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HR Work Burnout: Causes & Solutions
112 Plays1 year ago
Is HR burning out your workforce? In this eye-opening episode by CPO PLAYBOOK, Felicia Shakiba turns to Julie Turney, Founder & CEO of HR at Heart Consulting, to explore the critical issues of HR burnout, legal risks, and ethical frameworks in today’s organizational landscape. With 98% of HR professionals experiencing burnout, neglecting HR support can lead to severe consequences. Julie unpacks recent legal cases and offers actionable strategies for creating a supportive HR culture, mitigating burnout, and ensuring ethical frameworks in HR. Learn how to navigate HR leadership challenges, foster employee well-being, and stay compliant with workplace ethics. If you're looking to drive positive change in your HR team, this episode is a must-listen!
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Transcript
Introduction to CPO Playbook Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello everyone. I'm Felicia Shakiba, and you're listening to the CPO Playbook Podcast. Join me and my guests as we feature insightful conversations with HR leaders, people scientists, and executives from diverse industries and functions, offering valuable perspectives on the future of work.
00:00:23
Speaker
Discover a unique outlook on navigating the complexities of the modern-day working world, exploring innovative strategies in talent management and corporate culture from the chief people officer's perspective. Tune in to stay ahead of the game when it comes to all things people related.
HR Burnout and Fisher Connectors Settlement
00:00:45
Speaker
In February 2023, a significant $460,000 settlement, collected by an HR professional with manufacturer Fisher Connectors, as agreed upon by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sheds light on the ramifications of not having dedicated HR support for the modern people operations function.
00:01:09
Speaker
This specific instance exemplifies the legal and financial risks organizations face without appropriate HR support for their PeopleOps team. The absence of dedicated HR support contributes to persuasive burnout among HR professionals, as highlighted by a global HR burnout study where 98% of HR professionals globally report experiencing burnout.
00:01:38
Speaker
Financially, organizations incur higher recruitment costs and legal expenses due to burnout repercussions. Ethically, the dilemma is underscored by discriminatory practices, emphasizing the urgent need for a more supportive organizational framework.
Guest Introduction: Julie Turney
00:01:55
Speaker
Moreover, the lack of checks and balances becomes evident when the Chief People Officer or Head of People faces personal challenges with no designated reporting avenue, potentially compromising people operations processes and the organization as a whole. Today I have a special guest, founder and CEO of HR at HR Consulting, Julie Turney.
00:02:24
Speaker
Julie, thank you so much for joining me today. It's a pleasure to be here, Felicia. Thank you for having
Ensuring HR Values and Checks
00:02:29
Speaker
me. The Fisher Connectors case highlights the potential legal and financial risks of not having appropriate HR support. So how can organizations ensure those proper checks and balances within their HR processes to prevent discriminatory practices and legal complications?
00:02:51
Speaker
That's such a really good question, Felicia. Thank you for asking that. And I think that Fisher Connector case is a clear description for us of what it's like when we face discrimination in the workplace. But knowing that it's something that could happen from an HR perspective as an HR being discriminated against as well. When it comes to diversity and equity and inclusion in the workplace, I think it's important for organizations not just to talk the talk, but to walk the talk.
00:03:21
Speaker
Because so many times we have situations where we put out there to the public that we are an inclusive workplace, we're an equal opportunity employer. But then when it comes to actually what we live and experience within the organization, it is a challenge. And so we want to make sure that as HR, we're making and holding leadership accountable to actually live in that value.
00:03:48
Speaker
and that it's not just something they say, but it's an actual value that we do like to have persons in our space who are diverse and smart and talented and gifted, no matter where they come from, no matter how old they are. We want to make sure that they
00:04:03
Speaker
feel as though they belong in the workplace. And then I think the last thing would be to ensure that as we have those conversations, it is something that is binding throughout the ecosystem of the organization. So from the recruitment process through to the learning and development growth process of employees, that everyone gets the same opportunity. And that's something that is inbred in the culture of the organization.
00:04:30
Speaker
and having that equality for HR professionals is what you're saying.
Mitigating HR Burnout Strategies
00:04:34
Speaker
Absolutely, yes. One of the things that have popped up recently is the prevalence of burnout among HR professionals, including your own experience. Yeah.
