When The Times of London invited essays on the topic of “What’s wrong with the world?” G. K. Chesterton in a letter offered his famous terse response, “I am.”
I set out to write an article on employee burnout—the biggest threat to building an engaged workforce today. I began collecting statistics on how burnout is sabotaging workforce retention and how organizations, despite the well-documented costs of employee turnover, are more apt to invest in recruiting new employees than retaining existing talent.
But then I began thinking about my own career: 31 years in high-pressure jobs for a highly successful company. I was burned out. But why? It’s tempting to blame my company or the nature of the type of work I chose to do—public relations.
If I’m honest with myself, my burnout was largely self-inflicted.
Not that I was aiming to hurt myself. I had simply convinced myself that “consistently exceeding expectations” was the secret to my success.
I became an iron man, able to take on any assignment, respond promptly to every email message, start my days with conference calls with colleagues in China and end my days with conference calls with the same colleagues—after they’d had a full night’s sleep. I could do all this while grabbing lunch at my desk and living on coffee. My job demanded it, and getting ahead depended on never saying no.
It worked. Twenty-eight years into my career, I earned my VP stripe. At last, after nearly three decades of running full-tilt, I’d grabbed the brass ring.
At what price? I was a wreck. I was at least 40 pounds overweight. I had to take blood pressure medication. I worked seven days a week. Most evenings, I missed dinner with my family. I never coached my kids’ sports teams. I grew distant from my friends. I gave up vacation time, and when I went on vacation, I couldn’t unplug. All the while, the people in my organization were watching me.
It still troubles me to think that many of them no doubt concluded that this is how you get ahead, but I was worn out. I could not go on and so, when I had the chance to take early retirement, I did. Now I’m enjoying an active retirement. I’m healthy and living at my own pace.
Should we have to retire to achieve balance in our lives? Let’s hope not. But what are we to do about the “epidemic” of employee burnout?
If I were working full-time again, here are five things I would do differently:
Take ownership. I realize now my company was not the problem. My inability to say no was the problem.
Be clear about what’s most important. For years, I said that was my family. My actions said otherwise. Being strategic means knowing what you will and won’t sacrifice.
Meditate. I had a stressful job. There was no changing that. But accepting that, I could have created some peace for myself by starting my day with 10 minutes of quiet.
Take care of myself. If I had only run or walked 30 minutes a few days a week I could have stayed fit and better handled the inevitable stress of my job.
Be more humble. I did good work. But I was hardly indispensable. My former employer is still thriving without me.
I don’t mean to take employers off the hook. If most employers agree that improving retention is a critical priority, they must be willing to invest in helping solve the problem.
Let’s say every employer were to give employees a four-day workweek, a 20% pay increase, and two extra weeks of vacation. And despite this, employees didn’t change the way they thought about and approached their work. Burnout would still be an epidemic.
So what’s the solution?
I am.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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