How Burnout Wrecks Your Productivity: And How To Fix It with Dr John Chan
Dr John Chan
Dr. John Chan is the Managing Director of Infinite Potential, an independent think tank dedicated to developing rigorous, practical research, insights, and solutions to help organisations make systemic changes to address current workplace issues and prepare for the future of work. An Industrial/ Organisational psychologist with 20+ years of global experience designing people strategies to transform how we work and our relationship with work, John's mission is to transform the workplace into an engine of wellbeing and, in turn, create better societies.
John's career has taken him from Silicon Valley start-ups, ASX-100 companies, to not-for-profit organisations in internal and external consulting roles. John is a leading voice and thought leader in burnout and workplace sustainability. John is an honorary industry fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney and regularly speaks at conferences and in the media.
Sally Clarke
Sally is a facilitator, speaker and author bringing world-class burnout prevention, leadership and wellbeing programs to regional Australia.
Sally experienced burnout as a corporate finance lawyer at one of Europe’s top firms. She went on to become a yoga and meditation teacher, and author two books on burnout, including Amazon best-seller ‘Protect Your Spark’.
Sally sits on advisory boards around the globe, providing guidance on systemic burnout prevention and workplace culture. She is a sought-after keynote speaker and publishes regularly on leadership, burnout prevention, wellbeing and spirituality. Sally cohosts the popular leadership podcast, We Are Human Leaders.
Burnout is a red hot topic right now and for good reason.
The State of Workplace Burnout Report 2025 shows that 35% of us globally are experiencing burnout. In this episode my usual co-host Sally Clarke dons her researcher’s hat alongside Dr. John Chan as Co-Authors of the State of Workplace Burnout Report 2025. We discuss their very important research from the report. Now in its fifth year, it shines a very bright light on how outdated productivity metrics and expectations are keeping us stuck in burnout with lower productivity.
In this conversation, I've asked Sally and John the hard questions:
What impact does burnout have on our productivity?
What are we getting so wrong about productivity and burnout?
Despite the billions of dollars invested globally in wellbeing and burnout, these still such pervasive issues. Sally and John offer a comprehensive evidence backed set of answers to these questions, and they offer critical advice for leaders listening to fundamentally shift how we work to overcome them.
SPOILER ALERT: Solving burnout is well within your control as a leader. This conversation is insightful and practical and exactly what all leaders need to hear right now. So without further ado, let's dive in.
Learn more about the State of Workplace Burnout Report here:
Read the full State of Workplace Burnout Report here.
Connect with Sally Clarke and Dr John Chan here:
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: Burnout is a red hot topic right now and for good reason. State of Workplace Burnout Report 2025 shows that 35% of us globally are experiencing burnout. I am Alexis Saana, and welcome to We Are Human Leaders. Today's episode is a little different. As my usual co-host Sally Clark Dawn's her researchers hat instead, and she's joined by Dr.
[00:00:36] John Chan on the other side of the desk. This is to discuss their very important research from the State of Workplace Burnout 2025 report. The report now in its fifth year shines a very bright light on how outdated productivity metrics and expectations are keeping us stuck in burnout with lower productivity.
[00:00:57] In this conversation, I've asked Sally and John the hard questions, what impact does burnout have on our productivity and what are we getting so wrong about productivity and burnout? That despite the billions of dollars invested globally, there's still such pervasive issues. Sally and John offer a comprehensive evidence backed set of answers to these questions, and they offer critical advice for leaders listening to fundamentally shift how we work to overcome them.
[00:01:31] Spoiler alert, this is well within your control as a leader. This conversation is insightful and practical and exactly what all leaders need to hear right now. So without further ado, let's dive in. Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, John and Sully. Today's conversation is a little different than usual, and that is in that I am actually.
[00:02:00] Sitting with sel, my usual co-host on the other side of the desk today, putting her researcher hat on alongside Dr. John Chan to chat about the state of workplace burnout report, which they have. Co-published and co-authored over the last few years, and we are really excited to dive in and chat about this research today.
[00:02:21] So just quickly, John, before we dive into the report itself, can you give us a little bit of a background on yourself and what has brought you to this important work that you're doing now?
