In this episode, with Patricia and Katina, cofounders of Workr Beeing and shared almost 50 tips to manage stress in a hectic work environment.
Today’s Guests
Dr. Patricia Grabarek
Dr. Katina Sawyer &
Dr. Patricia Grabarek
Co-Founders of Workr Beeing
Community: https://workrbeeing.memberful.com/join
Dr. Katina Sawyer
On the show we found out that Katina and Patricia are friends from grad school. They created Workr Beeing to talk about the science behind workplace wellness and work-life balance. They both have a Ph.D’s in industrial & organizational psychology so you can say they're “experts” in how people function and behave at work. They provide science backed resources and information to make better and more positive work environments. The funny part, it all started when they were several drinks in at a wedding!
Workr Beeing is different, according to Katina and Patricia, because they are “nerds about data”, and the science and research behind these trends. They summarize what exists in the scientific literature in, what they hope is, a fun and exciting way.
49 Tips & Tactics To Manage Stress In A Hectic Work Environment
For Employees
Be able to name your own signs of stress, and learn to recognize them sooner. When you're in the moment of feeling stressed, all other things start to sort of fade away and you get very hyper focused on the thing that's stressing you out. When you get stressed you feel a spike in your negative emotions so you become more anxious & you start to think more negatively than positively. When that happens you go into a fight or flight type mode. Your heart rate might spike. Your palms might start to get sweaty. You might start to have racing thoughts. If you can catch yourself earlier in the stress process, like when you’re at a 3 or 4 on a 1-10 scale, you can start to deescalate sooner. If it takes you until you get to be a 10 out of 10 before you notice, then it’s a much harder and longer trip to bring yourself back down to a 1. To deescalate you can try:
Breathing Exercises (app on your phone)
Body scans (mental exercise)
Mindfulness Exercises (Have an app ready and loaded with your favorite 2 min meditation)
Nature Meditations
Quick Guided Meditations
Remove yourself from the situation physically for a few minutes (take a quick walk)
Quick workout during the day (try to hit your max heart-rate, like the moment from “Rocky” where you’re completely out of breath, even if it’s just a quick sprint during a walk.)
Know your long term symptoms of stress, like chronic stress. For some people it’s chronic and persistent, you can’t isolate it to one stressful moment or event. What does that feel like in your body? Some activities that can help you cope and fill your cup back up are:
Mastery - Master a new skill or topic.
Work on a project, like a house project
Take lessons on learning another language
Try cooking a new dish in the kitchen
Do an activity where your brain is completely focused on the present moment. This causes it to leave behind the thing that’s stressing you out, and eases some of the stress from it. Something where you can focus ONLY on the present.
This is why vegging out, or TV, are NOT very effective for many people.
DO NOT scroll social media. Social Media is shown by research to NOT reduce stress
Hanging with friends who make you laugh
Remove notifications that will pull you back into stress. (Example: out with friends laughing and a work email notification goes off, you look at your phone, and you’re sucked RIGHT BACK INTO stress.).
Clarify your “disconnected” hours. For most people work is not 24/7/365. There are off times, be clear about those and eliminate or limit notifications that can get through to only true emergencies. Balance means you need to be “off” sometimes, not “on” all the time.
Journaling helps to get the stuff out of your head. Have you ever tried “writing morning pages”?
If ideas or stress are spinning before bed, write it down. Keep a paper/pen or device next to you in bed and if a thought is swirling and won’t let you relax, write it down. The act of writing it down will help your brain let it go, because your brain knows it written down and won’t be forgotten, so it doesn’t need to be “front of mind” anymore.
For Front-Line Supervisors & Managers
Now for front-line supervisors and managers, besides all the above recommendations, we added on these specifically for those who are managing others. What can you do for the people under you?
Individualization of your support is important.
Know the type of support that each person needs. If you know their personal stressors, they’re easier to accommodate. 3 examples:
If an employee has childcare issues, being aware of scheduling meetings (if possible) to not interfere with that.
If an employee has a health condition, be aware of that in your planning, and/or the support you offer them.
If your employees favorite extracurricular activity is after work on Wednesdays, then don’t schedule a meeting to conflict with that unless there truly is no other choice and it’s an emergency.
Understand that while their work-life and personal lives are separate, it’s still the same person, and one affects the other. Be open to the stressors in all forms. (Example: Don’t ignore the fact that they’re pregnant, ask for updates on how the pregnancy is going periodically, and if there’s anything you can do to support. Even if you can’t offer what they ask, decline nicely, it will still mean a lot that you asked.)
Role Modeling good practices yourself
If you say to disconnect on the weekend, but you send emails on the weekend, that can be a stressor. SCHEDULE SEND emails you’re sending to arrive Monday morning instead.
Don’t highlight and reward only the behaviors that are unhealthy workaholic behaviors. Examples:
“Judy get’s this award because she worked so hard that she had her baby at work.”
“Johnny is sending emails on nights and weekends, he really shows his dedication to the job”.
When you’re on vacation, unplug completely. If you check your emails, your staff will think they need to.
Share some of your life outside of work with your team. If you have hobbies, that makes it safe for your employees to have hobbies.
Set AND SHARE priorities. There’s always going to be plenty to do, so the constant addition of more urgent things, and an environment where everything is urgent and must be done right away, there’s no sense of prioritization, and people won’t know how to manage their own time and stress. In short, don’t be an “Everything is always on fire” boss!
Let employees have a say if you can. As the boss, you know you can ultimately decide, but it’s helpful to involve the employees when you can. Share the things that are coming and see who is interested in adding more.
Allow your employees to disagree with you. Let them tell you what can or cannot be done without the fear of getting fired the first time they do. Build psychological safety with your team.
Model that behavior up too. If your boss adds more to your team’s plate, go to your boss and ask for priorities, for the sake of your whole team.
Don’t be afraid to ask the question of your employees because you’re afraid of finding out “the bad news”. If that’s how you’re feeling as a supervisor, it’s probably even more important that you do. Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
Support your employees fitness, sleep, & diet.
