Hey !

I've been thinking of ways to give you as much content as I possibly could in as much of a condensed form as I could so I'll be trying out different formats and see whether this works or not? So here goes!

Burnout is a bummer! So how do we identify burnout in ourselves and in others?

If there was anything that COVID-19 has amplified in the state of businesses, it was that work plays a major role in our mental and physical health! The pandemic has led to an increase in employee stress levels, depression, and anxiety. The lack of social interactions and the increase in financial and professional uncertainty are only two contributors to these spikes in stress. Here are some amazing articles that I found so helpful:

1. This article by Shiran Yaroslavsky (CEO and cofounder of Cassiopeia) and Silja Litvin (PhD candidate UCL) does a great job of providing three tips on how to identify that your coworker may be struggling with mental health! The reason I think this article is so good is that it looks at subtle signs that we may have all given ourselves without knowing it! Click here to read more.
2. Now what if you're the one feeling burnt out? Chances are you're trying to find ways to deal with this right? Well burnout expert Kelly Bonner lists a number of ways that a leader could deal with burnout! She also dives deep into an underlying issue that a lot of workplaces may have misdiagnosed as burnout instead of identifying the real cause. Read the whole article to get that juicy part in the end 😉. Click here to read more.
3. Everyone thinks that the only modern solution to burnout is to stay away from the obviously toxic work environment right? Well what if our utopian dream of working from home has its own set of stress and health problems we'd need to look for? According to Gwen Moran, a self-proclaimed long-time WFHer, there are still ways you could get a health scare from working at home! She brings us tried and true tips, that she had to learn the hard way, on how to reduce burnout and other stressors out of your utopia! I loved this article because it links things like "Finding Calm" to health and well-being that its funny to me how the simple things truly make a difference 🤷🏽‍♂️. Click here to read more.

How Healthy is the Workplace of the Future?

I've joined a couple of discussions on what the future of the workplace would look like. A current professor of mine, Dr. Kevin Teoh, is really passionate about having a sustainable workforce via health interventions that could revolutionize the way we work, even today. Even though I may not follow Dr. Teoh and become an Occupational Health Psychologist, I see the need for more awareness on health issues in the workplace!

1. This article by Prof. Kelly of MIT suggests that organizations could do better in promoting healthier lifestyles within their workforce. Hint: it doesn't involve big spending on well-being programs! What Prof. Kelly suggests are three simple solutions that any organization could implement, namely: Giving workers more control over how they do their jobs; Cutting back on overloading your employees; and lastly, creating better social relationships in the workplace. ⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ for this article! Click here to read more.
2. As I may have mentioned before, the future of work will eventually involve a remote workforce. The pandemic has given us a glimpse of what working from home feels like. If there is one thing that we learnt from Gwen's article is that we need to be able to separate our work from our private and Diana Shi provides some insight into how to do this. She (Diana) actually ran an experiment at home to some success. I'd love for you to read her story about transitioning out of your work mindset into a more comfortable one. Click here to read more!

Final thoughts

So here I end this newsletter. Please let me know what you think of this format? How were the articles?

I've been thinking of trying my hand in podcasting but I have no idea about where to start 🤦‍♂️ If there is anyone who knows anyone that knows a morsel of this please let me know!

Keep on rocking on,

Alfred.