[00:02:31] Dr John Chan: Yeah, sure. Really excited to be here on this podcast again with the both of you. So my background is an industrial organizational psychologist, and throughout a lot of my career I've worked with really kind of high potential individuals who were kind of slated to be in sort of the leadership positions in major organizations.
[00:02:52] What thing I kept seeing was that we see a lot of drop off in these really high potential people who I know are amazing people who do a lot of work. And you know, I, first of all just like, oh, you know, some, something might have happened. There's all kinds of things that make a person sort of leave the organization.
[00:03:08] But eventually, as I kind of did this more and more, and also as I did this in more of a global basis. I started seeing sort of this trend about why, uh, they're doing this and I think it all sort of hit for me when at one point I was going to tell this person that I've been working with that, hey, this role that we've put you in a succession plan for, that we've been working for, you've got it.
[00:03:31] Like, you know it's ready, it's passed the board. I was super excited to go tell him. And did not give me the response that I was expecting. He was like, John, I cannot do any more of this. And I was gonna actually call you and tell you that I decided to resign from my role. And you know, I know how devastating.
[00:03:47] I just felt so devastated for him because I know how hard and how long he's been working, uh, for this, but also with my corporate hat as well. Like, the loss of this individual who was such an amazing person was such a big loss. All of that kind of put me on the path of trying to understand what is going on.
[00:04:07] And while I didn't really have the language back then really it was these individuals were burning out. And what I just then kept seeing was that we are burning out a lot of our best and brightest leaders out there. And I think as a society that's some, within organizations, that's not something we can really afford.
[00:04:24] Alexis Zahner: I couldn't agree more with you there, John, and interesting that you came to that from witnessing that in someone else, which is much unlike your experience Sal. And something we don't do very often on this podcast is speak a whole lot about ourselves. But Sal, could you give us a little bit of a background?
[00:04:40] I. In your career, specifically how you came to be doing this research in burnout as well? Yeah, thanks.
[00:04:46] Sally Clarke: And it's kind of fun to have this opportunity to speak from the other side of the desk, as it were. Yeah, so I was a corporate lawyer. I sort of fell into the role, ended up at one of Europe's top firms.
[00:04:56] Usually this is sort of Oxford and Cambridge graduates vying for these roles. Sort of rolled into it through a connection I had at the firm and pretty much immediately I was working 70 to 80 hour weeks and just in this sort of relentless environment and it. It took probably a few years of this kind of level of work before I really started to notice that I was having some symptoms.
[00:05:16] I was starting to get headaches, stress rashes, and I was really grumpy. I remember a particular moment when I bit someone's head off and I had this deep realization of, this is not who I am. Something's not okay. But because of the prestige that was associated with this role, I just kept going until one.
[00:05:33] Fateful Friday night, I was flying to France to see my brother for the first time in months, and when I arrived at the airport and I laid eyes on my brother, I collapsed and I started crying and I couldn't stop. It took me even a few years after that happened to acknowledge that what had been through was a burnout because of this stigma that was attached to the.
[00:05:51] Term. And so, you know, those few years later I was, I started to get really curious about what I'd been through, partly for my own healing, but also so maybe I could help other people avoid the experience too. This led to my two books on burnout and eventually to meeting John and co, you know, researching and authoring these reports to really help leaders and organizations start to understand the role that they play in creating an environment where people are just more likely to have that quite catastrophic experience.
[00:06:20] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Thank you for sharing Z, and it's certainly an experience I'm sure many people in our human leaders community can certainly relate to, and it offers you such an interesting lens to the research side of the burnout report as well. So thank you for sharing. Now to dive into it, the state of workplace burnout is in its fifth year, and this is the research that you've both been working really hard at and I'd love to sort of zero in on what you focused on.
[00:06:46] In the report this year. Obviously burnout being the central theme, but I noticed in this year's report, John, I'll throw this to you. There was a focus on productivity and its relationship to burnout. Can you tell us a little bit more about why you chose to focus on this and perhaps any of the startling findings that came through?
[00:07:03] From that part of the report.
