In this episode, we’re joined by the mind-bending Dr. Emily Bennet, ND, CEO of Kindling who answers the question, “How can we take better personal responsibility for our own well-being in the midst of being devoted to this purpose-driven work?”
We talk about our personal experiences with workplace burnout and explore the internal and external pressures of wanting to “do more for the cause” at the expense of our mental and physical health. We dive into potential factors influencing our decisions to muscle through it despite all the warning signs. Are we influenced by hustle culture? Do we have generational baggage on board? Do Gen Zers have the answer to all our workplace woes? Join us to learn the three facets of burnout, practical tips for managers and execs to protect their teams and some of the common triggers of burnout. Spoiler alert! Your loneliness just might be killing you.
Also, listen for a quick self-evaluation to determine if you or your team are at risk for or are currently experiencing burnout.
“There are these structural pieces that play a part in influencing somebody to set themselves aside entirely and give too much, such that the energy they’re putting toward the cause is not going to be sustainable.” – Emily
Links:
Additional Resources:
Going Horizontal by Samantha Slade
Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux.
Episode Transcript
RHEA 0:05
Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I’m your host, Rhea Wong.
Hey, podcast listeners, Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today my guest is Dr. Emily Bennett. She is the CEO of kindling, and we’re gonna talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, which is burnout in the nonprofit space. So Emily, welcome to the show.
EMILY 0:38
Thanks Rhea. It’s totally a privilege.
I’ve been a longtime listener to Nonprofit Lowdown, and I’m super excited to talk to you.
RHEA 0:37
Oh, that’s so kind. All right, let’s just get into it, girl. What is your own experience with burnout in the nonprofit sector? Cause I know you have a personal experience here.
EMILY 0:46
Yes, totally. So I think when you just take a look at my bio, it might seem a bit unusual that I’m doing this work as I am a naturopathic doctor.
But way back when, in my early twenties, I was an activist. I still am an activist, but at that time, I was wholly dedicated to the cause without any kind of management around my energy and awareness that I could possibly give too much. While I was still in school, I became executive director of a really small nonprofit.
And I stayed up all night. I didn’t eat
well. I started having really bad anxiety. I developed acne, all these weird health problems, and I felt like I can’t do this anymore and I abandoned my cause entirely and I really at that point, had structured my whole identity around being involved with this cause.
And so I felt so much shame in having to step away from it. And I really did. I just cut myself off entirely. I stopped reading any articles that came off that had to do with this cause I separated myself and the people that I had been, friends with and had spent so much time with on working towards this particular thing.
And I really just, Turned away from it entirely. And through that process, I ended up, after seeing a medical doctor and specialist, I saw my first naturopath and thought, this feels like work I wanna do, and maybe I can help people who have a similar story to me and that’s what I started doing.
And it took me many years to be able to label what had happened to me. I had burnt out because of the way I had put everything I had into this work, but also because of the culture that surrounded me. And the way that everybody else that I was with was giving their total selves to this work at the expense of taking care of themselves.
RHEA 2:31
There’s so many things to unpack here. So the two elements that I really wanna lift up is the personal, like the internal pressures that we put on ourselves, and then the external culture, as you say, cuz I, it’s real. As nonprofit people we’re really expected to give and give and put ourselves on the line.
I can remember when I was ED it would be like three o’clock and be like, oh, why do I feel so terrible? And it’s oh, it’s because I haven’t eaten, I haven’t had any water. I haven’t gotten up from this desk and I haven’t even gone pee since 8:00 AM that morning. And there was so much that I was ignoring about my own wellbeing for the cause.
Talk about what are some of the common causes that really get people to the point that they are burning out?
EMILY 3:13
Yeah. In the early days of having a private practice I was really focused on that.
Like , how can we take better personal responsibility for our own wellbeing in the midst of being devoted to this purpose-driven work. And that was wholly what I did, was thinking about the individual and being like, you have to also think about yourself in the midst of this.
But just like you said, there are these structural pieces that really play a part in influencing somebody to perhaps set themselves aside entirely and give too much such that the energy that they’re putting , towards the cause is not going to be sustainable. And Yeah. When it comes to the individuals, like you gave very good examples.
Like we have to remember to eat. We have to try to sleep, we need to set boundaries around when we’re working and when we’re not working. We can’t let the work and the personal life constantly be intersecting with one another cuz it will drain, it will take our presence and our energy away from other parts of our lives.