If you’re buying lunch, buy a healthy lunch.
Talk about finding healthy meal items you’ve tried. Even if you’ve failed, such as trying a meal service that didn’t work, drawing attention to it may help others to pay attention to it too.
If you ask your employees about their sleep, it helps employees to notice and focus on it.
If you ask your employees about fitness, it may help them to start to think about it too.
Normalizing talking about something that happened outside of work. Remember what happens outside of work affects employees at work, so if there’s a challenging situation happening, it’s helpful for employees to feel safe to share that with you, their supervisor.
What about in the middle of an HR Action or Termination
Some managers are afraid to talk about stress with employees that are underperforming or that are under a potential HR action. What do you do there?
Depends on the type of personnel action:
If the employee is just not meeting deadlines, conversations with them about their wellbeing will not ultimately affect the outcome of the personnel action.
If they may not be right for the role, sometimes having these kinds of conversations will help the employee realize that this isn’t the right role for them, and they may select themselves out of this role, which is the best outcome for everyone involved.
Being interested in the person’s wellbeing will often deescalate and destress the situation, but that doesn’t need to affect or change the final action you are ultimately going to take. You can be kind, and be strong at the same time.
Managers often try to “fill in the gaps themselves” and come up with their guess or hypothesis about why someone is underperforming. All of that “guessing” doesn’t actually help, and often creates more stress. Often the best approach is to ask, “Hey what’s been going on with you lately?” or “How are you doing really?” or “I noticed XX happened, that’s not like you, what’s up?”
Video
There was a slight glitch in the video recording software which caused Patricia's audio to not quite align with her video. It's about a second off, almost like an echo. There was no easy fix for that and this was such a great interview on camera too, that I chose to share it anyway. Sorry about that!
The Audio/Podcast
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made for employees to improve their productivity, improve their life balance, and live their best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. Thanks for checking out Productivity Gladiator! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Productivity Gladiator.
00:06
I'm Brian Nelson Palmer and Productivity Gladiator is about life balance and personal productivity. In this episode, I want to share top tips to manage stress in a hectic work environment. And I have the opportunity to bring with me today on the show, I have Katina and Patricia, who are the co-founders of Worker Being, which is all about this same topic, work-life balance. So for those folks who aren't familiar with Worker Being, could you describe Worker Being and how you guys are kind of related to this whole?
00:35
stress in the workplace environment. Sure. So Katina and I are actually friends from grad school and we came together to build Worker Being to really talk about the science behind workplace wellness, work-life balance, burnout, all those good topics that we love to discuss. We both have our PhDs in industrial organizational psychology. So you can say we're experts in how people function at work and how they behave at work. And that's...
01:03
That's kind of angle that we're coming at it from with worker being. And really we want to make sure that people can take science backed resources and information to make better and positive work environments. Well, my initial thought is, wow, that's amazing. And at the same time, my thought is, and at what point did you decide that that was the path that you wanted to take? I'd imagine, you know, as six year olds, you didn't think, oh my gosh, worker being is my dream. At what point did the did the road shift that direction? What brought you there?
01:30
We definitely didn't think it when we were six, I don't think. But when we were several drinks in at a wedding, we decided that it would be a really good idea for us to bring our passion for workplace wellness from a research perspective into the hands of employees everywhere. And so I think that when we decided that this was a path we were going to pursue was really when we saw that there was a
01:55
problem in society that needed a research-based solution. Patricia was hearing from her clients and I was hearing from my students that there were really basic wellness-related problems at work that people were struggling to solve. We knew what some of those low-hanging fruit answers might be from the research and what we did in graduate school. We thought that we should probably share the wealth and help other people to learn more about that too. Yeah. By the way, where does the name come from?
02:24
Oh gosh, it was so hard to pick a name. We were tossing around all sorts of names. We had this whole activity where we picked a bunch of different words that are related to what we want to be discussing. And then just one day I randomly was like, well, if we're talking about workplace wellness, worker wellness, worker wellbeing, worker being, there we go. So kind of just playing with words until we got there. And then we thought we were cool, so we just dropped him two miles around. Like a tech startup.
02:54
That's awesome. So it wasn't totally a random name generator, but went with it. Inspiration from those places. That's cool. I like that. Now what makes you guys different from, there's a lot of organizations out there that do training and stress management and the topics that we're talking about today and what you guys do, what would you say makes you guys just a little different from?
03:18
the others that are out there in the space. Yeah, I think what makes us a little different is honestly that we're nerds about data. Like we, we love data. We're really interested in understanding what the science and research have to say about these trends. And so what we do is we summarize what exists in the scientific literature and what we hope is a fun and exciting way.
03:43
But really, I think our differentiator is that everything that we talk about is data driven in science-based. And I think that makes us a little bit different because you can always count on us to keep you up to date in terms of what the scientific cutting edge resources are that help people to understand how to support wellness at work. And we're also doing our own research. Yeah, that's true. I was just going to say, we're also doing our own research. Patricia, great. Mine's a thing to like because I was just going to ask, are you doing the research?
04:10
or reporting on the research or both it sounds like. Yeah, it's definitely both. So we're doing our own independent research, creating some really exciting new frameworks that we'll be coming out with soon, as well as taking what exists already in the literature and packaging it in a way that's not as boring as an academic journal. Yeah. Absolutely. And I've had a chance to go to their website. If you haven't checked it out sometime while you're listening or later on down the line, please do check out their resources and the...
04:39
They've got a lot for you on the website and the community that they have. So definitely check that out. But let's jump into our topic for today. We were going to talk about top tips to manage stress in a hectic work environment. And my little primer for the listeners is I I'm well, all of us on this episode are kind of big personal development nerds and stuff. And so I know when you listen to this stuff, oftentimes the the listening that you're doing is, oh, I've heard about that or I'm familiar with that or that kind of thing. And so my I totally have a little.
