Keeping the Spark Alive

It’s well established that burnout happens in high-demand, high-stress environments. Wellness techniques such as exercise, mindfulness, meditation, deep breathing, and/or positive psychology can increase resiliency and fight burnout.  This is universally true throughout the neurodiversity spectrum, applying to both neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals.  

Motivational Needs Conflict 

Yet, corporate wellness programs are not being used.  Programs that are meant to strengthen employees are failing to do just that.  The reason:  They are generally top-down, generated corporate programs that were conceived without employee motivations in mind.  Sure, it’s great that you have yoga classes or a meditation room, but if your people are purely motivated by Survival, they won’t have the time or inclination to participate.  They are too busy spending their efforts on not losing their jobs.  They would be better served with some time off to recover and regroup so they can come back to the job with more energy and a fresher perspective.  That doesn’t mean that wellness programs are inherently wrong; they just need to be well thought-through to best serve all employees instead of the few who want to have company-subsidized yoga classes.  

Planning Wellness For All by Motivational Need

To approach Wellness effectively, start with the motivational needs of your employees.  Where are they on the motivational pyramid?  How can you best set up your team for success over the long term and fight burnout?  Let’s take each motivational level and discuss how to best support employees at each level.  

Survival

When you are in Survival mode, you are worried about how you are going to continue to live.  This could be the standard of living at which you are currently, or from where your next meal is coming.  Depending on the level of survival, various wellness programs can be appreciated.  Let’s start with the most extreme and then move from there.

• Temporary Housing for Homeless Employees:  Housing can be expensive, and many employees may find themselves, hopefully temporarily, without a place to call home.  Providing them with a place to live, showering options, and food can be a temporary alternative.  Some companies find that allowing employees to sleep on the premises overnight, providing showers, and keeping healthy food and drink options can allow their otherwise homeless employees a place to stay while they work out options.  Is this ideal?  No, and possibly illegal in some states or cities (consult your corporate Counsel before setting a program in place).  A better solution is to pay a living wage for your employees so they can sustain their housing. 
• No Judgement PTO:  Now for the more common, more often abused solution:  respecting time off.  Don’t require a reason for PTO to be taken; allow employees to take their PTO without feeling it needs to be justified.  They have earned that time off, so let them use it however they need.  If you are worried about projects or tasks falling by the wayside, you should
  • Have a solid way to track all tasks that need to be done (basic project and task management tools will take care of this)
  • Have a plan in place for maintenance mode: If a valuable employee is out of the office, have a plan to cover the basics of that role while they are out so they don’t come back to a massive backlog
• Support Life-Changing Events:  There are times when employees will have an event that will turn their lives upside down.  A new baby is expected, a family member passes, or even a massive accident that can dibilitate an employee for some time.  Have support plans in place to let them know that their jobs are NOT in jeopardy, and plan for coverage if they need time away.  These events can be sudden and take any employee from a higher level of motivation instantly to Survival mode.  Rally around them and give them all the support you can.  Work through how the change in their life will impact their career and how you can help them grow through the change.  

Safety

If your employees are looking for safety, they need some level of stability and reassurance in their future.  The best way to help build their resilience is to reinforce their levels of safety and security within their career, and encourage wellness practices.  For those in the Safety level this means allowing PTO without judgement, and flex time (where possible).  

• Flex Time: Now, we should take a minute to define what I mean by flex time:  Flex time means working when the person is most productive, and allowing them to balance out that work with their general life.  
• Work-Life Balance (For Real):  We hear alot about work-life balance, but that generally means “be available at all times.”  That’s not what we are talking about here.  To have proper balance, you need to make time for your life.  Employees are contracted for 40 hours of work a week, and any more than that is a gift (unless they are hourly, in which case it’s overtime).  Allowing employees to work when it’s most convenient for them means they can do the best possible job for you.  This also means if they are working over their usual hours one week, let them take that time off the next (or a subsequent week).  Give them time to focus on self-care, while you focus on the real Key Productivity Indicators (i.e., the work getting done).  
• Respect Boundaries:  Set and respect boundaries for your employees, and they will feel safe in their role.  Only contact them during working hours.  Respect their Slack status (in meeting, unavailable, offline) and don’t expect immediate responses.  Emails that can wait until Monday should be sent on Monday (you can schedule your email delivery, did you know that?).  If someone is on PTO, respect that they are on PTO and don’t try to contact them.  
• Plan for Time Off:  If you don’t have a back-up plan for someone who is on vacation/sick, then start planning for one.  You aren’t planning for a replacement, but have a plan for someone to pick up the slack or make the key decisions if a person is out of the office.  
• Encourage Safety in Groups Through ERGs:  Employee Resource Groups, which allow like-minded employees to build relationships with each other, provides an anchor in an organization when social relationships are still being formed.  Employee Resource Groups cost nothing to make (it’s just a group in Slack), provide an opportunity for folks and allies of a similar race, sex, belief, culture, sexual orientation, or neurodivergence to build a strong network.  You could also build similar groups for beer-brewing enthusiasts, role-playing gamers, sailers, surfers, etc.  By encouraging employees to bond within their existing social connections will help them feel more safe within the organization as a whole. 