[00:07:04] Dr John Chan: Yeah, absolutely. So over the past five years, you know, we watched the world of work really quickly evolve. You know, this move towards kind of flexible remote work, big changes in, you know, people's attitude towards, uh, work and this rise of technology such as ai. Being part of our daily work just to name a few things and in response we've seen organizations and leaders pour resources into the workplace.
[00:07:30] We have also been seeing sort of productivity stall all across the world. You know, we get all these numbers about how we need to improve productivity 'cause it's really stalled. And in talking to senior leaders across many different industries, you know, I keep hearing, yes, we're doing all this to help our people feel better and be healthier, but.
[00:07:48] We're not seeing the results, we're not seeing the the benefits of doing this. And so building on that a little bit, we want to sort of dispel this myth that organizations can either have high productivity or. Employees who are well or are focused on wellbeing, it's really not an either or. Organizations don't need to choose between productivity and wellbeing.
[00:08:11] They opposite sides of the same coin, but they don't actually compete with each other like they are a partnership. When employees feel have high levels of wellbeing, they are more productive and vice versa. When you are in an organization that you feel engaged in, that you feel a sense of belonging and you're achieving in what you're doing, that is a determinant of health as well.
[00:08:34] And so in this year's report, we wanted to know and really find out. What's working, what isn't, uh, working, and what might be some of the gaps that organizations are missing when it comes to thinking about productivity. And so after five years of data, it's really fascinating to actually start seeing some really clear trends and correlations between these factors, you know, when you see it one year or maybe even two.
[00:08:58] It could be a sampling thing or it might, could be just a certain situation. It's hard to ref after five years the trends that we are seeing and what are the core messages. Throughout these five years, it stays the same, which is burnout is a systems issue. It's not a personal failure or something that has to do with the individual.
[00:09:18] The data and insights are really clear in what we're finding. That organizational factors like workload, job demand leadership, and team dynamics, those are the biggest drivers in burnout and one of the most interesting and controversial findings. It's about sort that relationship between caring responsibilities and burnout.
[00:09:40] I know we hear this quite a lot in the media about the carers, and for the past four years, we've found no difference in the rates of burnout between those with and without caring responsibilities, which is already quite controversial, right before it's quite up in arms about that in this. Our data showed that those without caring responsibilities actually had a higher level of burnout than those with, and this is especially true for women.
[00:10:06] So women without caring responsibilities actually had the highest rates of burnout.
[00:10:11] Alexis Zahner: That is a really interesting finding. John, can you speculate as to why you think that might be the case?
[00:10:18] Dr John Chan: Yeah, we talked to a lot of people post the study just to kind of get that sort of more qualitative type of insights into what we're seeing, and I think what we hear from those with caring responsibilities is that the caring responsibilities itself, while very exhausting, they are by far much more exhausted.
[00:10:38] It does without, it actually creates a protective barrier for those individuals. But when you have caring responsibilities, there is a lot of both rules and timelines that are not very flexible. You have to pick up a child at a certain time, you have to feed them at a certain time. Elderly only parent to the doctor's appointment at certain times.
[00:10:55] So all of that is sort of split into a non flexible time. And when I'm gonna be out between three and four, they're much better at. Both focusing and scheduling their time. Oh, I gotta get this done before this, or I need to get this done afterwards. Versus if you didn't have those like really strict rules, you'll be like, oh, I'll get to that later.
[00:11:16] And you kind of filter out and maybe go into some rabbit holes about a random a thing, but. Having those strict guidelines actually quite helps you both focus, but also during those times you're not thinking about work. You know, sometimes we stop working, but we're still thinking about it. But if you are, you know, really attentive or kinda active with your kid or like, you know, elderly parent, you are somewhere else, you're not thinking about work as you're focused on.
[00:11:42] All of those things I think are quite beneficial. And also one thing I think doesn't get talked about enough. Sort of the benefits, um, you know, when you're caring for someone else, you know, or the benefits of seeing somebody's reaction or that interaction that you're having with them that sometimes that doesn't get talked about, um, as much, but like there's in that as well.
