How to Revive US Productivity

From Jennifer’s interview:

Lucia Rahilly: There’s US productivity and there’s our own personal productivity—which can be hampered when we’re burned out. Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic, says sustainable wellness means companies have to make structural—not surface—changes.

Jennifer Moss: I look at burnout prevention as being part of an ecosystem; all parts need to be working together. Before we can eradicate burnout, we need to have, at the organizational level, the systems and policies in place that are focused on the root causes of burnout, which are way further upstream than what we’re doing right now, which is wellness technology, subsidized gym memberships, yoga, and breathing exercises.

But when 85 percent of the global workforce feels like their well-being has declined, those things aren’t actually going to work. Right now, it’s just too disparate. It’s two groups, us and them, trying to solve for burnout. And that’s why it’s failing.

We need to look at this as a crisis, and pause to ask, “Why are we still doing things that we did March 17, 2020?” This is endemic at this point. We need to start creating sustainable ways of working in this moment. And that means ten or 12 hours of video conferencing is not sustainable. What I keep seeing are these big declarations from companies saying, “We gave a week off to our burnt-out employees.” There’s so much irony to that. You’ve burned them out, so you’re giving them a week off. But have you changed any of the workloads so that when they go back, they’re not dealing with the debt created by being away for a week?

The first thing that we should be doing is asking, “How do people feel about the holiday party? How do people feel about this yoga that we’re doing right now? How do people feel about this app that we gave you to help you meditate?” And yet you’re working 70 hours a week. Even just being able to talk about mental health at work is a better perk than helping you to meditate when you’re really mentally unwell.

Even just being able to talk about mental health at work is a better perk than helping you to meditate when you’re really mentally unwell.

Jennifer Moss

Positive gossip is one of the greatest interventions that we could be using inside of our organizations. We have social contagions. That can be anything from loneliness and divorce to happiness and gratitude.

We should be saying, “Hey, that presentation that you did last week, it was so good. And I actually took those two key points, and I brought it back to my team, and I actioned it. I noticed my team working differently. They were more collaborative, so thank you for that.”

That’s showing that you are empathetic. That’s showing that you’ve listened. That’s showing that you’re actually bringing this into the fold and into your work and making it better. I mean, the person receiving the appreciation, gets such long-lasting impacts on their own sense of self-efficacy. And then that just continues to become this contagion effect, this network effect of high productivity, high sense of self-efficacy and value. Then every boat is lifted.

So understanding and really provoking people to think, “Wow, I, as a leader inside of this organization, have a responsibility to the people in my company who are working hard to try to show up, to work in a place that’s healthy. The last thing I want to do is make them unhealthy.”