Many companies overlook the influence of workplace culture on employee wellbeing and instead relentlessly focus on financial metrics.
Since its inception, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the work-life challenges for many work-at-home workers as the boundaries between work and private life become blurred. These tough times emphasized the reality that we have to make a living, but we also need to make sure we’re still “alive” to avoid getting burned out.
To address these challenges, many companies are increasingly focusing on employee well-being and linking a work-life imbalance to excessive work demands. Efforts to improve wellbeing include initiatives such as taking your pet to work, wellness days, hiring consultants to coach staff on work-life balance, encouraging a healthy diet and practicing yoga and mindfulness.
However, these approaches address the symptoms of work-life imbalance and ignore the root causes of staff burnout. It is usually not job demands that lead to burnout, but a lack of passion for what we do every day, as well as psychological safety.
The Wall Street Journal notes that more than half of American workers are unhappy with their jobs. According to Gallup’s World Poll, 63% of the global workforce is “checked out” and “sleepwalking through their workday.”
In addition, 78% of Americans are starting to report work-related anxiety and panic attacks, while 48% are actively seeking alternative jobs. In corporate America, there is a big discrepancy between what employees want from their jobs and their actual work experiences. This discrepancy has resulted in a workforce where approximately 88% of employees lack passion for what they do every day.
Gallup’s World Poll found that the most common reasons employees are not engaged are due to a lack of development opportunities, feeling disconnected from the purpose of the company, and not having a strong relationship at work. In the United States alone, loneliness has increased by 300%.
Loneliness has a similar risk of death to obesity or having 15 cigarettes a day. According to Harvard’s Very Happy People’s Study, deep social connections have a 0.7 correlation with job happiness.
Work-related stress and burnout stem from a lack of passion for the work we do. Lack of passion often occurs when employees are assigned projects and tasks, not because it serves the greater purpose, but because it brings more revenue to the company. Over time, this lack of passion results in boredom and unhappy employees, who express their unhappiness at work with their co-workers and those they serve.
Many companies overlook the influence of workplace culture on employee wellbeing and instead relentlessly focus on financial metrics. We humans will never be part of those financial statistics.
We can only be part of the culture that has been created for us. As a social species, a positive culture can be deeply soothing to our human bodies. It creates a sense of belonging and harmony with those we work with.
When we feel like we belong at work, we feel that our contributions have value and meaning. So many companies fail to understand that regardless of their rank, their team is the greatest asset they have in helping them achieve the financial metrics. Money or financial gain should not be the end result, but instead should be a tool or fuel to take the company one step closer to achieving their mission.
Another cause of work stress and burnout is a lack of psychological safety. Perhaps the best way to explain psychological safety is through the circle of safety – an idea suggested by Simon Sinek. Leaders who create a circle of safety develop an environment in which people can work optimally.
Through this circle of safety, leaders foster a positive work culture in which employees feel safe to collaborate and develop a sense of belonging. This circle of safety drives innovation, growth and ultimately success for both the company and the employee.
Innovation requires risk, experimentation and failure. If an employee fears that he will lose his job or his place in the work community if he takes a risk and fails, chances are he will not take any risks, leading to a lack of success for the company and the employee.
To ensure psychological safety, leaders have 2 responsibilities. First, they must decide who should be included in their circle of safety. For example, when hiring, employees should be chosen to strengthen the company’s culture, those who can be trusted, share and support the company’s values.
Second, they must ensure that the circle they create grows to protect the safety of the youngest member of the company. The strongest companies are those with the largest circle of security.
Weak companies have a circle of security that only applies to individuals in the executive suite. In other words, when the company fails to meet financial standards, they first sacrifice lower managers to protect themselves.
With a wider circle of security, junior employees feel equally safe, invest their energy in work, trust their colleagues and managers, and collaborate against external threats. When the circle expands, the leadership sends a message that in times of adversity we are all in this together.
It also sends the message that we will not sacrifice people for financial gain, regardless of the difficulty of the external threat or competition. When the circle is not expanded to protect junior employees, they shift their energy from innovating and collaborating to self-preservation and ultimately valuable employees will leave the company.
In other words, as a leader you cannot demand trust, innovation and collaboration, but you can create a culture that promotes trust, collaboration and innovation.
The importance of psychological security is best explained by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a psychological motivation theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. His theory states that there are 5 categories of human needs that determine individual behavior: physiological needs, security needs, love and belonging needs. , esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
As a humanist, Maslow believed that individuals are born with a desire to actualize themselves or to be all they can be in life. As you can see, our need for safety follows our immediate basic physiological needs. Physiological needs include protection, security, justice, stability and security for our loved ones.
In order for people to reach their full potential in a company, the basic needs of psychological safety must first be met. When looking at these hierarchical needs in the context of working in a toxic work environment, rather than self-actualization, employees worry about their safety and whether they’ll be next in line for mass layoffs if the company doesn’t meet financial metrics.
Essentially, there is no work-life balance if we don’t feel psychologically safe at work and don’t work toward a higher purpose. It is the responsibility of leadership to create a culture in which employees feel a sense of security and belonging, which can motivate everyone to work for that higher purpose.