But I think what is more compelling and more interesting is the structural piece when it comes to, largely the nonprofit sector, but we see this in the for-profit sector as well, that. Burnout is defined as a workplace phenomenon. It’s not an individual medical diagnosis. In the I C D 11, the International Classification of Diseases, they called it an occupational phenomenon for a reason.
And so I think the most important thing that we need to be talking about is what organizations need to do to help their staff avoid burnout.
RHEA 4:45
One of the people that I work with, he’s my coach. When we had him on the podcast, Dr. Eugene Choi talked about a Harvard study where they looked at burnout and they pointed to the fact that burnout is actually tied to loneliness.
Are there any other triggers for burnout?
EMILY 5:03
Oh my gosh, there are so many so can we talk about what burnout is? Burnout has a very clear definition. There are three facets of burnout and all need to be present in order for us to say, yeah, this is burnout.
We’re talking about exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, physical exhaustion, really wholly being exhausted. But alongside that, we’re also gonna see cynicism and a negative attitude towards the workplace and the work itself. A feeling like, oh, that person’s, not dedicated in the same way I am.
Or is this even really worth it? Will we even make a difference? And that bleeds into the final facet, which is this professional inefficacy feeling like there’s no way we can do what we set out to do. This is an impossible task. Nothing we’re doing is making the difference that we’re trying to make. And when those three things are present, it gets to be called burnout.
And there is so much research on burnout as an organizational phenomenon. So much so that there’s essentially an algorithm that looks at these six organizational factors that lead to burnout being a phenomenon within a workplace. And one of them is community. And I think that’s the piece where loneliness comes in.
That’s why it would be very clear, in a study that specifically looks at loneliness and burnout. The connection there is gonna be obvious if there is not a commitment to building community within the workplace with figuring out ways to connect people to the ethics of their work.
I wanna know why you are here, why you are choosing to work in this workplace. This is why I’m here, and let’s keep each other attached to that so that the work continues to have meaning, even when it’s difficult. Along with opportunities to socialize and having a best friend at work and this kind of thing, they all protect against burnout.
RHEA 6:49
What are the other six you mentioned? Or the other five rather. So if the first is community what are the other factors that we should consider?
EMILY 6:57
So the most influential factor is workload. And workload means exactly what you might expect, like literally having too much work to complete, but workload can also mean other things.
It can mean having clarity about what you’re responsible for. It can mean seeing boundaries modeled by managers and leaders. It’s really like how you understand your workload is this idea of workload. The next factor is control, which is a really interesting one. It’s how, how much control do you have around what you’re doing?
Do you have somebody micromanaging you, standing over your shoulder all the time and pushing you towards doing certain things in certain moments? Or are you able to, organize yourself and schedule how the work gets done in a way that best supports you, like within the constraints of whatever the work is that you’re delivering.
And I mentioned this algorithm before, in lots of the research that’s been looked at with respect to burnout, we can see that control, actually can buffer the effect of an intense workload. So let’s say you’re in a circumstance where like many nonprofits, you’re dealing with being understaffed right now, perhaps you’re dealing with an increased workload because there are more people who need your support and you are constrained by that.
There’s nothing that can be done about that in this moment. If managers provide opportunities for workers to have more control over the workplace, over their hours, over where they get the work done, how they get the work done, that can actually decrease the impact that an increased workload is gonna have on driving someone towards burnout.
So it’s really powerful control, Besides control. We have values, which is an interesting one as well, in a purpose-driven workplace. Fairness, which is just as it seems, does it feel like things are sorted out fairly? Is this a merit-based kind of workplace or is there favoritism around? Is there perceived favoritism around?
And then the final one is reward. Are people recognize when they do a good job? Is the only feedback that they get when something isn’t going wrong? Are they constantly wondering if they are doing things incorrectly? And those are the six.
RHEA 9:02
Oh, that’s so good. Wait, I have a question. Okay. So the, and this may just be a generational thing.
I am a cranky gen Xer. And in theory, I think it’s important to have work-life balance. Yes. I personally don’t think I’ve ever succeeded in it. And I. Frankly, being quite shocked when I hear stories of, millennial and Gen Z staff and the ways in which they’re dealing with work workplace stress.
Oh, I’m not gonna come into work today because I need a personal d. Things of that nature, which I’m, I guess I’m not struggling with, quite honestly. On the one hand, I’m like that’s good that you should, Make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. And on the other hand, I’m quite candid suck it up buttercup.
This is work. So how do we resolve that tension?
EMILY 9:52
It’s interesting, I had the privilege recently of consulting with an organization who had a great person who works in HR on their board. And so when we were going through everything, it was like wonderful to have them there because they have so much experience in HR.
