It’s normal to feel stressed at work from time to time. But for some people, the stress becomes all-consuming, leading to exhaustion, cynicism and hatred towards your job. This is known as burnout. Burnout used to be classified as a problem related to life management, but last week the World Health Organisation re-labelled the syndrome as an “occupational phenomenon” to better reflect that burnout is a work-based syndrome caused by chronic stress. Source: World Economic Forum The newly listed dimensions of burnout are: Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job Reduced professional efficacy (work performance). In the era […]
How toxic is the workplace-maybe even yours? In Dying for a Paycheck, Stanford professor of organizational behaviour Jeffrey Pfeffer documents loads of evidence suggesting that the workplace is literally killing people. Sixty one % of employees said that workplace stress had made them sick and 7% said they had actually been hospitalized. Job stress, according to Pfeffer, may cause 120,000 excess deaths each year. Source: Inc. I’ve documented toxicity in the workplace as well, with head-shaking statistics. To raise awareness of the profundity of the problem in hopes of safeguarding our children’s future when they enter the workplace, I offer you six commonly found toxic behaviours. 1. Passive aggressiveness. Research has discovered that most toxic […]
The current debate about workplace wellness has called into question virtually every aspect of wellness programs. Commentators have railed against them, with some asserting that they are not only worthless but are also a morale disaster and a stealthy way to shift more coverage costs onto employees. Source: Harvard Business Review Despite all this, most corporate leaders continue to fund such programs. Collectively, employers spend upward of $8 billion a year on wellness programs — yet the programs underperform by most measures, and barely 25% of employers even try to understand how well their programs do. This disconnect between the near unanimous adoption of workplace wellness programs and their demonstrably apathetic results leads to some fundamental questions. Is the workplace […]