[00:12:03] Alexis Zahner: Very interesting insights there, John. And I feel like I was hearing a few things. Firstly, it sounds like the idea of having responsibilities outside of the workplace kind of makes us enforce these boundaries that perhaps wouldn't exist otherwise. And I was also hearing this idea that I. Supporting others, helping others.
[00:12:20] Perhaps those acts of service might be a way to kind of mediate the effects of the work stress as well, and give us maybe that sense of community or quality relationships outside of work. So super interesting. Now I just wanna zoom in a little bit more here on the idea of productivity and sell. I'm gonna throw this question to you.
[00:12:37] What I heard was that despite the fact we've been throwing billions of dollars at things like wellbeing, wellness programs, ways to try and stimulate productivity. In people and in our employees somewhere. We're still getting it wrong. So Sally, can you help us unpack what exactly drives productivity and what gets in the way of people being productive at work?
[00:12:58] It's such
[00:12:59] Sally Clarke: a great question and it's a complex one, I think because we do have these sort of multiple ways of thinking about productivity and we struggle to measure exactly what it is. There's a lot of talk, of course, for leaders who've seen it sort of stagnate. And I think for a long time a lot of organizations have had quite an exploitative or extractive model of productivity.
[00:13:16] Sort of using a stick to kind of force people to do more within these kind of wellbeing as a kind of reward down the track. Like, thank you. Here's a gift voucher for a facial, or whatever. So I think that kind of model, we're really seeing that it really is not working. It hasn't worked in the past, but it's absolutely not working now with the shift in mindset that's happened around work in the last few years that John alluded to earlier.
[00:13:39] So in fact, what drives productivity is. These sort of upstream interventions that we can do to improve how we work. So it's not so much about getting more apps or more software in to be able to optimize how people work. It's really looking at how we are structuring work, how we're designing workflow to make sure that we are not overburdening people.
[00:14:00] Because what really drives productivity and great outcomes is a really effective workplace environment. So. We asked people as well in the study, you know, what prevents you from being productive and people you know, number one was ineffective or inefficient workplace processes. Number two was frequent interruptions, which is a really interesting one.
[00:14:20] When we're thinking about the use of things, the tools like ai, are we just adding more interruptions to people's already very interrupted workdays. The third was not enough time to complete work, so simply having a sort of excessive workload. An unsustainable workload was number four. So that could also mean not having the resources or the support that you need to be able to get your work done.
[00:14:41] And finally, a lack of clear communication, so people really feeling that they're not having clear and optimal flow of communication that would help them be as productive as they can. We also saw in the data that there's a correlation between those experiencing burnout and the rate of productivity. And we've seen this year on year that when people are experiencing burnout.
[00:15:01] They're drastically less productive. We also saw that when people are experiencing high psychological safety, they're much more likely to report being productive. And we also saw an interesting correlation between the level of trust in the organization and people's level of productivity. So it's interesting that I think, you know, a lot of what we talk about when we're thinking about redressing burnout and these other issues, it really does come down to this upstream sort of systems thinking and approach that we need to take.
[00:15:29] That has positive implications on all of these levels, including productivity.
[00:15:34] Alexis Zahner: It's so interesting because what I'm hearing is that with ample time, ample resources, minimal distraction, people can just get the job done, and it feels like for me, these should just be part of our work life. This should be embedded in how we work, but it's obviously not.
[00:15:53] Is it?
[00:15:54] Sally Clarke: Unfortunately not, and I'm gonna invite John to jump in on this as well because I know he's got a lot of expertise, particularly in this sort of shift, I think, in thinking that needs to take place.
[00:16:05] Dr John Chan: That is a great question. I think we we're still in this habit of just wanting to be more and more productive that, you know, I think most people haven't taken a step back on why are we actually doing this?
[00:16:16] And I think there's this idea that we've really internalized that if we're not being productive or slacking. And we're not contributing. We're being a bad a person. And this pressure to be constantly productive is not only growing, but I think it's really becoming more and more deeply embedded in how we define our own self-worth, how we define success or even morality in today's kind of work culture.
[00:16:40] I know I personally feel. Guilty. A lot of times when I'm just relaxing or working in the garden and instead of, you know, doing some work, like there's a little voice in my head's, like, you know, there's a couple of emails you haven't done yet, or there's this work coming in, why aren't you doing that? And so this pressure to be productive, just becoming more and more baked into our lives at that sort of structural cultural.