And they were saying, what we really need to sort out is the difference between looking at trends, which is what burnout is talking about cuz it’s a workplace phenomenon. We need to look at what’s happening overall within the organization and not take one person’s feedback as evidence as to how people are managing workload.
And maybe that doesn’t work if we’re thinking about this is a trend as a whole with millennials and Gen Z, if it is individuals who seem to be needing more than other people need then we wanna look at the other side of, I think what’s confused with burnout, which is this idea of compassion fatigue, which has more to do with how you’re managing your own personal resilience.
And how you’re taking care of yourself and whether you have excessive responsibilities outside of work that are impacting how you’re able to show up on the job. So as a elder millennial, that would be my response to you is yeah. Perhaps it is a situation where if we’re looking at, an individual who needs more, that, that might require an assessment from a management point of view versus like overall structural changes.
RHEA 11:06
I’ve practiced yoga for over 20 years, and I had a yoga teacher who said that unhappiness is caused by the gap between reality and expectation. And I’m just wondering to what extent burnout is caused. By expectations that people have about what the workplace is.
When I was in an ED role I felt like I was being asked to do more than just be a boss. Like I was asked to be a mom and a therapist and, all of these things. I was like, that’s not my job. Like I am your boss. And yet there was this expectation I felt that people wanted something from me, that really.
Was not my place to give. And therefore, was that gap causing burnout?
EMILY 11:51
Yeah. It’s interesting. With managing expectations, like if we’re, again, stepping back and looking at these factors that lead to burnout, that is often one of the places we see that captured is with this values factor. If people are in advance of starting to work at an organization, reading about the work you do, looking at your website in detail, reading in your mission, your values, a all the things you have there, that helps them to form an expectation of what it’s going to be like to work there.
Let’s be frank. Most grassroots nonprofits are not working with enough. There’s not enough in the way of funding to provide structural support to a good management system and to adequately pay employees. I understand why this is not present, but we do see it in large corporations that they will.
Really take the time to establish a culture based on the values because this is what we know from the research, is it really does affect people’s experience because they come in with an expectation that things will be one way. And when they find out it’s different, it really impacts how they feel about going to work and contributes to this cynicism, this negative attitude towards the workplace.
And so optimally, you as the upper senior leadership in an organization are very clear about the behaviors that you exhibit that, that demonstrate the values that you have laid out on your website. And when a person comes on board at the workplace, you are very clear to them.
Like I. This is what we do in order to show that integrity is a priority for us. You really are explicit. Optimally we create a structure to manage expectations and then when we have new people come into the structure their expectations are met because it’s, there aligned with what they thought they were getting into.
RHEA 13:34
As an ed, if I’m drowning right now, what can I actually do? Because I, candidly, a lot of the time when I talk to eds, they are really challenged by their staff.
Particularly I think this younger generation that is far more vocal. And I think their level of expectation of what the workplace is in and what it will and will not do is different certainly than when I came up. There is this feeling of the younger generation is punching up like, oh, we’re like against all these things
without necessarily understanding the complexity of all of the things that they may not be privy to or the fact that there may not be a good option. So we’re just gonna have to pick the least bad of the bad options.
EMILY 14:49
When I go through this process with organizations, we use a validated survey for everybody. I speak to, every staff member so we can understand exactly what people are experiencing right now. So we can figure out like, which of these organizational factors are contributing to overall burnout at the organization and what are the specific things that are happening that are leading people to, Be overwhelmed with the workload factor.
With poor misalignment with the values factor. So that then we can make specific recommendations. I think that a couple of things just to respond to there. I would love if we all as nonprofit consultants and nonprofit organizations could punch up further to the funders and say, hello, we need you to support the people delivering services more.
Because this isn’t sustainable. You rely on us to deliver these social services and do essential work. And yet you say none of this money can be spent on staff wages. None of this money can be spent on, restructuring management operations so that we take care of each other better.
Overall that’s what I hope this work does. Is it. It opens up the space to say yes this is what we need to invest in, in order to sustain the important work that nonprofits do and the contributions that they make. Like from the, you’re drowning and you’re an ED perspective.
It depends on specifically what’s going on for you, but some of the implementation pieces, you start at the bottom of a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? With a functioning piece. It may be that what people need is clarity around expectations with respect to their role. It may be that if they have that they will have less of this feeling of overwhelm with respect to workload, for example, because they feel like they, they’re not entirely sure where their work stops and where the next person picks up.
