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Welcome back to Count Me In,

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IMA's podcast about all things affecting
the accounting and finance world.

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I'm your host Mitch Roshong and
this is episode 136 of our series.

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Many would describe the global business
environment over the last year and a

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half as rather turbulent. From
accelerated growth due to technology,

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followed by the effects of COVID-19,

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burnout has become a very common
theme in the workplace. David Shar,

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business psychology expert,

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and founder of Illuminate PMC joins
us to talk about what businesses and

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people can do to avoid burnout and
find real meaning in their work.

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Keep listening as we head
over to the conversation now.

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So David, thanks so much for coming on.

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Burnout is a word that I've
been hearing a lot lately,

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especially with people coming on the
other side of the pandemic and coming out

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of their homes a little bit more,

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but so many people have been stuck in
front of computer screens in their homes

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for so long. Can you just kind
of talk about what is burnout?

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Yeah. First of all, thank you
so much for having me Adam. So

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burnout is definitely becoming
a little bit more of a

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popular topic. Fortunate for me,

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unfortunate for everyone,
I guess. And it is,

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becoming more and more universal,

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especially with what everyone has
gone through and were not done,

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like you said,

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as we are now leaving our homes
and going back to work and,

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many of us will be teleworking
and be on fully virtual teams,

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but whatever that means going on to that,

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and I know it's a horrible
term because it's used so much,

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but to that new normal,

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we're not out of the
weeds yet. This is when,

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we're all going to have to start
to really cope with what we've

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gone through and burnout

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by definition is typically
defined as having

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three pieces to it.

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The first one is this emotional
exhaustion and emotional exhaustion

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is often misunderstood. It's
not physical exhaustion,

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it's not mental exhaustion,

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but it does lead to those things and even

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lead to physical ailment,

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but it starts as emotional exhaustion.

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The second piece is a general cynicism

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of work and,

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that's where we start really putting

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up barriers between ourselves and
our coworkers and our clients and

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if we have employees between
ourselves and our employees,

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we have this general sense of cynicism
and we separate ourselves from

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our work as much as possible, mentally.

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And then the final piece of,

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burnout would be a reduced sense of

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personal accomplishment. And what that is,

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is that we feel like we're turning
our wheels twice as fast and getting

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half as much done, or we feel
like we're putting in the effort,

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but not getting the reward
and maybe that means

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the compensation, dollars
and cents compensation,

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or maybe it just means the
recognition or the positive feelings

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or whatever it is we're putting
X in and we expect to get Y

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out and there's an imbalance there,

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which is either real or just
perceived, but either way

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it will take you to the brink of burnout.

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So as you described all of those three
things, I know that I've been there,

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I'm sure you've been there, I'm sure
many of our listeners have been there.

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What can business leaders
do to prevent that burnout?

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Yeah. Another great question. So,
right. We've all sort of been there,

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especially over the past
year and a half. You

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know, who hasn't felt extremely cynical,

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who hasn't felt emotionally exhausted
as they're trying to learn to

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do their job, in a new reality
and, you know, within accounting,

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a lot of your work could be done
virtually and a lot of you may

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have been already working
primarily virtually,

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but even those individuals didn't
necessarily have their children at

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home trying to homeschool their
kids, you know, at the same time,

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that's incredibly difficult. There are,

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there were incredible
barriers that we made work

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harder. And, so there's a lot that can
be done from a leadership perspective,

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as well as the individual's perspective.

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But the biggest thing that I would
say from the very beginning is

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we need to reconnect with
what it is that we do, right?

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Like, we need to reconnect
with our proverbial why,

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like what is our firm all about,
what is our business all about?

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We need to be able to reconnect
with that because that's what

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we've gotten away from.

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We get so lost in the weeds and

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so overwhelmed and distracted that
we lose sight of maybe it's the

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client interactions, maybe it's
the mission of the organization,

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maybe it's a difference that we're
making and suddenly instead of all

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of those things,

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it's just spreadsheets on the computer
and it becomes very easy to lose sight

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of those other things and so
we need to take away the noise

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and create the sense of why again,

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and we need to be able to do it in a way

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that, brings people,

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brings people back mentally and also
gives them a sense of control in

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their lives again. Work
during the pandemic,

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could have been part of the problem,

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or it could have been an
escape from the problem,

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depending on how much control
employees felt when they went

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to work or virtually signed into work.
If they felt in control of their work,

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then when their entire lives
felt out of control work was

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the haven where they were still in
control. But if that wasn't the case,

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then work was just part of the problem.

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So let's dig into that, finding your
why a little bit more, you know,

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sometimes people have very mundane jobs,

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when you're first starting out in
accounting, you know, sometimes you just,

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you know, kind of crunching numbers.

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How are people supposed to find meaning
in that work and connect with that why,

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if they're so far down?