05:07
challenge for you guys that are listening, which is instead of just asking, you know, did I already know this or am I doing this well? Well, instead of asking, did I already know this? Ask my question for you is, are you doing this well or how could I be doing this even better? Because I love I'm, I'm excited. I've got a couple things I want to share and I can't wait to hear what you guys are going to share. So as we're going through this and I'm listening to it later, I'm going to be asking myself, okay, how could I be doing that better?
05:34
So just a little primer, but let's jump in. There's generally two audiences that I like to talk to in this show. One is about, is the employees that are doing the work and then the frontline managers, the frontline supervisors and the middle managers that are over those employees. So let's start with the employees themselves. What would you guys say off the bat? What are top tips to manage stress that come to mind for you guys?
05:56
I think to kind of kick things off, the first thing to manage stress is to be able to recognize the signs of stress. So there are physiological signs that actually accompany becoming stressed. When you're in the moment of feeling stressed, what happens is you get focused on the stressor. The stressor is whatever the thing is in your environment that's causing the stress. So perhaps your boss puts something on your desk that you need to work on and it needs to get done immediately and you know that you have other things on your plate.
06:25
and now this thing is stressing you out. Or maybe you get a phone call finding out some stressful news from home in the middle of the workday that you need to attend to immediately despite the fact that you have other things on your plate. When you get stressed, you feel a spike in your negative emotions, right? So you become more anxious and you start to think more negatively than positively.
06:48
And that hones your attention. It serves a pretty functional purpose to hone your attention on the thing that needs your attention, which is the thing that's threatening you and that you wanna get out of your way. But the problem with stressors and recognizing these stressors is that it pushes all of the other things that you have in your environment into the periphery. So other people that you might need to be attending to, you might not even notice that they're there, you might not pay attention to the fact that they're there.
07:14
And so all these things start to sort of fade away and you get very hyper focused on the thing that's stressing you out. And so as you start to recognize those signs in yourself that you can think about when you start to feel stressed and you can almost notice that everything that you used to notice in your environment kind of goes away and you become hyper aware of one thing, right? Like this email that's in front of you or this thing that just landed on your desk or the kid that's crying because they just got injured in the house, right? And you don't notice the other details of what's going on.
07:44
So when that happens, you go into like this fight or flight type mode. Your heart rate might spike, your palms might start to get sweaty, you might start to have racing thoughts. So the first thing really to do in terms of addressing your stress is to start to recognize what your stress signs are, or what actually is a symbol for you that you're starting to experience stress. Because if you can catch yourself earlier in the stress process, you can start to de-escalate sooner.
08:13
But if you wait until you get to be a 10 on a one to 10 scale, it's much harder to bring yourself back to a one than if you start recognizing those things at a three or a four. Yeah, catch it before it goes off the charts. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I think that there's... So what about you? So that's kind of like, so that's kind of in the beginning of the stress cycle. There's also this idea of chronic stress, right? Where you are now dealing with a lot of stressors that are piling up. So I do think, I completely agree with Katina that recognizing when you're in a stress cycle, especially an urgent one.
08:43
and working on coping mechanisms to get you down from that space. But then if you're dealing with chronic stress, which I'm assuming that a lot of you are probably thinking about that. I know on this call, I can tell you that I've got a lot of stressors in my life, not just one thing that's happening and it's been building over time. Then you need to approach it slightly differently, right? So there's the de-escalation for...
09:06
the stress that's happening in the moment. So thinking about breathing exercises, mindfulness, how to get yourself away, break that cycle, move yourself from the situation if possible, bring in somebody to help you, etc. But then if you're in a chronic stress cycle, thinking about what you can do to recover so that you start to fill your cup back up because stress is going to deplete your resources. It's going to make you tired. It's going to make you exhausted when you get to that chronic stress level. What can you do to refill your cup? And there are some...
09:33
key strategies in the research around how to do that. One thing that is a little counterintuitive that I always like to bring up is this idea of mastery. If you're dealing with a lot of stress at work and then you leave work, a lot of people want to just go and veg out on the couch, watch their favorite Netflix show, things like that. That can be helpful and relaxing too, but what will actually help refill your cup more would be to work on...
10:00
a new project, something different, not in your workspace necessarily, but build mastery and confidence in something else that you're doing. Learn a new skill. Maybe you're really excited about learning how to cook. Take some time and start practicing whatever dish you want to learn to cook. If you want to learn another language, do that some evenings, work on your Spanish skills, what have you. That kind of mastery, building mastery in other areas actually helps you feel better, helps you feel more...
10:26
confident, more competent, and actually can help you reduce stress over time better than pretty much any other technique. So sounds counterintuitive to then add more things to do, but it can be really helpful. It's a way to kind of divert that attention. And that makes sense from the chronic stress perspective. That seems like the good counterbalance, right? That kind of keeps you in check from the chronic perspective. Katina, I want to go back to what you said.
10:49
What are when you're in that moment and you're headed up to the 10 and you're you started at a one now you're at a three or a four you're like oh gosh you can see that you're you're getting that almost it's almost like that metaphor of like when you're when you're stressed it becomes that tunnel vision like all of the sudden. Yeah you can see is that one thing that's stressing you or whatever it is what what are tactics to turn that around specifically I mean you can't just leave and go take a Spanish lesson I mean you could but now like in the moment then what do you do.
11:18
Yeah. So the research shows and actually some independent research that I've conducted on mindfulness as well, shows pretty strongly that mindfulness is a big technique that can help you to take yourself from a five to a one or a seven to a three. And the good news about mindfulness is that you don't have to say like, I'm leaving work to take an hour long break to do a mindfulness training or whatever the case may be, right? Like you can actually do like two minutes of mindfulness and get an impact to get yourself out of the stressful space.
11:47
So a really quick hit of mindfulness through an app can actually help you to start to deescalate. And the reason for that is because mindfulness actually does the opposite of what being in a stressful situation does. Instead of catapulting you into this tunnel vision space, mindfulness provokes more positive emotions and the ability to take the perspective of others, which actually broadens your scope back out. So you're able to notice those things in your environment that you're drowning out.
