There’s a difference between feeling tired and feeling burned out. You can overcome “tired” with a cup of coffee, an afternoon walk, or a good night’s sleep. Employee burnout, unfortunately, is a different animal. In 1974, psychologist Herbert Freudenberger published an early paper on staff burnout at a free medical clinic in Manhattan’s East Village.
The situation is tense in many companies these days, particularly in tech. The Great Resignation; budget and workforce cutback, and the overall financial crises that many are facing have combined to create the perfect storm for HR. The burden is real––and heavy. And it’s time to offer some relief with equitable solutions.
Did you know we drink 517 million cups of coffee every day in the U.S.? Those 3.1 cups per person add up to one whopper of an industry. And it’s no surprise who’s at the top of the coffee game: Starbucks. But there’s an alternate timeline out there with no pumpkin spice lattes. One where CEO Howard Schultz didn’t return to the helm in 2008 to turn the company around in the wake of store closings, widespread layoffs, and a significant drop in share price. How did he do it?
Stephanie Briggs, director of employee experience at Ivanti, knows what it takes to provide the ideal employee experience. Storytellers are a special breed of people who understand the nuance of communication and the sacredness of words. They comprehend how people may need to hear messages in various ways to grasp a story’s essence and inner meaning. You’re a lucky company when you have such an individual leading your employee experience.
If you have seen the movie Office Space (1999), you know all about pointless TPS reports, impossible-to-understand printer instructions, (“PC Load Letter”), and micromanaging superiors. Office Space was an office comedy, so the portrayals were a little extreme. But who can’t relate to the annoyances of working in an office, even if we work remotely?
There’s no question that we’re living in turbulent times, and workers are leaving their jobs for new ones in droves. In January 2020, just before the pandemic hit, the World Economic Forum predicted that rapid technological changes would transform nearly half of all core skill sets within two years. But two years later, it turned out that the technological shift wasn’t the cause of the so-called “Great Resignation,” but mindset and attitudes about work.
When you’re living in the middle of a workplace revolution, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees, especially if you’re a Millennial who grew up with technology — literally. Born between 1981 and 1996, Millennials ranged from eight to twenty-three when Facebook was first released on the Harvard campus in 2004. (Yes, Facebook is that young.) After that, more social networks followed: Twitter in 2006, Instagram in 2010, and now TikTok in 2016.
The quote above sits on my desk, right next to my favorite quote from tennis legend Arthur Ashe, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Both of these quotes motivate me to evaluate what’s happening in my field, how I can impact it, and what that impact can make on the future.
Emails have been a staple in our lives since the late ‘90s. Today, the average person receives more than 100 emails per day — and that’s not counting the spam. Our inboxes fill up every night with sales events, new streaming series, and disavowed princes who need our help depositing a large sum of money somewhere safe. With all that clutter, your company’s newsletter has a lot of competition, but not to worry.
Confession: I’m a white-knuckle flyer. Even though I travel a lot, every clang, rattle, and clink on an airplane can send me into a tailspin (pun intended). To stay as calm and collected as possible, I look for reassurance. And I always find it—in the flight attendants.