[00:17:02] Psychological level and it's a really difficult thing to unwind and so can just kind of dig a little bit deeper into just kind of these three layers on where it's actually coming from at the surface or that top layer. We have some of these kind of really visible drivers, things like. The workload that we're given or the expectations for a job.
[00:17:23] You know, if you are in particular industries, you just know you have to work, there's that expectation that you work a lot or even the way that the organizations measure performance. There's still a lot of organizations out there who still track productivity by the number of hours worth. Or how often you're in the office or you know, now they even track how often that little green light is next to your name on chats.
[00:17:47] So even if you're kind of working quite smart and getting great results, what kind of gets rewarded is how busy you look. And so we've created these kind of work environments where being busy is equated with being productive. And so, you know, busyness rather than output. It's what gets rewarded. And then there's that cultural level, that cultural layer, uh, which is the next, uh, layer that forms this productivity, which is sort of our relationship with each other and to work.
[00:18:14] So in a lot of teams and organizations, there's this kind of silent competition about who's busier. Oh, we ask your team, Hey, what are you doing? Oh, I've been busy. I've been working all weekend. Now, who stays online? The latest, even like, you know, who replies the fastest, even if they're on holiday. How often have we heard sort of leaders praise somebody who's worked through the weekends, like, oh, this person has done so well in working through the weekend to get this thing done.
[00:18:40] That's great to recognize people for hard work and something that needs to be done, but oftentimes, leaders kind of unintentionally set the wrong culture by kind of rewarding these type of behaviors, right? And so there's that power dynamic at play here where employees want to impress their manager and do.
[00:19:00] These things, but sometimes that leads to really bad behavior. And finally, underneath all of this, we all have some really deeply held, uh, beliefs and sort of, you know, our own personal mental models. A lot of us have internalized the idea that our worth is tied to how much we produce or what's our job title.
[00:19:20] And that if we're not constantly doing or somehow failing the rest really just feels like, oh, we, you're just being, we're just being weak if we need it. The rest and hasn't just happened. Now that all those things have come from just decades of hearing about the hustle culture, we see this in movie and the media about these people who wake up at 3:00 AM to do all these things, to be super productive.
[00:19:46] All these social narratives that really glorify burnout. So when you put all that together, all three of those layers, you get like this perfect storm of pressure to be constantly productive and it's really hard to get out of it. You know, you change one thing, like for example, your own mental model. Well, if.
[00:20:02] So your workplace still has that pressure. It's hard to get out of it or you know, vice versa. Even if your workplace is, is trying to limit how much you work. If you have that mental model of working a lot, that is still going to cost a lot of burnout too. So I think ironically, all of this might be why we're in this productivity law.
[00:20:21] The fact that we're trying to be.
[00:20:24] Alexis Zahner: That's a very interesting point, John, and there's so much in what you mentioned that one thing for me that I find really challenging with organizations is this recategorize of what we equate productivity with. And you sort of mentioned a lot of proxies there, like desk monitoring, busyness, equaling productivity.
[00:20:42] And so I think at that organizational level, this shift towards actually measuring outputs as a measure of effectiveness and productivity versus the proxies is so important. I think this ate of things like rest and things like downtime and things like screens away time or no email time actually being.
[00:21:04] Part of the enablers of productivity, because I think, I mean, and I can speak for myself personally, but there's a lot of data to back this up as well, but giving the brain rest, giving the body rest are actually absolutely critical to being productive. And when we try and push through those periods where we're completely knackered or.
[00:21:23] Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausted. We're producing crappy outcomes anyway, so it's sort of counterintuitive in that sense. So I think that's such a really powerful point. And one personal anecdote, I must say, is the socialization of productivity into even things like our social media feeds.
[00:21:41] Now, for example, I know for myself. When I'm resting, often I'll lay on the couch and scroll social media and just feel immediately guilty about everyone who's super buff, super smart, super rich, super, everything that I'm not just being shoved in front of my face. So I think we're being socialized in all of these little ways now, very insidiously to be constantly feeling guilty about every single second of our lives when we're not on.