12:13
and you're able to counter those negative stress emotions with more positive emotions. So it might not take you from, you know, all the way back to a place where you're like, this is great, this is the best day ever, but at least it helps to combat those rising negative emotions. So in the moment, practicing some mindfulness, having an app ready and loaded with your favorite two minute meditation so that when you get into that space, you can take a quick break, deescalate, and then re-approach your task with a new mindset.
12:42
Not only does it help you to approach the task in a more sustainable, healthy way, but you're also more likely to get the task done in a more innovative and complete way because you're not so honed in on trying to get rid of this thing. You actually allow yourself to think more broadly about possible solutions as well. When you say mindfulness now, some folks might have never even put their foot in the water of mindfulness necessarily. So...
13:07
I mean, is it just you talked about an app or is it really meditation and breathing or is there more to it or what are the kinds of things you're referring to? Yeah, there are multiple forms of mindfulness that you can engage in and they all kind of do the same thing, honestly. There's a body scan where you can draw attention to and try to keep your attention in the present moment by focusing on just how you're feeling in different parts of your body in the moment. That's supposed to just keep you instead of like...
13:33
being really worried about what's coming next or what happened a minute ago, you get just very focused on what's happening to me right now. And that can be a useful way of centering yourself. But there are others that are more like meditations where you're really just focusing on, you know, envisioning yourself walking through a trail. So there's like nature meditations. There's also breathing meditations where you're really just focusing on your breath.
13:58
Any of those actually do something quite similar in terms of taking your stress levels down. Got it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Actually, it's funny that we're talking about this because this morning I was at work and had one of those really hectic mornings where stuff keeps piling on and then there was one particular project that I seemed to go off the rails and then I was really focused on what happened with that and I found one of the things I wanted to share that so I go work
14:28
And I'm a certified personal trainer and I teach group fitness classes. And so I have a decent amount of background with this. But one of the things I've noticed is oftentimes in the advice, they say you can leave and go take a walk or, you know, for your well-being, you do something active. And I totally want to yes. And that advice. Yes, you should totally go do something active and and go walk or go pedal a bike or go take a trip around the neighborhood or something like that to leave where you're at, because a lot of what you're focused on is going to be.
14:58
right where you are, so moving yourself will do that. And my yes and yes do that, and if it's possible, I don't know how your lunch breaks work, but one of the things for me that was really helpful today is getting all the way up to a max heart rate, or where you're breathing so heavily when you're exercising that you can't speak a full sentence altogether in one breath because you're breathing that.
15:21
heavily. It's I'm imagining that moment from like the Rocky movies or something. You've seen those where you got Rocky and he's running down and he's so frustrated. He's gonna do it. Oh my god, I'm training and then he hits he hits me and he's like, and he can't breathe and the heart rates maxed out or whatever. And that moment is one of those magical times to let the stressor go. So for me today, even when I started the workout, it was about
15:47
You know, I was still thinking about the project or whatever, and it was when in the workout that we got to that peak moment where I just I had nothing left. We are absolute max. Even if it's just a sprint at the end of your walk where you're breathless or something like that, that's my yes. And thing for that's, oh, so helpful with the stress to like, let it go. That's that, that was really helpful. So I wanted to make sure that I shared that one too. Any other ideas on like,
16:15
these topics for top things. I mean, this is, you got a lot going on. What else comes to mind for you guys? Well, I think to piggyback on all the mindfulness piece in the moment, when you go back to the chronic stress, it's also helpful there, right? If you're practicing continuously mindfulness, the activity that you mentioned, right? Some sort of physical activity, whatever that looks like for you. I think in your example, what you experienced, when you get to that point of breathlessness, you're no longer able to think about anything else, but the present moment, right? So you're kind of.
16:44
getting to a point of mindfulness because all you can think about is, how do I get my breath back? Thinking about your breath, thinking about relaxing your body, you're not thinking about what happened two hours ago or whatever. That mindfulness piece, practicing that, getting better at it over time is really impactful for wellbeing overall. I think there's also social connection. We haven't touched upon that, but we know that having good social support both at work and both at home or your personal life can be really helpful.
17:13
when you had a stressful day going out with your friends for cocktails or dinner or your spouse partner and being able to decompress and have that support system will really help you deescalate that stress as well. Being able to find time, I know that the buzzword of self-care comes with some problematic issues of retail culture and things like that. But when we talk about self-care, it's really about...
17:39
Taking time to do things that are gonna make you feel better and refill your cup so that you can start the next day feeling better, feeling replenished. And so if that means practicing mindfulness, doing some physical activity, hanging out with your friends, learning a new skill or practicing some sort of hobby that you like, all of those things are really gonna help bring back some resources so you can start on a better foot the next day. I just had a mind blown moment as you were talking there, Patricia, cause it was just, you talked about
18:09
That's where you can't think about anything else. All you're thinking about is that. And it really, it kind of struck home to me that, oh, it's that in the workouts or you talked about learning Spanish or doing something that another project or something in the one thing that all of those have in common is what are these things you can do where you for like, don't forget about, but you basically forget about whatever the stressor is to give you a break from that stress and help it that helps deescalate it a little bit. And so.
18:38
I just my light bulb moment was holy smokes. Yeah, because that friends can do that when you're hanging out with friends or the fitness or the learning a new project or something where you can completely immerse your brain in it. So what's interesting is what doesn't do that for me at least is watching a TV show or even listening to music that I love. I'm such a music person.
19:04
But man, even the music, it doesn't take away the thoughts in my head of whatever it is that's stressing me. So it's finding those things that truly let your brain let it go completely. You can always come back to it. It's not like it's going away, but going away completely from that thought and focusing entirely on something else. Friends, laughter, something like that. If you're going to like watch TV to de-stress, it had better be something pretty freaking awesome or something that.