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Yeah, it's

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really interesting. So my first
job, my first real job was,

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I was a kennel worker. I wanted
to be a veterinarian and,

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turned out that,

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to be a bio major pre-veterinary
you needed chemistry and physics.

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So I'm like, nope. And ironically,

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I switched to the business college
and the very first class I took,

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I'm like yes,

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I'm getting away from all the math
and the very first class I took was

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accounting I. So you gotta be kidding me,

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but suddenly when you took moles off
the end of a number and you put a dollar

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sign in front of it made
a lot more sense to me.

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But yeah,

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so my very first job was working in
these kennels and I was pre-veterinary,

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I wanted to be a vet and I
remember one day as a young man,

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I was literally pooper scooping,

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like picking up poop from the floor
of a kennel. And I was doing this,

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I was working on alongside a coworker and
I remember looking over and seeing her

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face and realizing that the two of
us were doing completely different

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jobs, the same exact tasks, but
completely different things.

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She was picking up poop. I was,

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I was creating a cleaner and safer
environment for these sick animals.

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You know, I was caring for animals while
she was cleaning up poop, you know,

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and it was just in the mindset.

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It was in how we saw our jobs and

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when you're in accounting
or any profession,

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you have a choice in how you see
the actual why of what you do,

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how much you connect with that.

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And we typically find
careers where we have some

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sort of role model that we look
to somebody that we see that

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we're like, yeah that's
what I want from my career.

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And there's usually not that much of a
separation between our career and life

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outside of our career. We look
for significance in our lives,

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we look for significance in our career,

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and that might mean something
different to each of us.

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Maybe want to make a difference
with the organizational mission.

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Maybe you want to be able to, you know,

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afford to travel around the world and
work from wherever, whatever it is,

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you're looking for
something from your work.

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Burnout occurs when you suddenly
don't find that anymore.

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When you realize, oh my God,

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there's so much bureaucracy and
interpersonal conflict, which by the way,

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over the pandemic working
virtually it's like,

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how often are we distracted by
the amount of commas that our

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coworker uses their emails,

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trying to figure out if they're
angry or just crazy, you know,

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like we get into these
things that distract us.

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So just because elements of our work

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are mundane,

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does not mean that they are trivial,

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right? Just because something is
mundane does not make it trivial.

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It is only trivial if we can't
connect the dots to how this

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ultimately affects the
final user, the client,

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how are we helping our client in the end?

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Because while you may be
just crunching numbers in

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Excel or working your way through
QuickBooks or whatever you accountants

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do, right? To me as my
accountant you're not doing that,

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you're helping me and my family
survive and thrive through

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and through helping me manage
by my budget and my taxes and my

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business. I need that.

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And if you can connect with that and
understand the difference you're making in

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my life and what that advisory
role means to me as your

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client,

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that's very different
than just picking up poop.

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It's very different than just
putting numbers in a spreadsheet.

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That's so true. So if we
take a wider look, you know,

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from a leadership perspective. What signs
should leaders be looking for to see,

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you know, are my employees
going through a burnout problem?

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One of the leading signs of burnout
would be turnover intention.

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There are a lot of reports coming
out on turnover intention right now.

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Microsoft,

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I believe just came out with a

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study, a global study that suggests
that 41% of employees are looking

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to leave their employer
within the next year globally,

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41%. That is an incredibly scary number.

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Most of the time when leaders
look at intent to turnover

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or turnover intention numbers,

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they think that's a scary number
because that's going to be an indicator

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of how many people leave.

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I would argue that the people who
intend to turnover and then leave,

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those people are the
least of your worries.

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It's the people who intend to turn
over and stay that you should be really

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worried about.

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Because we know that turnover
intention is related to burnout

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and related to both of those,

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is this decrease in productivity
and efficiency. This

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increase in toxicity, right?

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We know that burnout is
incredibly contagious and so when

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you see people are trying
to leave the organization,

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but they're handcuffed to the organization
maybe you're paying more than any of

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the competitors and you think that's a
great thing because you're holding on to

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people, but is it a great thing
if people that want to leave can't

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afford to leave. So we need to look
at things like turnover intention.

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We need to look at things like increases

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in conflict, like people taking
much longer to get back to you,

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you know,

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via email or whatever messaging
services that you use to communicate

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with your people.
Absenteeism, presenteeism,

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people who start not showing up,

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taking more sick days and also
people who show up, but in body only.

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There's a lot of warning signs.

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The number one thing leaders
need to do is to listen.

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They need to actively listen and when we

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go through crises, oftentimes
our reaction to that,

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we think that we have
to take action, right?

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And we have to do,

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but again part of that
burnout recipe is this

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loss of control. It's
this learned helplessness,

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which is also a leading
precursor to depression, right?

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And so what that means is that
our actions don't seem to have

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the reactions from the
universe that we expect.