It may be that you need to institute debriefing practices because people are feeling like left hanging when something traumatic happens at work or when something intense happens in the workplace. And that may be having an impact on the community factor due to poor communication. We can make it granular and specific organizations start small and build upon it so that.
Space opens up with each small thing we do for you to start thinking bigger. Okay, now can we reimagine our values and figure out how we live them more authentically or, yeah.
RHEA 16:35
Emily, this is so good. If I’m listening to you and I’m an ED and I’m thinking, okay, Emily, that, that sounds really great.
How do I do it? What’s the, what’s one small step that I could take tomorrow to try to move towards creating a workplace where people are not burning out?
EMILY 16:53
Yeah. Oh, it reminded me of something I was gonna say, which is just to say that we know objectively, again in the research that managers are the most burnt out people.
Okay. Oh, that’s interesting. Why is that? Just because what you said, the expectations are enormous. Also, for thinking about somebody who’s not the ed, but they’re in a senior management position, they’re often caught in between, delivering messages. Perhaps if there’s not communication amongst the senior leadership team, they don’t feel like they fully understand really what’s happening, but they have to be, they’re the ones being held responsible by the frontline staff.
They also are probably stepping into frontline roles when somebody doesn’t show up. The managers are the most burnt out right now for sure. We know that. I think that investing in managers is the best thing you could do to start, take care of your managers. Don’t let them burn out. Do what you can, help them sustain their positions.
One of the things I would suggest is that you train your manager as well. If you’ve brought somebody up who’s an excellent social worker and so good with interpersonal relations at work, and that’s why you made the manager, okay, now give them the tools they need to manage a team, sign them up for some comprehensive management training so that they feel like they have a full grasp, a nice amount of clarity with respect to their new role.
Issues with, how people respond to managers are often an issue of fit. Is the person the right fit for the role? Are they the right fit on the team? Or issues of clarity? Do they need more information about what they’re supposed to be doing or how they’re doing? Those are the things I would think about.
And if you want low hanging fruit, because like you said, you’re totally overwhelmed, you’re on the ground. I would focus on recognition and reward. Do you have a system for providing feedback to people that reassures them about the work that they’re doing right now?
Do you have a policy in place where you ask managers to give feedback to their people on their teams? Once weekly at least, do you touch base with them so people feel like they know that they’re doing okay or they know how to shift slightly so that they can excel. Feedback, recognition.
That’s a really I think an easy place to start.
RHEA 19:04
As you’re talking to, I’m really reflecting on my own experience as an ed and I think where I did not do well is creating the systems and structures for these kinds of feedback. Cuz. When I started, we were a small, startup organization.
We were three people. And as we got bigger and we’re up to 12 full-time staff members, the it didn’t work anymore that I was the one to hold all of the things. When we were three person staff, I could be like they know how I feel about them, right? I, they know that if they think that they’re doing a good job, but in the absence of structure, A lot was falling through the cracks around the manager.
So this is really good. I’m reflecting on my own situation. Talk to me a little bit about distributed models of leadership. We were talking right now about a traditional hierarchy of ed, the managers in the middle and the frontline folks. But I’m curious if you’ve done anything.
Thinking about, different kinds of models of leadership, more distributed or self-managing, and if that is better for burnout.
EMILY 20:14
I love this question. This is not an area of expertise for me, but it is a big area of interest. I think that there is probably a lot of potential for systems that are based in self-management in some way to improve the burnout situation for organizations across the board.
My feeling is that we don’t need to be in reinventing the wheel with that. If an organization was interested in exploring self-management, then I would definitely move towards resources where companies who have already put these things in place are sharing how it’s gone or what’s been working and what’s not.
I know like the Holocracy model is a really interesting one. LA Lou’s book, reinventing Organization. I found that really interesting. Going horizontal by Samantha Slate is a very easy one to read. Lots of interesting information. One of the things that really stands out to me there, because I find that I talk a lot about this idea of clarity in your role, like clarity around your responsibilities, what you need to be accountable, what are you being held accountable.
To by your team in this kind of like self-management structure, they often use this idea of roles, and a person might step into different roles for different projects depending on what’s needed.
RHEA 21:28
Yeah, cuz I do think that one of the issues with the traditional management structure is I think it’s predicated on a lack of trust of your employees. You have to create structures because they may not be, delivering or performing or whatever. And I think as we’re moving towards this notion of trust-based philanthropy, can we also move towards trust-based management, which is not about, accountability and I’m gonna check to make sure that you’re doing the thing, but rather.