19:29
will really suck you in so that you can truly let go. Because if it's only a 50-50, half TV, half thinking about the stressor, you don't get those. And maybe I completely, if that's completely wrong, tell me now, but that's just the funny, oh yeah, light bulb moment that I just had. No, I think that's right. And I also think to your point, there's one more thing that really helps with that, which is disconnecting. So imagine you're with your friends.
19:58
you're socializing or you finish that last sprint of your run or you get to a place where you're really feeling mindful and then your phone goes off and it's a work email and it's related to the project you were working on and then all of a sudden you get sucked right back to where you were. And so part of what's also helpful for managing stress is putting boundaries around the time periods within which you're more likely to be exposed to stressors.
20:26
So if work is a stressful, a source of stressors for you, you don't wanna be exposing yourself to those stressors right up to the minute that you're going to bed because then you're in that zone of being amped and focused on negative things and ruminating and thinking about what's going on during your day right as you're about to lay down for bed, right? And that keeps you up longer. Or you may just bring yourself right back to a seven on the stress level when you just lowered yourself down to a one.
20:54
And so the benefits are short-lived if you're just continuing to re-expose yourself to those stressors over and over again. So disconnecting is a really big thing that we talk about and it's really hard to do because we're always on in society today and work expects us to be on for many hours of the day more than used to be true 10, 15 years ago. And so I think that something that we talk about doing from a time perspective is giving yourself back some time.
21:24
by converting either dead time that you would spend on a device that can make those stressors interruptive. So like, if you're scrolling social media, that's not really something the research shows actually helps you to decrease your stress. It's also a time where you might be more likely to be interrupted by an email that could cause you stress. So instead of scrolling social media and being on your phone and being in this always available space, put it down and go do something else and don't look at it for a while.
21:53
That's a way of converting some dead time into time where you actually can use it to engage in some of the techniques that we're discussing. And you're also eliminating or making it less likely that the stressor that's introducing itself is going to just intrude on your time. That makes a lot of sense. I'm suddenly drawn back to the conversation we were having earlier about having, well, disconnecting completely.
22:19
Full thought here that I'm having is one of the things I talk about in productivity gladiator often is the ability to let things go or disconnect like you said and one of the things that just popped into my head as you were talking was oh when we talk about the ability to Oftentimes when you're laying in bed at night or there's something that's that's up here And you kind of have to get it out and some people talk about journaling Are you doing your pages and those kinds of things if that's the habits you have those are great, but especially keeping
22:48
a year, maybe if it's your phone or a notepad or something next to you at night, when you're laying in bed and you have those thoughts, if you write them down, it's almost like giving your brain permission to let it go because it's not forgotten. It's not like you're, you come up with that really brilliant idea right before bed and then your brain just thinks, Oh my God, I can't forget this. I need this tomorrow. I need this tomorrow. I need this tomorrow. And then you can't sleep. And then that kind of thing. So having it a place where you can write that idea down and that way
23:18
you can let it go, which allows you to kind of let it go and almost fall to sleep or that kind of thing. And that's, as you were describing that, I was thinking, oh yeah, that's where, that's exactly, what you're saying is exactly where feeding that, writing it down, having something to copy, get those thoughts out of your head so that you don't have to worry about remembering them that allows it to kind of smooth out a little bit. So let's, I wanna shift.
23:42
gears just a little bit. And now let's talk about frontline supervisors and middle managers and somebody in management now. And from obviously managers and everyone in that category, all of the stuff we just talked about applies to you personally, right? So this is all still true. You face the same things plus some, because not only do you have your own workload and stuff, but you've got a staff and their team and all of that. So that's a whole nother level. So there's certainly stress and hectic work environment for them.
24:11
My framing for this is, okay, now you're the supervisor and you have the staff. I wanted to ask you guys about, okay, what's the advice to supervisors for how you can support or be supportive for your staff and helping with this whole stressful, hectic work environment? I love talking about what managers and leaders can do because it's so important and employees can only do so much, right? They don't have control over the amount of work that they're getting pushed down on them.
24:40
or the environment that they're in. And so, you know, giving stress techniques to employees is great for them to be able to handle that in the moment, but long term, it's, you know, the environment isn't good. You need to get out really what it comes down to it, right? If your environment's really bad and stressful. So leaders are the ones, the managers, the supervisors, they're the ones that can have the biggest impact.
25:02
to make it so that people are all in a place that they can thrive and do well. And so if you're a supervisor, if you manage a team, one thing that we're finding, so Katina and I actually are doing a lot of research right now around how you can lead for wellness in the best possible way. And one thing that we're finding over and over again is that the individualization of your approach is super important. So getting to know your employees, getting to know your team, what-
25:30
is happening in their individual lives, what is the support that they need? It's going to vary so much from person to person. If I am someone that has three kids and daycare times ending at different times and having to do all these pickups, that might be a big stressor on me and working eight hours in a row. Maybe there's a way we can accommodate and fix things for that person.
25:52
but then somebody else may have no children and but to have some sort of health issue that they're coping with. Or, you know, there's always some individual circumstance situation that's happening in personal lives that influences your work. You're not a separate person, right? You're a whole person that has a work life and has a personal life. So being able to work with that as a supervisor and understand where people are coming from and provide flexibility and some autonomy to your employees can go a really long way to help them manage their stress in an effective way. Sounds true. Katina?
26:20
Yeah. And I think in addition to learning from your employees about what they need and then trying to be responsive to those needs is also role modeling good practices yourself. So, when people look to their manager, they're understanding what does it take to be successful in this company? And most people want to be successful at their jobs, right? They want to learn from the people around them, especially people who are in positions that their role models about what's acceptable here. What are the norms? What helps you get ahead, right?
26:50
And so if the manager's saying, hey, you know, you all make sure you disconnect during the weekends, don't send any emails, and we're not going to work on projects over the weekends. But then you're getting a bunch of emails from your boss over the weekend, you're feeling inclined to respond to those emails, right? You're feeling inclined to do work on those projects. And so you can't really say as the manager, well, you know, I'm just going to send it when I feel like sending it, but don't feel like you need to reply because people will feel like they need to reply.