00:04:46
Speaker
So, what strategies do you recommend for organizations to proactively address and mitigate burnout within their people operations teams? According to the data, it tells us that 98% of HR professionals globally are burned out. We've seen that in Forbes articles. It was a survey that was done by a company called Work Vivo.
00:05:09
Speaker
and in surveying those HR professionals they found that a lot of them are burned out, a lot of them 71% of those people who were surveyed were looking and ready to leave their organizations and not feeling that leadership support that they should feel and experience. My encouragement to organizations again is always audit the work,
00:05:32
Speaker
It starts with the work. A lot of times we think putting things in place like well-being programs are good, yes. But we're just adding band-aids versus actually looking to solve the problem. If the work is too much, people will continue to burn out. If the stress is the same, people are going to continue to burn out. So it starts with assessing work.
00:05:56
Speaker
assessing the team, making sure that there is equality of work across the team, making sure that everyone feels like they have work that they can actually handle and manage is the first step. Then we can start to look at things like resourcing. Maybe people need extra support. Maybe they need an additional person in the team. Maybe they need tools. Maybe they need technology.
00:06:26
Speaker
Maybe they need some kind of upskilling in order to help them to manage the workload or the change in dynamics that occur in HR because it's an ever evolving profession. And then I think we can deal with the other things, which is giving people the coping mechanisms when they do feel stressed out, giving them support with therapy, well-being programs,
00:06:50
Speaker
I also think that from a benefits perspective, I am a huge advocate that HR professionals, I think every HR professional should have access to therapy and should have access to a coach to help them nurture and develop their HR careers. But it starts with me for the work.
Auditing HR Work for Stress Management
00:07:11
Speaker
I want to talk a little bit about that auditing process that you mentioned. I'm thinking, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that auditing means understanding whether or not something is working for those HR professionals. Are they being relieved from burnout, yes or no? And then the way we do that, would it be by surveys? How would you recommend to collect that data? Is it qualitative and quantitative? How often? Who collects it?
00:07:41
Speaker
Yeah. Remember first that HR is a very dynamic profession. And if you are a generalist, you could be performing anywhere between five to 12 functions in any given quarter, whether it's manpower planning or learning and development, recruitment, talent management, payroll benefits.
00:08:03
Speaker
You can be doing all of those things. I think it's important to look at those functions and see which piece of the function is the heaviest for that person. And then I think it's also important to look at their, how the person feels about the work that they're doing. Because remember stress or burnout is something that happens over time because of repetitive stress. So what are the activities that the professional is performing heighten the stress?
00:08:33
Speaker
So yes, there's going to be some kind of monitoring, some kind of surveying that's going to need to take place.
00:08:39
Speaker
Is it for most HR professionals, they don't like conflict. So it could be the industrial relations or the employee relations piece of the work that is stressing them out. It could be the negotiation piece. It could be the mediation piece of the work that's stressing them out. So it's important to find out which of the functions, the parts of the functions are stressing out that person the most.
00:09:03
Speaker
and which parts of the activities they're doing the most, and then make a fair assessment of, is it fair? Is it equitable that they should be doing all of these things? Where could we ease some of the pain? Because we're always trying to ease the pain, right? But we want to do it in a way that's practical and solutions driven for the HR professional or the HR team. So that's how I would edit the work.
00:09:30
Speaker
And I want to be very clear about what is the difference between saying, oh, someone is burned out and there's too much stress or too much of XYZ activity that they're doing that keeps them from doing their job well versus thinking, oh, this person can't do the job or this person doesn't have the skill set to make this job work or to perform at their best. How do you differentiate between those pieces?
00:09:59
Speaker
I think it's really important to think about when that person is at their best performing that particular function. When they're at their best and they're performing that particular function, what does success look like? Are they able to do the job well? If the answer is yes, then it's not. The challenge is not the actual work. The challenge is when given additional tasks on top of that,
00:10:28
Speaker
can they manage the additional tasks and still do that piece very well? And if the answer is no, then the question becomes, what can we take away so that person can do that particular task again very well?
