Managing workplace stress: soft skills or survival skills?
The skills we often refer to as ‘soft’ are in fact survival skills we need to thrive and avoid burnout in the workplace. In this article (featured on HRD Connect) I, the StressLess Coach, give you the toolkit to strengthen your survival skills.
It was 2 minutes after noon on the 9th of November 2017 and I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut. I put down the telephone, drooped forward, and sobbed.
It was another huge step in realizing I had a problem. A medical problem. I wasn’t well. And the HR partner of the accountancy practice where I’d set up a law firm thought so too.
I was suffering from burnout.
Why does this matter to you?
Mental health issues cost UK employers up to £42billion per year through presenteeism (£17-26 billion), absence (£8 billion) and employee turnover (£8 billion). And I cost my business the equivalent of 15 month’s salary as my journey took me through each of these three stages, identified by Deloitte in their Mental Health and Wellbeing review.
If your team is, like many, tasked with supporting the business in 2020 to grow in profit and turnover, then making a financial impact through reducing the mental health cost burden will take you towards that target. Actually, it gets better than that! Deloitte quantify that to invest in your people when they are thriving will gain you more than eight times return on that investment. Getting £800 back for every £100 spent on an employee are probably unbeatable odds in today’s climate!
When we talk about poor mental health…
… we are discussing a huge spectrum of health issues. But did you know, at the center of the Mental Health Foundation’s work is the belief that many mental health problems are preventable? Burnout is one.
Burnout is a mental illness that the World Health Organisation (the “WHO”) added to its International Classification of Diseases this year as being characterized by:
Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
Increased mental distance from one’s job
Reduced professional efficacy
For me, burnout took me from being a happy, engaged, hard working team player to being negative, withdrawn and short tempered. Having once loved life and thrived on challenge, every day became as hard as wading through a big vat of treacle with a woolly head, like when you are coming down with a cold. Needless to say this negatively impacted my output despite working longer hours.
The WHO defined burnout as a syndrome caused by ‘chronic workplace stress that is not successfully managed’. Thereby categorizing it as a preventable mental health condition; with which I agree based on my experience.
So how can we successfully manage workplace stress and avoid burnout?
Through my recovery I had some tough moments realizing where I had gone wrong as an individual. And some sad moments realizing how the environment I was in negatively contributed to my burnout. Therefore it is for organisations and individuals to take equal responsibility for the maintenance of our mental fitness.
The Stevenson/Farmer Review’s mental health core standards provides a good framework for organisations to take action. But you wouldn’t be blamed for still thinking ‘where do I start’. So I like to start with our mindset.
Vikki Pratley, Burnout survivor and StressLess Coach
About Vikki
After many years as a practicing employment lawyer and a founding partner of a successful law firm, Vikki suffered from burnout; recently recognised by the World Health Organisation as being caused by chronic workplace stress that is not successfully managed. Vikki was inspired to help others to be high performers without risking burnout so retrained as a coach and licenced practitioner and founded her business, Skylark.
Vikki now works with professionals, through speaking at events or on a one-to-one or group basis, to help them successfully manage workplace stress and create sustainably high performing environments. Vikki has a wholistic approach to her work, always starting with the individual before equipping them with a tool-kit for success including a mindset, key skills and, for leaders, a process.