27:19
So something that we suggest managers do if it is better for your well-being for example Like let's say you're coping with some family struggles and really truly the most convenient Best time for your work-life balance to have gotten that stuff for the project done was on Saturday morning Do the work schedule the emails for Monday morning. Don't put the pressure on people to have to respond back to you Yes
27:43
Schedule send is amazing. Yes, use it. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Exactly. And like, you know, vacation time, we've heard some in our research too. If you're saying to everybody, hey, I'm going to be on vacation next week, but I'm available all week long if you want to reach me. It gives people the idea that when they go on vacation, they have to mimic that and say, well, I know I'm going to be out for a week, but hey, I'm available anytime you need me, boss.
28:10
And it starts a culture where now people aren't really actually on vacation because they're just working from a different place a little more sporadically than they do when they're on the clock. So I think with this boundary setting and also with talking about having a life, doing things outside of work, Patricia and I once interacted with a company and heard a story about a company that it was not while we were interacting with them, but they...
28:39
The boss was so excited to tell people that a woman had her baby in the office because she was so dedicated to her job that she actually had her baby in the office. This story got passed down by this boss as an indicator of, in this company, we really get our hands dirty and all hands on deck and we all do what we need to do to make it happen. What a terrible tone to set in a company for an expectation, right?
29:08
And she would tell it like someone had their baby in the office. And any other person that you talked to in the company was like, someone had their baby in this office. You know what I mean? It was a completely different tone. And so that's a very extreme example. But what kinds of stories or examples do you give of people who are successful? Do you talk about them as whole people? Or do you talk about people who are successful as like hard driving, they're always here, they're up early, they're working late? Like...
29:33
What are the exemplars or role models that you use of people who are successful in the company? Who are the people that you hold up as ideal employees? Because those employees are the people other people are going to look to, and that starts to shape your culture in a meaningful way. God, that's really true. You think about giving awards for the people who work the hardest. But if all you do is recognize the people who work the hardest and don't have good life balance and don't take care of themselves and don't, like Patricia said, have other hobbies or things or...
30:02
things that interest them or something don't disconnect and all they do is work, work, work, then you kind of create this self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. That's really true. I'm also reminded of the fact that you, well, supervisors should also absolutely keep things relative when it comes to priority. Everybody's had that boss where everything's a fire all the time. Like the next thing, whatever I'm telling you right now, it's that.
30:29
There's the it's like last in first out or first in last out or the kind of instructions where the whatever you say, if, if the kind of environment you've created as a supervisor is where whatever I tell you right now should become the first thing that you do, then you've created a stressful environment because inevitably there's 10 other things on that list. And if all you do is add to the top in the urgent department, that's tough. So if there's a relative thing where, and granted some people
30:58
aren't close enough to all of their employees where they're able to really get into the workload and know where this should fit or that kind of thing. But to talk about something in terms of the amount of time or the runway that comes with this thing and the expectation of how important it is, is really helpful context for people to keep the stress level down because they have that context of, okay, when, how does this fit into, I've got a list of 10 things already. All right, boss, here's number 11. Where does that fit in this, the scheme of it? And that's...
31:28
Yeah, that's super helpful too. Good ideas so far. What else you got swimming around up there? You guys are full of all these good ideas. I like it. Well, I was going to actually piggyback on what you just said at the prioritization. I think obviously prioritization is crucial and it kind of goes from the very top all the way down. Everyone needs to be on board with understanding what are priorities, what things might fall off based on workload, keeping workloads normal and appropriate. But like you're saying, if it...
31:56
manager doesn't know exactly what's on a person's plate at all times, make it so that employee is comfortable to come talk to you and say, hey, you just told me to do this. I have these six other things. Where would you put it? So then make it collaborative that the employee feels like they can have that conversation and understand that it's not like a bad thing to ask what can drop off based on workload. And allow your employees to come to you and say that, you know,
32:23
you don't think you can do all of these things. So let's be creative. Let's figure it out and practice that yourself, right? As the leader, come to your employees, say, I've got these five things on my plate and I need support with X because I don't think I can do them all myself, right? So if you're practicing that, going back to Katina's role modeling, they'll hopefully start talking to you as well. And then you can actually have really fruitful conversations around priorities so that you're not...
32:49
just adding, like you said, to that list, that never-ending list that just gets stressful and people don't know where to go and how to start. So I think that's really important. The other thing I think for leaders is giving, it's kind of related. It's kind of getting this idea of psychological safety where an employee should be able to push back. I don't see why this is important. Can you give me more context? I think the thing I'm working on now is going to impact.
33:16
company XYZ reasons and when it comes to priorities, but also really with anything when it comes to work and the way that you're working. So being able to have those really honest and safe conversations is really important for employees to feel like they can come and ask for time off for a family situation or shifting of schedules or what have you. So building psychological safety as a supervisor in your team is really important and the way to start is to be vulnerable yourself.
33:46
I want to yes and with you there. Yes, exactly that. And the role modeling or the sometimes you have to model that behavior up to if you're you are the middle manager and you've got the boss above you who's the everything's on fire all the time kind of boss, then you're going to need to go up to them and say, all right, I have three teams under me and you've given me the, you know, here's the five things that we're working on now. And you just gave two more.
34:15
where does that go in my list of things for all of these teams? And it's more of a big picture conversation, but it's that focus, right? Cause that you can't, it's that idea of fighting a battle on multiple fronts for all the military folks listening, or those, you're familiar with this metaphor where if you've got multiple fronts where you're battling, you're stretched more thin, but if you're able to help with the focus, what having that priority list does, whether it's up here at this level or down here where the troops are, or whatever it is,
34:45
having that focus on where am I battling? What's the number one front that I should be looking at and two and three? That is super helpful too. So sometimes it's modeling it up, not just down. That's gonna be good for managers. Kitsina, you looked like you wanted to get in here. No, I was just gonna say as well with the comments around having conversations with your employees and really.
