In a recent post, we looked at how the workplace impacts mental health. I mentioned that both employers and employees have a role in happiness at work.
I want to dive deeper for both of those roles.
A recent Harvard Business Review article discusses six causes of burnout:
- Unsustainable workload
- Perceived lack of control
- Insufficient rewards for effort
- Lack of a supportive community
- Lack of fairness
- Mismatched values and skills.
The article mentions several ways to combat the problem, including a helpful decision tree on when to have a meeting and at what level (time, audio vs. video, etc.).
The author also mentions empathetic bosses and making it safe to discuss mental health–all tied to the sense of safety we discussed last time.
(Less helpful is the overall advice of “Having a manageable workload.” Some of my clients would love to hire more employees and spread the workload around, but they can’t find anybody willing to work. So there is skepticism around mental health in the workplace being “that bad.” In its place, focusing employees on key tasks can help people feel like they are winning at the things that matter. See our podcast series on the 4 Disciplines of Execution.)
But I’d like to focus on another of the recommendations: “Feeling a sense of purpose.” Certainly, managers have a role in pointing out how staff’s efforts tie in to the big picture for the organization, or highlighting the impact they have had on customers. For instance, just taking time in meetings to read aloud customer comments helps.
But surely there is a role for the employee in creating meaning at work. This ties directly to the last post’s discussion of “pleasure and purpose.”
If you doubt me, consider those incredibly productive monks of the Middle Ages. They formed small communities that had to be self-sufficient. They were devoted to prayer, to studying the Bible, to encouraging each other’s faith–and they had to figure out how to stay warm and dry with something in their bellies.
In other words, there was a “Protestant work ethic” long before Protestants. Rodney Stark points out that many monasteries were dedicated to large-scale production and used water power to make flour or cloth or leather, etc. They specialized production and bought what they didn’t have. Wealth increased.
How did the monks become so efficient, adding so much value to their communities? You can partly trace it to the Rule of Saint Benedict, guiding principles for faith communities from the father of Western monasticism.
One of the rules happens to be the motto of Clan Ramsay: Ora et labora. “Pray and work.”
Ora et labora. “Pray and work.”
You’ve perhaps heard the story of the sisters Mary and Martha. Jesus came to visit them, and Martha busied herself in serving their guest. Mary, meanwhile, sat at Jesus’s feet, listening to his teaching. Frustrated, Martha accused Jesus of not caring that Mary wasn’t helping; she said he should tell her to help.
Jesus’s gentle rebuke rings true for our day: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Prayer centers us on what is necessary, what is important–the eternal things that are good, versus the temporal things that make us anxious and troubled. (Perhaps Plato would have agreed: He thought true wisdom was to be found not on earth, focusing on all the things around us that constantly change, but to instead contemplate ideals, those things that are eternal.)
And work, in turn, can be the living out of that prayer. Paul had a command for bondservants (a kind of slave of the time): “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
Free people were not exempt either: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
A Polish cardinal after World War II explained that work itself is a form of prayer. While making it clear that it is not substitute for prayer, there are two recommendations for workers.
Rest. Work has limits–God rested on the seventh day after his work of creation. This doesn’t mean zoning out and distracting ourselves with amusements. No all-weekend binges, or every night video gaming, or checking social media constantly. In an upcoming post, we’ll discuss the Greek word that gives us “school” but is better translated “restful contemplation.”
Silence. In the comedy “Office Space,” the main character survives his meaningless IT job in a cubicle farm. By the movie’s end, he finds himself working outside, part of the construction crew hired to clean up his old workplace, burned to the ground.
“This isn’t so bad, huh? Making bucks, getting exercise, working outside?” It is perhaps the first moment of peace in the entire film. (And bonus: It features “Peanut Vendor,” a song you just don’t want to end.)
We can’t all work outside and tune out everything around us. But we can protect time to let the dust settle.
So, go get some rest and unplug from the chatter. But note that this really works when you’ve been able to connect the dots between the activity of your work and who you really are–in other words, what you were made to do.
Some of my most fulfilling work has come from seeing clients reach clarity about their values and purpose, then put a plan in place to live that out.
If you need some clarity to improve mental health in the workplace, let’s talk.