Focusing on how are we building a culture of trust and safety so that we’re all collectively moving towards the same objective, which sounds very kumbaya. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I would love to see if anyone is out there working in a self-managing system, let me know. I wanna talk to you.
Let’s get back to the personal. So if I’m an ed, and look, I personally have also been there the burnout, waking up in a cold sweat at 4:00 AM not eating well. I think when people are under stress, they tend to either overeat or not eat at all. I’m on the, not eat at all side of it, so I would lose weight.
I looked terrible. I didn’t exercise, didn’t see my friends. I felt super exhausted. All I could do on the weekends was, sit in front of Netflix. What do I do if I am at the burnout stage? Is the only thing to do to step away are there things that I can do to help mitigate the this burnout?
EMILY 22:49
Yeah, there are lots of things you can do. Many of the things you’ve always been told, you should already be doing.
You need to move your body. You do need to eat, and you need to make sure there’s protein in your meals. You need to sleep. Sleep is the most important thing. So if somebody came to see me in my private practice and they’re like, I’m the ED of this essential organization, I cannot leave. I really don’t want to have to leave.
What do I do? How, what can I possibly do? I can’t take time away right now. I would suggest two things. I would suggest that you protect your evenings at all costs. You have to set a boundary around when work ends in the evenings, and then I need you to just totally relax in that time if possible. I need you to sit on your couch and stare out the window and allow your eyes to relax and really just feel how good that feels and really find spaciousness again for your brain to just be.
That can feel very difficult at first. Like you will probably try to do that, feel extremely uncomfortable, and then hop up to clean your kitchen list to a podcast and cook dinner at the same time. And so my next recommendation that I think is the place to start, is around single tasking.
And I think it’s easiest to start in your personal life. For most people, though, it’s also probably essential in your professional life. To really try and do one thing at a time, like to not do the dishes, cook dinner, and have a show on your iPad on the counter. To really try and just do one thing at a time.
You need to decrease the number of inputs coming into your brain so that your brain realizes like it’s safe to relax, it’s safe to let go and just wash the dishes right now. Cuz stress is not a state of mind. Stress is a state of body.
RHEA 24:33
Can we talk about what’s literally happening in your body when you are in a stress state?
EMILY 24:37
For the state that I’m referring to right now, which is more of a state of chronic stress, I like to say there’s a famine coming it’s just like this profound worry.
Something bad is about to happen and evolutionarily we’re primed to be able to survive that, to make certain changes so our, so we can adapt to that challenge. One of the main things that shifts for people will be a change in the way that cortisol, your, long-term stress hormone is produced.
Cortisol is produced every day in your body. It’s not just produced in times of stress. So it has other roles. It plays a role in managing your sleep. Wake cycle plays a role in managing your blood sugar plays a role in managing your immune system.
And it’s produced in a pattern that is run with a circadian rhythm, which means that the sun is having an impact on when you’re producing cortisol.
So in general, your cortisol is gonna be highest in the morning when you wake up. And it slowly changes through the day, dropping to its low point, probably around 8:00 PM and then slowly rising again through the night. And that is when you’re in your most balanced state, you’re not in a state of stress.
When you become stressed, often what happens is we’ll get a change to that pattern and when things are being produced, you may find yourself in this kind of shape where you’re high in the evening and low in the morning, and. Often this phrase that we used to describe that sort of dysregulation that can come from a prolonged state of stress is feeling tired but wired.
You’re exhausted all day. Evening comes, you’re like, oh gosh, thank goodness. I wanna go to sleep. And you lie down and your brain’s just what do we have to do tomorrow? What was that email about today? What clothes should I wear when I go to this event on Saturday? And it, and you can’t turn your brain off.
So this is one of the ways that stress becomes a state of body. We see dysregulation in these areas that cortisol manages when you’re well-balanced, when you’re not stressed out you may see weird stuff come up with your immune system, like you can’t ditch a cold or. You may find that like your hunger changes, just like you, you discussed, that’s not solely driven by this blood sugar relationship.
Anxiety itself also has an impact on the way that our digestive system functions. But all sorts of things can change in your body as a result of this prolonged stress. I I do find it really useful to talk about the impact of stress over time by using the filled cup analogy. And I think of it as being also aligned with our threshold for anxiety.
When your cup is full, you can receive like a nasty email from somebody and be like, Ugh, that’s a them problem. And no need to get upset about this. I’m just gonna continue on with my day. And when your cup is empty, if we think of it as equivalent for a threshold for stress-induced anxiety, you get the same email and you’re like, they hate me.