35:10
understanding what those priorities are, not just from your own perspective, but comprehensive perspective and getting other feedback on what really is on fire. All of those things can be scary for managers to do, like opening up the door to say, I want us to talk more about our wellness or balance and I want to make sure I'm getting this right and I want to make sure I understand what your needs are. A lot of times people will say to us, like, if I ask the question, what if the answer is scary? Like, what if people are having lots of problems and I'm not doing a good job of this? And
35:40
I think the answer to that is you're living with the impact of whatever the answer to that question is anyway. Hearing the answer is the first step to actually addressing and gaining some control over that impact, but not knowing the answer doesn't mean you're not experiencing the problem. You're always experiencing the problem. Knowing the answer helps you to understand how to fix it. And especially if you're saying, I don't know if I'm going to like the answer to that question, then you probably already know the answer.
36:09
Right? You know you're not going to like it and you don't want to ask it because that seems scarier. But that's especially when you need to start having these conversations because the impact is there whether you understand why or not. And so let me ask for the managers on there that are one of the reasons you wouldn't want to ask that question because you don't want to know the answer is because you've got a problem employee that you're actually thinking you're going to need to part ways with. And so...
36:36
I could see there being some fear where you start having these conversations about, I'm really, you know, are you stressed or you're looking at that. And all of a sudden, because they're telling you these things, that becomes fodder for the lawsuit in the HR action where you weren't being a good boss and now you can't fire them or something like that. So I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot with that, but can you speak to that as far as what if they're telling you these things, but you need to take a personnel action on the or you're considering that? How does that play in? Can you talk about that? I think it's
37:05
depends a bit as to why you're taking this personnel action. Is it because they're not performing and they're not meeting deadlines, things like that? Or is there some glaring like they stole from the company issue, right? Obviously with that, there's no real reason to open the door and have those conversations. But if you're dealing with an employee that's not performing, that's maybe struggling in some ways, and you open up those conversations, you actually may find out that...
37:31
that employee has problems you can solve, and then you don't have to go through the process of parting ways with that employee. Or maybe you'll learn that there's a different role that's a better fit, because now they're starting to open up to you, telling you why they're struggling. Maybe they don't have the skillset that they thought they did, and if they feel comfortable and are able to trust you, then you can make that work. And you can have even honest conversations around, I've seen good leaders have conversations with people that are not good fits for roles or companies.
37:59
and they talk about it openly and they give people the space to select themselves out. And that's a much better result for everyone involved, right? Because as soon as you have to let someone go due to performance issues, then there's all sorts of rumor mills that start up within your teams because you can't say why, what this happened. And so that creates some instability and some lack of trust that's going on with the team that does remain. So it's actually better to
38:28
try to cope with it in an honest, transparent way and help either that person improve or find their path in the company or help them figure out how to get out in a successful, safe environment, that's gonna help the whole team overall. And you talked about performance issues and that kind of thing. I think even if you have an understanding of the stress and what that person's going through, that's not necessarily gonna change the parameters of the personal improvement plan, the PIP or whatever the...
38:56
The thing is that you're looking at for that person. They still are going to have certain deadlines. They're going to have to meet something like that. And ultimately being understanding, I think one thing. So randomly, I used to be the general manager of several furniture stores down in South Florida. And one of the interesting things that I remember from employees and customers is that you can be stern and enforce the rules or whatever it is and still be nice. You don't have to be.
39:23
mean, if you're going to let somebody go or take an action, it doesn't have to be because you're mean, you can be very understanding. And the only thing is you just have to stand your ground that this is the right decision. And here are all the reasons why I'm making that decision. And even if you found out some more information that helped you to help them or however, it made the conversation even more meaningful to them. But that doesn't change the action that you're going to take. And if they're going to be mad at you, they're going to be mad at you no matter.
39:51
whether you were nice and understanding about the stress or you weren't, that's not going to change the outcome. So you might as well embrace the person and kind of get to know some of that too, because that's not going to hold you back or handcuff you from the action that you want to take. I think. Yeah. I think that's a good point. And, and compassion goes a really long way.
40:10
Also, our brains are wired to fill in gaps. Let's say you're having a performance problem with someone who looks the same as or has the same name as or reminds you of a person you know from your past. You can start to fill in some details about, you know why I think this person's having a problem? Because I bet at home this is happening or I bet they're having a conflict with this person. We're not really actually that good at filling in blanks.
40:39
And so when you're trying to decide why someone's having a performance problem, you're operating on your own speculation. And a really good way to understand why someone's having a problem is to ask them what's going on, right? And to ask them in a compassionate way. So I think a lot of times when people are having performance issues, they're looked at negatively by others. And so they're approached in a different way. And if you approach it by starting off with some compassion, saying,
41:07
I know that it's your goal to do well, or I understand that everybody struggles sometimes to perform. My goal in this conversation to understand what we can do to get you to a place where you feel like you can do your best, right? Coming at it from the perspective of I'm going to assume that you want to do a good job. I'm going to assume that it's a barrier getting in your way and not you as a person that's incapable or bad or whatever. Coming at it from that kind of growth mindset, as opposed to a...
41:37
hey, you're a bad employee and unless at some point you stop being you, then I guess we're going to have a problem. The growth mindset helps you to approach the issue looking at it in a different way, right? And it puts them in a different mindset as well because now they see it as, okay, well, let me describe to you the problem and then there's a solution as opposed to I feel attacked as a person and you know what, I guess we're just not going to get past this because I'm always going to be me, right? So it puts them in a different...
42:05
mindset to use some compassionate understanding that it's a situational factor most likely and not that they're just not good. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, guys. So shifting gears off of the personnel actions then, that's kind of a negative. I don't want to end on that. That's not fun. I don't want to talk about stress as a reason to fire somebody. That is not how I saw this episode going. No. So I want to circle back then.
