While organizational wellness is not a new phenomenon, the after-effects prompted by the global pandemic, such as stress and burnout, have created a new phenomenon in relation to compassion, empathy, and resiliency, hence, are indisputably requiring prompt attention.
As a collective trauma, 67% of the global population report symptoms of higher levels of stress in professional environments since the pandemic outbreak. Now more than ever, leaders and their teams are dealing with higher levels of stress from these sudden shifts in operational management and a work-from-home lifestyle.
As stress and burnout rise, other mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression are also continuing to rise globally.
In fact, in the face of the pandemic, workloads have increased by as much as 40% as operations have shifted to virtual interactions and will continue to do so moving further into the year. Consequently, such an equation of increased stress and workloads will equally breed higher levels of team inefficiencies and continued burnout without a rock-solid foundation that optimizes individual mindset and positive behaviors.
The diagnosis of burnout was changed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to draw attention to the symptoms of the syndrome. However, the very topic is still shamed and rarely discussed in professional environments even as burnout amongst leaders and teams continues to collectively rise.
The WHO now categorizes burnout as a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic stress that has not been successfully managed.”
Today, most companies portray compassion for their employees, but many are simply not taking a strong enough initiative to introduce or incentivize proven mindset management strategies towards optimizing mental and behavioral health in favor of their company culture. Thus, organizational wellness suffers. Organizational wellness can be defined as a concept that promotes the integration of work and health as it aims to achieve a balance between both collectively. Professionals who are allowed to engage in mindset management programs develop key competencies to suffer from less stress and successfully manage the symptoms of burnout. Equally, organizations that provide mindset management programs add value to their overall company culture. Doing so not only drives up happier, healthier work and lifestyle habits but also helps drive up productivity and resiliency thus strengthening its operational management systems.
Mindset management helps an employee to recognize and rewire their behavior.
They learn how to get below the surface of their negative thoughts to discover their emotional connection and how it influences their interaction with colleagues either positively or negatively. This level of awareness introduces an ability to heal any underlying restrictive emotions causing stress and symptoms of burnout.
Mindset management methods encourage an ability to identify and choose a plan of action when working in uncertain environments or working with undesirable people. In essence, we cannot control an environment or choose work colleagues, but we can choose how we show up to work with each of them. Thus, as leaders and their teams learn the methods to improve their mindset and behavior, they enhance their skills which ultimately enhances their abilities to meet an organizational objective.
The benefits of mindset management help leaders and teams deal with presiding and future challenges lessening poor decision making, reducing unnecessary conflict while creating compassion over self, others, and inclusion for all members of any given company culture.
Leaders and teams who learn mindset management methods are happier, more engaged employees who desire and achieve more work-life balance over their higher levels of stress or symptoms of burnout to consequently live a more desirable life of design. By reorienting their mindset, they can refocus and revive themselves and their colleagues towards a transformative behavior change.