[00:22:06] Dr John Chan: They even add to that, there's so many tracking tools, everything tracks everything, literally, right? So we have all of these stats of when we're resting and when we're active, and all of that sort of adds into the pressure. Totally.
[00:22:21] Alexis Zahner: And funnily enough, and again, I'll speak anecdotally here, but even kind of looking at productivity metrics of our downtime, and this is a funny one for me, but I use Strava, so you know, my downtime, I like to exercise.
[00:22:34] But even that, we have like a metric of all am I improving? So we're kind of like productivity productizing our downtime as well in a way. And so I can tell you're itching to comment on this too.
[00:22:45] Sally Clarke: Absolutely. I think it's this kind of commodification of every aspect of our lives. That is the exact reason that I have very actively, I don't have a Fitbit or an Apple Watch.
[00:22:53] I don't use Strava because partly because I know I can get really hard on myself. My self critic can become really strong when I start to get into that. I. Even competing against myself narrative, but partly also because I really want to allow myself the space to the extent possible to just go for a walk or just do these things simply for the pleasure of it and the pleasure that it brings, rather than it being setting a PB every time I step foot outside the door.
[00:23:17] Alexis Zahner: Gosh, I
[00:23:18] Sally Clarke: need
[00:23:18] Alexis Zahner: to hear that. Tell me again. Delete the damn Strava. Just enjoy downtime for what it is. I love that. Amazing. Now Sal, one thing I did wanna dive into here is this idea of the distracted worker. Can you tell us a little bit more about this type of person and the consequences of the distracted worker in the workplace?
[00:23:40] Sally Clarke: Yeah, and I think this ties in really neatly to the conversation that we've just had around what it means to be distracted. Because we are seeing with the pace and complexity of work accelerating and the rise, a AI and other technologies. We have this increasing distraction in our work. We are getting constant notifications.
[00:23:58] There's also often an expectation that we'll be responding to emails at all times. And so even at a time where the need for people to be able to focus and attend to their tasks is critical, we're actually seeing that it, the work itself is starting to fracture our. Ability to stay focused. So this year we uh, added in a layer to the study, to the survey that looked at the extent to which people are able to focus and be mindful.
[00:24:22] And we found that around 16% of participants and what we consider highly distracted about 62% in the average range and 16% in the low distraction range. So it's really whether you can stay focused and attend to your tasks with presence and mindfulness and the really interesting correlations that we found that just really blew my mind.
[00:24:42] For example, 36% of those who are highly distracted are also experiencing burnout compared to just 4% of those who are low in distraction. 55% of people who are highly distracted reported being less productive in the last 12 months compared to just 9% of people who are low in distraction. And we also looked at loneliness at work this year, and 25% of the people who are highly distracted reported experiencing loneliness at work.
[00:25:08] Compared to just seven who are low in distraction. So I think when we're seeing there's kind of quite extreme differences in terms of correlations, we are really seeing the impact that distraction has on our ability to be productive, to do great work. And I think it's something that really, I. It's again, an invitation to leaders to sort of zoom out out a little bit and look at the kind of ways of working that we have, the way we're structuring work and the expectations that we have, express or otherwise towards our employees in terms of how connected they are.
[00:25:38] And I think as we've just discussed, you know, really inviting a culture where the boundaries are very clear that leaders are also role modeling. Those boundaries is gonna be essential for organizations that want to thrive. We really can't start this work too soon. With all of the software and the AI and the technology sort of changes that we're seeing, it's happening so fast.
[00:25:56] We really need to sort of have the courage, I think, to have that conversation about the broader consequences of these tools, which might be amazing, but they may also simply be creating an environment of higher burnout. And again, less productivity.
[00:26:10] Alexis Zahner: You know, interestingly, s you mentioned that the idea of the distracted worker and these little tiny microbit constantly present distractions in our day to day reduce our productivity.
[00:26:20] However, for me, for example, as a leader of an organization, I've got bigger concerns than that because if my team can't be productive, they can't solve complex problems, they can't get into creative thinking, which means we can't innovate as a company. So I can't help but to think productivity is important to consider, but there are so many macro things that companies will not be able to achieve if we have constantly distracted employees.