42:33
What are some of the things that the supervisors and managers can do to very much help them maintain the functioning of their team? So I know we've already talked about the mindfulness and the meditation and supporting that, even if it's having moments or taking a two minute break or even doing a mindfulness exercise with your employees in the beginning of your weekly updates or something like that. That certainly tracks with that. The other thoughts that came to mind for me would be like,
43:02
Well, you certainly have to support, please support their fitness, their sleep and their diet in terms of like if you're making, if you've got a stressed out team and you buy them pizza, that's really not going to help everybody in the long run. Pizza is good. It's kind of a reward, but at the same time, good health and good fitness and good that and.
43:27
having the opportunity to sleep and supporting sleep, supporting their mindfulness and meditation by asking them about it. Sometimes it's just having those conversations. Like, talk about what are your routines and being supportive. If they're gonna try something new, hey, I'm gonna try this new meal delivery service that will do, you know, the healthy meal. I'm gonna try, what, HelloFresh, or one of those names that's out there.
43:51
supportive, ask them how it went, how did it go and be interested in their eating, their sleeping and their fitness to see what that is. Because if it's important to you, it might be important to them. So that's just one example. Any other ideas come to mind for you guys on that? Well, you actually touched on something that is found in the literature. There's a study that we've talked about on our podcast at one point around sleep and...
44:16
When leaders ask employees about how they slept the night before or what sleep issues they're having, then employees started focusing on that behavior like, oh, I should probably pay attention to my sleep. It's not about you telling them what specific type of healthy behaviors they should have because obviously each person is unique, their own health circumstances, what have you, but to your point, supporting them, asking them about their sleep, asking them how they're feeling.
44:46
If they're sharing information around their fitness routine or what have you, and they're telling you these things, supporting them, showing signs of support, asking them about it, giving them the space to do those things, I think is really important because if you – yeah, like you're saying, if that person values it and then you're showing that you also value it, then they're going to continue to think that behavior is important. Yeah. And I think it goes back to that blanket solution piece. If you know people, then you understand what's important to them. You can help.
45:14
resonate with that and you can also make sure that you're helping create a circumstance where it's likely that they'll get that done. So if they say to you, look, my favorite thing in the world is to go to a dance class that takes place every Wednesday from six to seven and you know that about your team member, then don't ever schedule a call unless the world is on fire, right? From six to seven on Wednesday because...
45:42
you know that that's the time period that the employee really wants to hold sacred. If you see your employees holding stuff on their calendars, don't move it or block over it. If you know that there are things that are important to employees supporting it, normalizing talking about things that happen to people outside of work, and denormalizing the culture of overwork that plagues a lot of workplaces.
46:12
I used to work in a place where the person in charge used to say, I don't believe anybody in the world actually needs more than four hours of sleep. And that normalizes a conversation around no sleep is better. So that means that I'm learning. If I send the email at 4.45 a.m., I'm going to be the star employee. So it sets these tones, but you can set the tone the other way to say...
46:37
Wow, I'm feeling great this morning. I actually got nine hours of sleep last night as a supervisor. That lets other people know that if they slept a lot last night too, they can say that and not feel like you're going to think they're less productive because actually that person might be more productive the next day if they got a great night of sleep. So it's sort of flipping it around and saying, you're going to have a culture regardless. What culture do you want? Do you want a culture of overwork and sickness and people are not feeling their best? Or do you want a culture where people actually
47:06
are human beings and are able to show up and perform and be enthusiastic and energetic. And that starts with the people at the top. For sure. I just, I can see it as soon as you said that thing about sending emails at 445 or something, I immediately thought in my head, yeah, I'll send emails at 445 because I will schedule them to send at 445 and I'll be sleeping, but the emails will be going at that time because I am not going to be awake. The star pupil to the boss.
47:35
As long as the boss that wakes up at 4 a.m. is the only person on the email I approve. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. Yep. That award you've been wanting because you work too many hours. There it is. Schedule send, guys. Yes. Just schedule some emails to go at 9 p.m., some to go at 4 a.m. All night long. Oh, God. We're laughing about this because you should absolutely not do this. Please don't do this. Yes. That's just so... Anyway.
48:04
Well, guys, here's what I love. First, I love that some of the stuff you're referring to is backed by science. I love that angle that you guys take with worker beings. So please keep killing it at that. That is awesome. And referring back to the studies and such, I know for me personally, that's an area that I could be better in is a lot of the stuff I know from personal experience and from
48:29
working with people and teaching these workshops and hearing from people. And so a lot of mine is based on that. And so I think it's really awesome and powerful that you guys have also this whole research angle to what you're doing. So you've inspired me there. So thanks for, thanks for doing this. And thanks for the laughs in the chat today. I really appreciate it.
48:46
Thank you so much. We had a blast. This was super fun. And if they want to know about worker being and how to find you guys and to connect later, you talked about a community. Talk a little bit about how they can connect with you after this. Yeah, you can find us on our site, workerbeing.com. We've got all of our articles, podcast episodes, tons of resources for everyone. But we also do have this community, which you can find at workerbeing.com slash community. And basically we have a lot of perks for folks, but the biggest one is we have a Discord community.
49:15
where people can come and share ideas and ask questions. And we're in there all the time, giving feedback and asking questions from our community as well. And it's been a really fun place for us to kind of grow and get to know people. And that I think has been very valuable for us and for the folks in the community so far. That's awesome. And I will drop the links to the Discord and to the website and worker being has a very interesting spelling. So you'll see that in your episode notes as well.
49:44
It's not just exactly the way you think it would be spelled. It's spelled the cute way because they're clever with their wordplay and all that stuff. So thank you very much. Thank you for joining me today. And to you who tuned in, thanks for listening to the podcast. Thanks for watching the video on YouTube or subscribing via email. If you would rather get this emailed to you whenever it comes out in a format, you can read as well. But thanks for being a part of this whole productivity gladiator thing. I love this stuff and I love sharing it with you. That's a wrap.