Within the healthcare industry, much attention is paid to rates of physician burnout. Among other factors, administrative duties and patient overload contribute to high levels of physician burnout, but a satisfaction survey administered at the Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine annual conference in San Diego found that 57 percent of clinicians said they feel more attached to their computer than their patients on “most days.”
Burnout is present on the executive level, too.
Ora Pescovitz, MD, former CEO of Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Health System and executive vice president of medical affairs of the university, announced her resignation as the system’s leader in March. At the Becker’s Hospital Review CEO and CFO roundtable earlier this month, Dr. Pescovitz discussed the importance of being happy at work and maintaining a life outside of it.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as work life balance, because I only think you get one life. But I will say that I do think it’s very important to have a life outside of your work; I do believe all successful people are happy people.”
Dr. Pescovitz then spelled out her own personal rule of thumb for measuring work-life happiness. “I’ll give you my principle of my four Ps for what should happen if you’re an executive and you feel at some point in your life that you’re not happy. If you’re not content, that’s good because it pushes you to drive harder, but you must be happy. So when you’re not happy, what should you do? You should push really hard to change the circumstances that make you not happy. But if that doesn’t work and you don’t succeed in changing the circumstances, then you should try to put up with it, which means you should change yourself. And if that doesn’t work, then you’ve got to go to the third P, which means you need to pull out. And regardless, you need to play.”
If your work life is consuming your at home, weekend and vacation lives, there is a problem. While it might seem like taking a break or shutting off the computer will set you behind the rest, in the long run, it’s in employees’ and leaders’ best interest to maintain a healthy amount of free-time outside of the job.
While everyone doesn’t have the time or flexibility to start practicing yoga every morning, there are things employees and managers can do to reduce stress and prevent burnout.
According to Forbes, NIU’s Professor Barber outlined a few suggestions for employees to address the telepressure that could be contributing to stress.
- Turn off sound and visual notifications on personal devices so you don’t feel compelled to open and respond to every message.
- Set specific times of day when you check email, and stick to them. Let coworkers and others in communication know when you routinely check and respond to emails.
- If it’s possible, establish a ‘no interruption time’ to completely disconnect, including shutting down all communication devices. Professor Barber suggests doing this for an hour in the work day when you’re cognitively at your best to focus on more difficult tasks.
Although not always deliberately, employers often contribute to the telepressure employees feel by implying they want and expect employees to always be responsive. To remedy this issue, Professor Barber suggests:
- Establish expectations and rules for email etiquette in the workplace, such as responding to all emails within 48 hours during business hours.
- Explicitly convey when a response to an email is expected.
- Only flag truly urgent emails as “urgent.”
