work needs to suck less: the surgeon general’s call to action

There is soooooo much out there regarding workplace fatigue, “quiet-quitting” and “lazy girl jobs” right now, so I won’t use your time describing the state of workplace wellbeing. Let’s walk into this article with a shared belief that workplace wellbeing is at a serious low, which is having societal level health impacts. Enough so, that health agencies at a national level are paying attention, creating frameworks and calling for tech companies and large corporations to start to engage differently in individual wellbeing.

Workplaces Can Be Engines of Mental Health and Well-Being

The U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework For Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being

The pressures causing mental health strain at work include heavy workloads, long commutes, unpredictable schedules, limited autonomy, long work hours, multiple jobs, low wages, and a variety of other work-related challenges on top of responsibilities outside of the workplace.

The Workplace Wellbeing report from the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s office identifies five workplace attributes that are most predictive of whether workers refer to their organization’s culture as “toxic”; disrespectful, non-inclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive. They also developed an awesome framework and set of resources for leaders to self-reflect on the environments that they are a part of making. I firmly believe that every leader creates an environment, that their employees experience. It’s whether or not you are purposeful in designing that environment, and designing your employees experience that is the big variable.

Creating an environment where workers’ voices are supported without fear of job loss or retaliation is an essential component of healthy organizations.

A person’s direct manager who leads humans, regardless of title or hierarchy you have the biggest impact on that individuals wellbeing at work, overall mental health, retention and potential burnout consequences. There are a few key areas of the framework I would zoom in on to best support yourself and your teams. Middle managers are key to workplace well-being and the brilliant thing about each of these below is that they can also become REGENERATIVE to yourself and your employees.

1. Create cultures of inclusion and belonging

Walk the walk here, and be proactive. The responsibilities in crafting cultures of inclusion tend to fall in the cracks between managers, their HR partners and any operational teams (DevOps, DesOps ProdOps etc).

Ask yourself:

What do individuals and teams say they need to make collaboration more effective?

How might we create moments for social connection before or after our formal meeting agendas? (virtually and in-person)

2. prioritize trust and autonomy

In the report, along with multiple sources and research studies cited, it is firmly established that organizations that increase worker autonomy (how humanes get work done), greater flexibility (working where and when is best for them), consistently see workers who are more likely to succeed in reaching company goals and retain staff for longer.

Ask yourself:

How are we ensuring that no one needs to work during their off hours?

What would it look like for workers to manage their own time in our workplace?

3. connect individuals with team purpose and goals

Holding space for yourself and your team to re-establish purpose inside of the workplace system that you exist within is critical to envision a path forward from the stress teams are experiencing. Giving folks something to look forward to that they can see themselves as a part of helps them heal and progress following difficult changes.

you are inviting them to experiment with you on a first step forward to a new team reality that ya’ll create continuously together.

Shared purpose is a collective sense of working toward a common goal. This assigns further meaning to work, generates pride, and fuels motivation all while reducing stress. Grab my facilitation guide and prompts for a team workshop on purpose ​here​. Or reach out if you want to outsource facilitation. 💕

Ask yourself:

Does every worker understand our organization’s mission and how their work contributes to achieving it?

How can I help translate and align individual strengths and career paths to company goals?

I’d love to hear great examples you have of meaningful ways leaders and companies are caring for employee well-being and transcending the noise of return-to-office dialogs too.