Social

Social needs and motivation is a level where teams start to gel, folks want to work because they like hanging out with their teammates, and social acceptance has been achieved.  What starts with ERGs can move into more general acceptance within a group.  Wellness at this level means group events that are not work outings or team-building off-sites, but rather opportunities for shared interests to be enjoyed.  

• Expand ERGs:  Your Employee Resource Groups continue to play a role as they expand in building connections:  Sharing experiences and perspectives through team presentations in a safe place.  I had a conversation with someone in the Biotech industry, and she explained their approach.  Many of their researchers were neurodivergent, and felt uncomfortable socializing in a traditional “drinks after work” setting.  They did, however, enjoy role-playing games, so the company sponsored a role-playing social event to bring folks from multiple teams together in a comfortable setting for their researchers.  The result was phenomenal:  researchers could now relate to other team members because of their role-playing experiences, which built stronger social relationships across teams.  Their researcher retention went up significantly as a result.  
• Plan Social Events With Everyone’s Feedback:  Not everyone wants a pizza party and alcohol.  As a non-drinker myself, I always felt awkward around co-workers who were drinking.  If you had ever been a non-smoker in a smoking section (perhaps I’m aging myself here), you would know the feeling.  Social events can be dinners, or group service projects, or even team radio shows.  The thing is, everyone needs to be on board with the idea.  If folks aren’t, and are forced to participate, they feel excluded while participating.  Also know that everyone will not be one hundred percent on board with every idea, so cycle through ideas that engage as many people as possible.  For those who generally don’t participate, find out how you can help them feel more engaged with the events.  
• Team Empathy:  When folks are struggling, the last thing they want to worry about is whether or not they brought the cups for the social that night.  Encourage the team to be empathetic to those around them and recognize that, should someone not want to participate, it’s OK.  Invite them, welcome them, and let them know they are always welcomed in future.  Rejecting a social event isn’t a personal slight, so don’t take offense.  

Recognition/Esteem

It might sound odd to include this option as folks who are motivated at this level already have solid foundational needs met.  Yet, burnout can still happen if you are trying incredibly hard to be recognized.  Employees at this level are more likely to ignore their work/life balance in favor of work, put in long hours on projects, or take a lot on their plate in order to stand out.  Wellness programs at this level may take champions in leadership to encourage folks to find the time to decompress and relax.  

• Encourage PTO:  Encourage folks to take their time off to relax and unwind, even if it’s one day in the middle of the week.  Time off, unplugged from projects and work, can do wonders.  It’s also important to note that it takes time to unplug and decompress.  Travel, family, last-minute worries, etc. can all impact the ability to relax.  If one day isn’t going to do it, encourage longer breaks.  Be a champion, and lead by example.  When you are on PTO, do not be available, and let people know you are not available.  If you are outside the United States, this probably sounds obvious, but in the US there is an expectation of availability and an “always on” mentality.  Stop it, break that cycle, and you will build a more resilient culture.  
• Be Mindful of Recognition:  Now, you might think this is a plea to recognize everyone for something, but that’s not really that valuable.  Instead, be aware of which behaviors you recognize.  Is it more often folks who work longer or cut PTO short for a project?  Perhaps you tend to recognize folks for their willingness to take on multiple projects at once, more than would normally be expected.  The reasons and trends behind those recognitions are very visible to your team, and will dictate their behavior if they are motivated by recognition.  Either they will mimic the long hours and no PTO to their detriment to meet your recognition threshold, or they will stop being motivated by recognition all together, and therefore stop progressing through their journey.  Why you recognize folks matters, so try to make sure it’s for something real, rather than something that will impact their health.  

Purpose

When someone is driven by purpose, their whole perspective changes.  All of a sudden, they are focused on how they can contribute to the goals and values of the company.  That doesn’t mean, however, that they are all hunky-dory and don’t need wellness opportunities.  It does mean that their definition of wellness will change:  They will have a focus more on benefiting others rather than themselves.  Therefore, your wellness options would need to shift.  

• Charitable Giving:  Making the lives of others better becomes a foundational need for those who are looking to de-stress at the purpose level, and charitable giving is an excellent outlet.  Charitable giving can be as simple as providing charity donation options as part of Payroll or providing match programs for a person’s favorite charity.  How it’s done isn’t as important as providing the opportunity.  
• Volunteer Work:  Much like charitable giving, volunteer work gives employees the opportunity to share their unique talents with those who most need it.  They could be teaching for after-school programs, working in non-profit aid offices, or cleaning the beach with friends.  How they do it doesn’t matter, and even whether or not they are recognized shouldn’t matter, it’s the fact that they have a chance to give back to others that builds resilience.  
• Respect Anonymity:  Some people love being recognized for their charitable giving or volunteer work, and can’t wait to post about it on social media. These folks would love being recognized for their works within the company as well, often tying their events to their work personas.  There are others who do not like being recognized and prefer to give and volunteer without accolades.  Respect the desire for anonymity, and do not require people to record their volunteer hours or charitable giving amounts for corporate recognition.