, we’re seeing it in other people, can you kind of go over what like the magnitude of all of burnout is in the workplace?

Linda Saggau: [00:01:04] Yeah, for sure. We put together this little slide for you all. The sources are stated down below. But this is pretty recent. This is research over the last maybe a couple of years. So, now that we understand what burnout is, it’s just important that you understand the magnitude. So, 75% of workers have experienced this. My guess, it’s probably more. The pandemic didn’t help, right? 40% specifically said they experienced it during the pandemic.

Linda Saggau: [00:01:40] So, you think about what our frontline healthcare workers have faced, again, burnout is complete exhaustion due to repeated exposure to emotionally demanding situations. Think about what they’ve been going through, and if you are one of them, thank you for everything you do, everything you’re going through, everything you’ve experienced. If you are experiencing burnout, don’t dismiss it.

Linda Saggau: [00:02:12] Take time to take care of yourself and put together a strategy to ensure that you can get out of it. 67% of workers said that increased over the pandemic. I can’t imagine why. Fortunately, my son was launched off to college, but so many of my coworkers had a new puppy, two children that they were homeschooling, cooking and household chores increased. There weren’t offices to have two people or two partners doing their conference calls.

Linda Saggau: [00:02:49] There were a lot of emotionally demanding situations over the pandemic, and they continue. We still have to be very, very cautious. And then, managers and individual contributors, they saw the pressure increase as well and their burnout increased as well. So, there was a quarter of them pretty equally that reported burnout. And as we look at the convergence of what’s going on, the news is emotionally demanding. Give yourself permission to take a rest from it.

Linda Saggau: [00:03:28] It doesn’t mean that we bury our heads to the needs of other people and the issues going on in the world, but give yourself permission to step away. Give yourself permission to step away from this thing and stop scrolling on Twitter, or Instagram, or LinkedIn, or whatever it is. There’s a moment where you’ve got to put it down. Pay attention to your sleep hygiene. If you can, resist the urge to bring this thing into bed with you. It’s one of the best things you can possibly do.

Shane McNally: [00:03:59] I absolutely—go ahead.

Linda Saggau: [00:04:00] Go ahead. Sorry.

Shane McNally: [00:04:01] I was going to say, I absolutely agree with the news and the Twitter. I was going to bring up Twitter, because sometimes, even I’ll catch like I’ll read something on there, and be like, nope, I can’t go into this, I can’t go down that rabbit hole type of thing, and give myself a break. I think that’s very relevant to me. So, I thought that was funny, you brought that up. So, we see obviously the magnitude, 75% of workers have experienced burnout. Can you kind of talk to us a little bit about the impact that that’s truly having?

Linda Saggau: [00:04:29] Yeah. Well, we’re seeing it in the great resignation, right? Not all of our companies, but we’re seeing it in many organizations. So, almost three times, well, I round up easily, 2.6 times, if you’re burned out, to seek a different job, and what these folks probably don’t understand is that their burnout is going to go with them, because the behaviors and the habits, maybe not taking care of oneself or whatever, are just going to go with them.

Linda Saggau: [00:05:03] So, you might want to consider, if there are good things about your job, and you’re being treated fairly and compensated fairly, you might want to stay there and just see like, okay, what happens if I deploy a self-care or burnout strategy? 63% are more likely to take a sick day and 23% are more likely to visit the emergency room. So, workplace stress and burnout costs a lot, and globally, it costs over 500 billion per year and there’s 550 million workdays lost. So, it is not only a devastating thing for people, but it’s a devastating thing for organizations, and our communities, and our economies.

Linda Saggau: [00:05:54] So, again, I kind of like to—when I talk about this topic, whoo, tempting to boil the ocean, but I want to just remind you that the change actually starts with you, taking care of yourself, noticing your own signs and symptoms, and kind of educating others when it’s appropriate, and helping them understand what they can do to help themselves. And then, they get to share and they get to share, they get to share, because waiting to see change to happen is not going to get at this problem. We just have to look at this as individuals in our communities, our workplaces, our families, and have productive, healthy conversations about it.

Shane McNally: [00:06:47] Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s really interesting hearing the sharing pattern, it’s that trickle effect. It’s, I’m not a clinician, but here I am listening to you, and now, I’m understanding things and I can go tell my buddy that’s in healthcare that I know is struggling, but he’s just continuing to go. And now, you don’t have to be a clinician, I know you mentioned armchair therapists and all that, but you can lead them to different resources that we’ve kind of discussed throughout this as well. So, I appreciate that comment, too.

Linda Saggau: [00:07:17] Right. And that’s really the core of things like mental health first aid, it’s about sitting down with somebody, and saying, hey, I care about you. And I’ve noticed that it appears that you might not be doing well. How are you? And then, the opportunity is just to gently make suggestions to doors for help that people can walk through. And it’s how we serve others, but also if I ever slid into burnout again and I needed to have an intervention, I would hope that my colleagues, Shane, no pressure, would pull me aside, and say, hey, I’ve noticed, and it’s always done with the greatest care and compassion.

Linda Saggau: [00:08:10] It’s not about judging somebody. And I’ve literally seen people do those gentle interventions at work with their families and do them without judgment, and it’s actually helped people get closer. It’s not driven wedges. It actually helps people get closer, because you’re actually expressing care and concern, and you’re leading people to resources that are viable. You don’t want to send people to any resources that are not viable.

Shane McNally: [00:08:47] I’m sure most of us can relate to feeling stress while working. In fact, it’s very normal. Over time, however, if that stress is growing little by little, it can slowly lead to burnout. It’s important to understand how burnout can impact your organization and what can happen if it’s left unaddressed. R3 Continuum can help. Connect with us and learn about our services at www.r3c.com or email us directly at info@r3c.com.