They’re gonna impact my funding somehow I’m gonna lose my job. Everything is falling apart and I won’t sleep until it’s solved.
RHEA 27:31
Ah, yes. This sounds all very familiar. So what kinda interventions? Cause I know it’s one thing to be like, yes, you should be sleeping, you should be eating, you should be hydrating.
Is there anything else? Should we be thinking about modalities? I always think meditation is the answer, but meditation, acupuncture, hypnotherapy. How do we throw all the things at it?
EMILY 27:50
Yeah, absolutely. I think all of those tools has validity and it is really an individual choice in terms of what interests you, what appeals to you, what has worked for you in the past.
I think for a lot of those things that you mentioned for a person in this state, They have the value of giving you the opportunity to rest, to slow things down. I ran an acupuncture clinic years ago, and one of the ways I used to describe how it’s helpful for you, just like a very simple explanation for somebody who was a bit hesitant to try, is that you can’t really move when you have the needles in.
So you just have to lie there for a half an hour. And though your brain may spin at first. Because you can’t fidget and move around. Things will slowly just slow down and you’ll just lie there. And for the first time in who knows how long you’ll truly rest, you’ll truly just allow your mind to have the spaciousness it desires.
And I think that, Each of those things you mentioned pushes you towards mindfulness. And I would encourage any practice that allows you to experience moments of mindfulness and presence. One of my favorite things to recommend to people who are like, I don’t have the time, I’m hesitant to try these things, cetera, is to do what I call practice restorative.
Nothing. I prescribe that you sit on your couch and stare at the window for 10 minutes and just set an alarm if you need to, but fall into a daze, relax your eyes, gaze, out into the skyline or whatever and just sit there for a bit and see how good it feels to sit and do nothing without stimulation, without a screen.
A to-do list, just to sit and be.
RHEA 29:28
It’s so interesting to think about the ways in which our brain is stimulated. And how we get these little dopamine hits from our phone and our, the pinging and the emails. But our brain was not designed to, receive this level of stimulus. So we actually just do need to stop and relax our brains a little bit.
Last question here for me. I’m wondering, is there a difference that you’ve noticed between the occurrence of burnout in women versus men?
EMILY 30:03
Great question. I think with the overall stats for who works in the nonprofit sector, there tend to be more women.
In terms of like in my private practice I do see more women struggling with burnout than men, but again, that might just be a bias in terms of who is showing up on my doorstep. So I don’t have a very insightful answer to that.
RHEA 30:24
Okay. Actually, last question.
I lied. So when you work with nonprofits, what do you do? Like how do people hire you? What’s the thing that you do? What’s the transformation that you make when once someone hires you?
EMILY 30:39
The main work that I do is this consulting process to figure out what’s going on and then complete what I call a strategic plan for staff wellbeing and in a very internally based strategic plan.
And we do it in a way that is as evidence-based as possible, because that’s what motivates me. That’s one of the things that I think I can bring. That is valuable to an organization. We use these validated surveys to assess burnout, where you look at each of these three facets that I mentioned before.
What’s going on with respect to cynicism here? What’s going on with exhaustion? What’s going on with inefficacy? And we get a very clear measurement that tells us what is the problem here? What stands out is this, does this have to do with a negative culture? Is this the main thing that is leading to, an increase in turnover or poor retention in certain departments?
And it also assesses these six factors that we talked about as well. So we can find out, oh, are people really feeling like. The reason that they are cynical is because they perceive this environment to be very unfair, and it’s an issue of fairness. And people think that there is, favoritism going on and it’s not merit based, or is this an issue of control and people feel micromanaged, and that’s a big part of what’s leading to this burnout profile.
Once we have that information using the best evidence available, I make recommendations on how management should change the way they structure things. And I do this again along this kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This was developed by a workplace wellness consultant, Laura Putnam. She aligned that same kind of hierarchy with the kinds of interventions we might make in an organization so that we can create an implementation timeline.
Like where should you start? What is the most necessary to begin with? Because we know that potentially it’s gonna be easy to resolve and also it’s gonna have a big impact. And then we worked through deciding, how are you going to start? And I do coaching with usually the senior leadership team to.
Figure out where to begin from that point.
RHEA 32:36
Emily, this has been really interesting and I hope folks take it to heart. We’ll make sure to put all of your information in the show notes for folks who want to get in touch with you. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode of Nonprofit lowdown, please share it.
Please give me a positive review on Apple Podcasts. That always helps, and tell your friends. Emily, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thanks for having me.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nonprofitlowdown/support
