What’s the Trouble in the Office?

Stress, Overwhelm, and Burnout

Trouble in the Office: The typical “modern” Western workplace is changing extremely rapidly and creating an overwhelming level of uncertainty for workers and managers alike. Increasingly tighter budgets exacerbate existing office overwhelm.

This steady state of overwhelm leads to chronic stress and ultimately burnout (see American Psychological Association). Staff abandons their jobs. Consequently, the cost of burned-out workers continues even after they leave in the form of increased recruitment costs, placing further pressure on the bottom line. And, the cycle repeats.

Studies have shown that chronic stress and/or burnout make workers inflexible and unpredictable. They communicate poorly and have difficulty seeing fresh workable solutions and opportunities. Hence, they make bad decisions.

In some cases, the burned-out workers will resort to unhealthy self-soothing behaviors (e.g., drinking or drugs), accrue more sick days, and ultimately become less effective or even a liability. In sum, the modern Western workplace model, characterized by workaholism and burnout, is not good for business (see Small Business Chron for more articles). 

The Heart of Every Workplace: The Staff

Staff is the Workplace Core: The heart of every workplace is its staff. It doesn’t matter if it’s a business, non-profit, organization, institute, or academic institution. The health and well-being of all staff – from the leaders clear through to the service workers – are crucial to performance and the bottom line. No wonder journals are overflowing with articles on stress management, burnout, and a whole variety of resultant health problems such as depression, obesity, and heart disease just to mention a few (see the American Psychological Association and the Mayo Clinic). One could say that the modern Western workplace model is not fit for human consumption.

Where the Coaching Resources Go

Leadership Bias: Most Coaching resources are applied at the top: executives and leaders. Investment in coaches appears to be growing or at least holding steady into the near future, according to the International Coaching Federation. In some cases, resources do reach promising employees, young leaders programs, and mid-level managers, but access to coaching services is unmistakably top-heavy, especially if measured on a per capita basis.

Coaching for a Broader Audience to Deal With Trouble in the Office

How Can Coaching Help: So, how can coaching help? Coaches can have a bigger role beyond current leaders or executives. In addition to coaching potential future leaders, they can work one-one and/or in small groups with mid-level managers.

Group presentations and workshops with the wider workforce can be an economical and effective way to disseminate skills and promote self-development throughout the company or organization. Webinars and other virtual or automated tools offer additional savings. However, deeper reflection and personal development still require real-time in-person facilitation and interaction.

When individual staff members cultivate positive change within themselves, they alter how they communicate and collaborate with their team members, supervisors, subordinates, and others within the workplace. These people then instill more positive change in others. In this way, the seed of change from one person helps to transform the whole organization. What if there were many seeds of change?

Some benefits from coaching include:

• Reduced stress and anxiety
• Better work-life balance
• Improved communication and collaboration
• More flexible thinking and behavior
• Better and more innovative decision making
• More satisfaction and commitment
• Greater reflection and responsiveness to feedback
• Enhanced creativity and innovation
• Greater self-motivation
• More and better quality output
• More competent future leaders

Coaching in the Future

Creativity, innovation, and the best contributions to problem resolution can spring from anyone at any level within the company or organization. Empowering people to resolve, or recommend solutions to, problems that directly affect them is a sensible business strategy. Start by bulking up resources available to the rank and file.

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