[00:26:45] Sally Clarke: It's absolutely just really splinters our ability to be great human beings. And I think it almost gets, this is, I haven't put this into words before, so I hope this comes out all right. But you know, we are really getting to the point where we may struggle to compete with AI if we are deeply distracted because we don't have that sort incredible cognitive function that humans bring.
[00:27:03] And that's a capacity to ideate that is so important. And you're com absolutely right, that I think. Organizations will see things like innovation really stagnate if there isn't sort of active effort to reduce distraction and support people to be able to work in an optimal and distraction-free way.
[00:27:19] Alexis Zahner: It's a really interesting point, Sal, and the AI point is interesting as well, and that is a whole nother conversation that in some of my deep work recently I've noticed that because of ai. I can rely on that a little more than I would my own complex thinking. And so I sort of had this moment of like, oh wow, is ai, am I beginning to rely on this too much to do the thinking for me as well?
[00:27:41] And is that even distracting me from the necessary sort of human nuance and emotions that. Actually do need to be present in some certain decisions.
[00:27:51] Sally Clarke: Absolutely. The case, and without completely derailing our conversation, I think it's a, it's, it's really important and it's great that you could catch yourself in that moment because I think in part because AI presents as very, sort of cogent information, right?
[00:28:04] It's sort of. Pops up in this way that seems very well sort of structured and balanced, but when we don't question it, we start to lose that capacity. That really curious thinking that can drive really amazing outcomes. There's a real danger there. Certainly.
[00:28:17] Alexis Zahner: I love
[00:28:17] Sally Clarke: that.
[00:28:18] Dr John Chan: Have you guys ever do a podcast on this?
[00:28:19] I hope I get invited. Yeah,
[00:28:22] Alexis Zahner: we need to do an AI specific podcast 'cause it is certainly both the biggest enabler and potentially the biggest threat to us as individuals and our contributions to organizations in the future. That is for sure. But to not allow AI to totally derail our very important conversation around burnout.
[00:28:38] John, I'd love to come back to you with another area within the burnout report that you focused on this year, and that was the idea of trust within an organization and also the role that trust might play in productivity. Can you explain to us the relationship between. People's trust in an organization and how that impacts their productivity.
[00:28:59] Dr John Chan: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we, not from our report, but from other reports that's been doing this for decades now, there is a erosion of trust all around the world, especially in establishment and all kinda organizations. You know, it is been kind of slowly falling for decades now. When we were looking at that, we wanted to see, you know, what is the.
[00:29:21] You know, losing trust, not in just organizations, but there's a loss of trust in everything from science to each other, the communities that you are in, like that has a big impact when you don't have that trust, which. At the end of the day when you, you know, there's a lot of definitions for trust, but you know, one I really like to think about is, you know, trust is a social lubrication where it just makes things go a little better.
[00:29:47] There's a little bit less friction when we trust each other and you know, everything from any interaction that we have. It just goes a little bit easier. And within organizations, that's a really in. Important thing. So we wanted to look at sort of the impact of trust within our organization. And what we found was that for the most part, people trust their direct managers.
[00:30:07] There's still really high levels of trust in your direct managers and believing that you know the decision they make are in your best interest. Now when we ask, you know, how much they trust their organization as a whole and you know how much they trust their organizations to make decisions in the best interest of their people, that drops by quite a lot.
[00:30:29] So what we see is probably 48% of people trust their organization, which is way down from. How much they trust the direct manager. And if you look at the different job level, the further out you get, uh, the less trust there is. So two individual contributors has the least amount of trust of the organization than your senior leaders.
[00:30:52] And you know, when we start, uh, thinking a little bit more about a trust and why that actually matters, like why is this something organizations should care about? We see people don't trust their organizations. They're much like less likely to to be productive. Why would you be really productive for an organization you don't really trust?
[00:31:12] Uh, when you're seeing massive layoffs, when you're seeing all these, what kind of broken promises or constant reorganizations, you just don't trust them, that they're gonna do right by you. So why would you bring your best to that organization? And this is a big problem for. Organizations, all of these things that you want to do, and we'll go back to ai, let's say organization want to implement AI in the organization.
