Wanderlust (n): a strong desire for stressed-out American Employees to hightail it outta here

There's a new movie out this weekend (trailer above!) about two stressed out New Yorkers who both suffer identity crises when one of them becomes unemployed. Although most unemployed people don't necessarily visit a nudist colony in order to regain their sense of self (not that there's anything wrong with that ;) this movie does reinforce the fact that many Americans are overextending themselves to everyone's detriment.

Only 38% of Americans take all of their vacation days (which are measly to begin with compared to our coworkers in Europe!) and 72% of vacationing workers check in with the office at least occasionally. Taking vacations (even short 4-5 days) has been linked to better health and wellness on vacation as well as lasting effects, particularly when the employee DOES NOT work on vacation and DOES live in the moment and detach from work.

The economy still isn't where it needs to be, and employees are still being asked to do more and more with less and less. Many feel that they need to show they are committed to the organization by always be present and available, but what are we sacrificing in order to do what we think will help us keep our jobs? Our identity outside of work. All accounting and no play makes John, well, an accountant. Not an accountant who plays softball and is in a killer 80's cover band. Not a dad, masterchef and football coach who moonlights as an accountant, but an accountant. Now this may be my Gen Y talking, but being defined by your job will only lead to heartbreak. Particularly if the one thing that defines you is pulled out from under your feet.


So, in summation, I'm probably going to go see Wanderlust this weekend, and please, remember to diversify your identity portfolio, people!

New Year, New Stressors: Preventing Stress and Burnout in 2012

As we're all getting ready to head back into the office (hopefully) refreshed from our vacations, it may be a bit overwhelming to think about catching up on our 'email jail' and the workloads awaiting our attention.  Now before we all start hyperventilating--there's hope! Although workloads don't look like they're going down anytime soon, new research is shedding new light on other factors within our control that can help decrease workplace stress and lead to more centered, engaged employees.

A 2005 National Institute of Justice study found that heavy caseloads, workplace conflicts, and low pay led to stress and high turnover among parole and probation officers, but researchers out of UC Berkeley were more interested in the individuals who just happened to be thriving in the same environment. What makes some people completely stressed and burnout while others are still engaged and enjoy their jobs? Well, what the UC Berkeley researchers found was that empathy played a huge part in engagement and de-stressing.

Results from this research haven't been released yet, but the authors (Dr.'s Ekman & Halpern) recommend working on cultivating empathy (understanding the experience of others - great videos on how to develop empathy here) in yourself and in your employees in order to help decrease stress and increase engagement.

In addition,  a recent study out of Tel Aviv University studied the effects of job control, workload, and supervisor and co-worker support on morbidity and a variety of health outcomes by following employees' health and job measures over a 20 year period (Shirom, 2011). While little to no effects were found for job control, workload, and supervisor support, having  strong peer social support-which could represented how well a participant is socially integrated into his/her workplace--was positively related to lower morbidity and disease risks.  And another study found co-worker support to be linked to lower blood pressure and a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease (Karlin, 2003).

How can you work to empathize with co-workers or clients and build your social support systems in 2012?

References:

Karlin, W., Brondolo, E., & Schwartz, J. (2003).  Workplace social support and ambulatory cardiovascular activity in New York City traffic agents. Psychosomatic Medicine 65, 167-176.

Shirom, A., Toker, S., & Alkaly, Y. (2011). Work-based predictors of mortality: A 20-year follow-up of healthy employees. Health Psychology 30 (3) 268-275.

Be. Well. Now.