Ethical Frameworks in HR
00:10:45
Speaker
And then who do we give it to? Does that make sense?
00:10:48
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Now, ethical considerations play a significant role in HR practices, to say the least. How can organizations, leaders establish and reinforce those ethical frameworks within their HR departments, ensuring there's fair treatment, not just among the employees, but for them as well?
00:11:12
Speaker
I want to say this first and foremost, I think that every HR professional or every HR team has a responsibility to have a set of values that guides them.
00:11:25
Speaker
as an individual team, if you're a department one, you as an HR professional should have a set of principles that guides you because that's where ethics comes from, right? It's about a set of principles that guide you. They come in two ways. They come from you intrinsically and depending on the way that you were raised as a child and how you live your life as an adult. And then they also come from
00:11:51
Speaker
the culture of the organization and how you're trying to make the organization a better place. So I think as organizations seek to create values and mission statements and all those things, nice things that you put up on the wall in your organization, it all comes back to do you actually live those values? And do you make sure that everyone in the organization is living those values?
00:12:17
Speaker
And I think also it's important to have a space where you can say, if we're not living those values, we're going to call you out. If you as HR are not taking your vacation, for example, but you're putting everyone on to tell everyone to take their PTO, but you're not taking your PTO, are you living the value that the organization may have around taking care of yourself and being always ready and refreshed to do good work?
00:12:47
Speaker
know you're not your leadership when recognising that
00:12:51
Speaker
should be able to call you out on that. But I also think, too, it's tied to building good relationships with stakeholders. And I think a lot of times the missing piece for HR people is that they don't feel the support of leadership. And so I think it's important for leadership to check themselves. And I always say, check on your HR people, because chances are you think they're OK, but they're not. And they're just going along, and they're going with the flow, they're going with the motions.
00:13:21
Speaker
they are struggling in different ways and I think it's important to keep checking in with your HR teams to make sure that they are okay and that when you do that you can easily recognize if you're building good relationships with your HR team when something is wrong and when they're not living those values and when they are not being good to themselves then you can call them out on it.
00:13:44
Speaker
there is a financial impact of burnout and it includes higher recruitment costs and legal expenses that could be wildly out of the range that most leaders think about, right?
Therapy and Coaching for HR Wellness
00:14:01
Speaker
And so what strategies
00:14:04
Speaker
can organizations implement to invest in the well-being of their HR teams and mitigate these costs in the long run? When you think about benefits and well-being programs, there's such a big range that it would be difficult to figure out where to prioritize. So where would you prioritize that investment? I'm going to be very biased here. I would make the investment in therapy and coaching. Having gone through what I did in my HR career
00:14:33
Speaker
I really value the connection that I made when I got the right therapist and the connection that I made when I got the right coach. It's very easy to purchase services like Calm and Headspace and all those other good feel apps. It's good to make investments in EAP programs.
00:14:59
Speaker
But a lot of times when I work with HR professionals and I ask them if they are actually engaged in the EAP program, how many of them actually use it? Maybe 1% of them use it. So a lot of times the EAP programs that HR themselves work very hard to put together for the organization, they don't tap into it themselves. And I've said this on numerous
00:15:27
Speaker
shows numerous places and spaces. I do believe that therapy and coaching should be a part of the total compensation package for HR. I think it should be a given because we deal with so many different things that impact our mental health on any given day.
00:15:46
Speaker
As I said, burnout is something that occurs because of repetitive stress that is not dealt with over time. So you are dealing with a melting pot of crazy over time. If you think of when an earthquake happens, right, you could have plates shifting and rubbing against each other in the earth for years. And it just takes one particular shift to actually cause that earthquake. But it's been years of tension.
00:16:16
Speaker
that's been building up there. And if you have HR professionals in your organization dealing with stress for years, rubbing, it only takes one event to push us over the edge, to push someone over the edge that's dealing with burnouts. But there are lots of different things that have been happening for years.