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And so we feel helpless,
it's learned helplessness.

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So what leaders should be doing is
empowering their people and listening to

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their people,

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as opposed to trying to do all the
talking and the doing, you know,

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they really need to be taking the
calls of their people right now.

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Yeah, listening seems to be that
key element just for any leader,

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are you hearing what your people are
saying? Because if you're not listening,

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how can you know what's going on?
And how can you be productive?

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And if you're not listening
and burnouts happening,

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it's ultimately affecting your bottom
line, but it's also affecting people.

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And if the people hurting,
then the business will fail.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So after listening, what's the next
step you take? Cause you're listening,

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you're seeing, okay people are burned
out. What do you do after that?

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One of the things that you can do,

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which I highly recommend is
to set up boundaries. One

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of the things that we saw over
the past year and a half is

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that, people are really horrible at
setting up their own boundaries, right?

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You know,

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I used to talk about
work-life balance as something

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that was a myth that
couldn't exist after the

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invention of the iPhone, right? Because,

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I mean you take work everywhere with
you as long as your iPhone is in your

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pocket and you take family life and all
the other outside elements with you to

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work as long as your
iPhone is in your pocket.

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And so work-life balance has not been,

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an actual, you know,
attainable thing forever.

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But especially when
you're working from home,

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if you don't have barriers set up

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between your home life and your work life,

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if you don't have boundaries,

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then it's all going to become
intertwined and there's going to be

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a lot of stress and
eventual burnout there.

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What employers can do,

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what managers can do is don't trust your
people to set up these boundaries on

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their own and don't trust them to do it
just because you suggest that they do

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it, there's a big difference
between, you know,

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policy and culture. We can tell
people what the policies are,

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that's not what the policies actually
are. How are the policies lived? You know,

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so we can tell people, you
need to set up boundaries,

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but if we don't push that
and not just push it, but,

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live it ourselves,

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model it by putting our cell
phone aside between certain hours,

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et cetera,

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our people are not going to do that
themselves and we know this because the

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early data coming out from the past
year and a half is that people have been

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working extraordinarily
longer hours since the

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pandemic started. Since
they've been working from home,

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they've been putting in more
hours, not less. And so,

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and later hours of working into the night.

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And so we need to protect
our people from that.

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They need that time to
psychologically recharge.

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So that is one of the many things
we can do. And then beyond that,

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we need to show support.

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We know that both emotional support and

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also more instrumental support
are extremely important.

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You know, being able to support people
by being a sounding board for them,

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listening to them when
they're stressed out,

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listen to what they have to
tell you, giving them advice,

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but also jumping in there and helping
them with their workload if they need it,

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helping them figure out, you
know, how to balance things.

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All of that is incredibly
important and highly

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correlated with burnout. If
people are not getting support,

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they're much more likely to burnout.

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So David,

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I'd like to just kind of wrap up our
conversation and if you could just kind of

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give your insight of what you think
the long terms effects of this whole

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COVID-19, people working from
home and this burnout, what

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long-term effects will it have
on the world of work in general?

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Yeah. So I think that,

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we're already seeing it and what's
being termed the great resignation

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that we're looking at these 41%, you know,

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some industries are way over that
in terms of turnover intention.

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People are looking for
change and, you know,

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as somebody who goes into organizations
and helps produce change within

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organizations,

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I can tell you that it is a rare day that
people are looking for change. Usually

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people will push up against change,

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but change came and found us and
we don't want to go back to the

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way things used to be.

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And so people are looking for change in
their life because they've been able to

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reevaluate their lives and their
relationship with work over the past

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year and a half. And so I

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strongly believe that we are going
to see a lot of turnover and a

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lot of churning with employment. Leaders

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need to invest in their people now and

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when I say invest,

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I mean emotionally invest
in their people now.

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Give them a reason to come
back and to be productive and

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to reengage with work.
And what is that reason?

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It depends on your organizational
culture and on the needs and wants

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of your employees and only
they hold that ultimate answer.

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And so, again,

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it comes back to listening
and understanding that

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now with so many people going virtual,

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you're not just competing
with the firm down the road,

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you are competing nationally,
if not internationally,

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because so many other firms
have entered your marketplace

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because now they are looking to build
fully virtual teams of people that can

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work right from your backyard.

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And so it's incredibly
important to be investing in the

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well-being of our people and to reconnect

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with the ultimate meaning,

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that meaningfulness of the
work that your organization

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does.

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This has been Count Me In,

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00:20:53,820 --> 00:20:58,080
IMA's podcast providing you
with the latest perspectives
of thought leaders from

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00:20:58,081 --> 00:20:59,730
the accounting and finance profession.

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00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:03,180
If you like what you heard and you'd
like to be counted in for more relevant

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00:21:03,181 --> 00:21:05,910
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visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.