00:16:38
Speaker
that we haven't been paying attention to. And so I think it's important to make sure that when a specific event happens in your organization, you check in with your HR team and you say, I know that was really heavy for you. If you just did a mass layoff,
00:16:54
Speaker
If you just did a big termination, if you terminated someone in the C-suite and it went ugly, if you dealt with an employee death or any of those things, you should be checking with your HR team and saying, listen, I know that was hard. I know that was heavy. I think you need to take the rest of the day. And I just want to make sure that at some point you check in with your therapist or with your coach and just unpack that because
00:17:21
Speaker
I know a lot of times as HR, what we do is we go, OK, on to the next. OK, yes, that was ugly. That was hard. But let's move on to the next. We've got something else to deal with. We've got more fish to fry. We can't afford to stay and linger and think and feel about this, but we have to. Otherwise, we're just an earthquake waiting to happen. You put a lot of that into perspective. I really love the analogy that you brought into the conversation because
00:17:51
Speaker
I have done mass layoffs before and I have had to sit across the table one after another telling people
00:17:59
Speaker
their job has been eliminated or whatnot. And I think many people underestimate what an HR professional or a PeopleOps professional actually go through in the day to day. And there are massive events like that and we're just supposed to absorb all of that and turn a page and say, that's the work.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's not reality. We are humans too and we have those feelings and those feelings are not great. And to have them often all of the time, it can be very detrimental to not just our mental health, but also the business. How can we perform at our best if we don't get that support? And I think in theory, the chief people officer or who we report to a CEO is
00:18:52
Speaker
essentially our coach, but they're not there to manage our mental health. They're able to be there for us from a professional's point of view as a coach. So I think what you shared just now is the reality, and it's why that statistic is so high when there's so much burnout. And it makes a lot of sense, logically speaking, professionally speaking. It makes a lot of sense.
00:19:22
Speaker
I know that you mentioned that you had your own experience. Do you feel comfortable sharing more about that?
Julie's Burnout Journey and Career Shift
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah. I experienced burnout nine years ago. That would have been my second one, but it was the worst event that I actually went through. And I remember the shifting of the plate, the last shifting of the plate that brought me to my knees.
00:19:44
Speaker
I'd gone through this episode of my left eye twitching for six weeks straight. Just twitching, twitching, twitching. It was the most annoying thing ever. So I remember leaving the office nine years ago with this twitching in my left eye.
00:20:02
Speaker
and I got to the top of the stairs to get into my car and all of a sudden I experienced this paralysis on my left side from my left side of my face down to the bottom of my I've seen my midsection just felt very numb I wasn't in any pain or anything
00:20:25
Speaker
I went to my doctor immediately and he said to me, you're not having a stroke. However, these are stroke symptoms. Your pressure is high and I would like to just make sure we monitor you. And he immediately put me on sick leave. And he said, you need to go home. You need to get in your bed and you need to rest. You need to take this medication.
00:20:48
Speaker
And then he said, whenever you feel like getting up out of bed again, I need you to go for a walk. I need you to go for a walk for a few days. He said, you are burned out, completely burned out. And I don't know what's happening, but this is not sustainable. And if you keep this up, you will have a stroke and anything is possible. I was so scared. I called my mom immediately. She came to my house. My mom stayed with me for two weeks.
00:21:15
Speaker
And for a week and a half, I struggled to get out of bed. I was just taking my medication and just looking at the ceiling and asking myself the big questions that you ask when your life is on the line. Is this really worth it? Does this make sense? Do I want to leave my children without a mother? So I want to leave this world with nothing, like having made no major impact that made me feel good about myself.
00:21:44
Speaker
And the answer obviously was no. And so I had to make some changes. And so I made some very serious and important decisions over a period of time that brought me to this place where three years ago, I made the decision to step out of corporate HR and start my own practice. And that came about because as I was healing from my burnout,
00:22:10
Speaker
which took me almost two years. So burnout isn't something that happens immediately. Again, like I said, it happens over time and healing from burnout also happens over time and it means that you have to create better habits in your life in order to make sure you do not repeat the cycle of burnout because it can be a vicious cycle.
00:22:33
Speaker
And just listening to other burnout stories put me in a space of saying, I want to do something about this for HR people. I want to help HR people not to feel the way I felt, but I also want to help HR people who are struggling to not repeat this cycle and still do good work, but put things in perspective for themselves. And that brought me to where I am today and the work that I do today.
00:22:59
Speaker
Thank you for sharing that piece of your story. I think it absolutely goes a long way with the work that you're doing now. I want to ask one more question. Sure. And it relates to episode one.
CPOs Reporting to the Board
00:23:13
Speaker
Colleen McCreary, former Chief People Officer of Credit Karma, mentions the potential benefits
00:23:20
Speaker
of having the Chief People Officer report directly to the board. Can you elaborate on the advantages associated with this very unique reporting structure, particularly in fostering ethical practices within HR?
00:23:35
Speaker
This is such a loaded question, but a very important question. I've had this conversation so many times about HR, the Chief People Officer reporting to the board. It's one way that we connect the board to the people in the organization and the people agenda.
00:23:51
Speaker
I think that's very important. A lot of times the board is very disconnected from the people. They're more concerned with the business and the money of it all. Having the chief people officer reporting to the board directly helps them to make that connection to the people agenda. It also helps them to really get a clear understanding of the numbers that exist in HR.
00:24:17
Speaker
and how these numbers impact their return on investment, making sure they have the right talent, making sure that the talent that they do have, we're making the right investments to help the talent develop and grow in such a way that they are able to either continue to stay engaged and motivated and helping them to just see the bigger picture around the people agenda. I don't think anyone can explain that piece of the people agenda
00:24:47
Speaker
better than HR. I think one of the things that Colleen mentioned in that episode was just the annoyance of HR either reporting to finance or operations instead of reporting to either the CEO or the board. I do agree. I think that it's important that they do and it also helps to build credibility and help
00:25:08
Speaker
the board to recognize the importance of having good HR that can speak to the business and the people as well. And I also think that it is a good way to help the board build confidence in HR and that they do have the right people
00:25:23
Speaker
at the helm of the people agenda. And the last thing I would say from all to say from the ethical standpoint, I think at the end of the day, when HR has to terminate a CEO or anyone in the C-suite, the best person for them to report to is the board. A lot of times in organizations and even with some of the clients that I work with now, they always say someone from the board will come and ask them, how is the CEO doing?
00:25:52
Speaker
Right? Are they doing their job effectively? What do you think are some of the challenges? Here's what we're thinking. Here's what we're feeling. It helps you to connect the dots a lot better. And so I think from that standpoint,
00:26:04
Speaker
It really is important to have the Chief People Officer role report into the board, because at the end of the day, when you have to make those tough decisions, you're going to need the support of the board anyway, because who do you talk to when you terminate the CEO? Exactly. I know people who've been in that position. The board will never get a straight answer of how the CEO is doing.
00:26:27
Speaker
that chief people officer reports directly to the CEO. It's just a very missed opportunity for the board to really understand what's going on.
00:26:40
Speaker
I think it's interesting in some recent events with OpenAI, right? I would love to have been a fly on the wall to understand who was the chief people officer or lead at OpenAI. They in that conversation. Yeah. It's like when all of this is happening.
00:26:58
Speaker
In my opinion, I'm not sure how involved that person was with the board when the board probably would have benefited from having some insight from the lead HR person at OpenAI.
00:27:13
Speaker
I probably could have avoided some crazy moments. Julie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for your insight. Thank you so much for sharing your personal story and doing what you do to support people in this profession. Thank you. It was my pleasure to be here. That's Julie Turney, founder and CEO at HR at Heart Consulting.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:27:47
Speaker
If you like today's podcast, we have more podcasts on innovative HR strategies, talent management, organizational culture, and more, and how to navigate the complexities of modern day HR. Find them at CPOplaybook.com slash podcasts or search CPO Playbook on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thanks for listening to the CPO Playbook podcast. We'll be back with a new episode next time.
00:28:18
Speaker
I'm Felicia Shakima.
00:28:22
Speaker
If you love CPO Playbook, the best thing you can do to support us is become a subscriber. You can do that at CPOplaybook.com slash podcast. That's CPOplaybook.com slash podcast. If there's an episode you loved, please share it with a friend. And if you have an idea you would like us to talk about or a guest you'd like to nominate, visit CPOplaybook.com slash contact us to suggest an idea.