[00:31:38] If people don't trust that you're doing this as a way to help people, you know, they might think, oh, you're doing this so that I can train the AI to replace me. You know when people have that doubt about that all of this money you're gonna be spending on all these other initiatives are just really not going to happen.
[00:31:54] Alexis Zahner: Yeah, it's a really interesting point, John, and it is interesting to see this sort of increased level of, I'm not sure the opposite of trust, if it's cynicism or skepticism in this case. But certainly I think when it comes to change management and change adoption, trust is absolutely imperative to get people on board and.
[00:32:14] We know from research as well that people who trust your organizations are more likely to engage in those sort of organizational citizenship behaviors. Like you've mentioned, they're more likely to go above and beyond for their colleagues, their managers, and things like that. So is there anything that indicates why the trust drops from that relationship between their direct line manager and perhaps at an organizational level?
[00:32:35] Was there any kind of information that emerged about that?
[00:32:38] Dr John Chan: No, we didn't look to specifically about why don't you trust your organization. My theory is that it is because of so many years of broken promises from layoffs when the company is wildly profitable and they still have. Layoffs or promises of, you know, we're gonna make sure your salary keeps in aligned with the cost of living.
[00:33:02] You know, when all of these kind of broken promises happen. All of that erodes the trust more and more. On the other hand too, like a lot of leaders just kind of assume that productivity is kind of stalled because people are lazy or not doing enough work. I really do think, you know, trust plays a really big part in all of these interactions within the organization.
[00:33:24] That's why if you think about, you just kinda describe a really high trust environment, but if you think about a low trust work environment where you know people are quite defensive about, let's say every meeting that they're in, you're not sure if you should say the right thing 'cause somebody might use that against you.
[00:33:40] Or every email takes twice as long 'cause you wanna make sure you write all the right words in there. All of those. You know, people hoard talent or hoard information, all of those things happen and that is a really big driver of the stall and productivity.
[00:33:55] Alexis Zahner: Yeah, it's an interesting point. It sounds like we've sort of in the recent years really bred organizations that kind of lack that high performance and trust being that precursor to being able to achieve that.
[00:34:04] It's a really interesting point, John. Now Al, I do wanna throw over to you here, being that you've experienced burnout yourself and now being on the other side of the fence, having researched it and really looking at this. Quite an in depth way. What advice or recommendations can you give for those of us who might be experiencing burnout or have just come through a burnout to really improve our productivity and do so in a way that doesn't lead to burnout?
[00:34:29] Sally Clarke: It's a great question, and I think my approach really is that we need two sort of focuses here, and one is the sort of upstream organizational and societal factors that play into burnout. It's the job design and the kind of organiza the workflow. Trust, great leadership, all these factors that really drive a great culture and a healthy work environment.
[00:34:50] At the same time, we can't do this work if everyone is in burnout. So we need individuals to really take some, you know, fierce ownership of their own wellbeing and make sure that they're really focusing on their own health and wellbeing, because that is an absolute precursor to a sustainable and healthy career.
[00:35:07] And so, as you know, both know in my. My own work around focusing on individual burnout and recovery. We use the three self frameworks of focusing on self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-compassion as a means of really fortifying ourselves against burnout to the extent that it's possible. And then in the recovery phase, it's really about having the courage in the patients to take time for healing because burnout has a significant impact on our physiological, mental, but also emotional health.
[00:35:35] It really, unfortunately, and I say this is a deeply impatient person. It took probably a year and a half for me to really recover from burnout. So I think we need to have that understanding that it's not gonna be a weekend and then you're fine, or just working a little bit less. It really does have significant consequences that we need to take really seriously.
[00:35:53] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Thank you. So a very empowering message there that helps us really understand where our agency lies in. The equation. So thank you for that. And John, for an organizational leader right now who might want to really enact some change in their organization around both mitigating burnout, but also making sure they still have a really productive team, what are some of the things that you would recommend them doing?
[00:36:20] Dr John Chan: So one of the biggest things I think I would recommend to a leader is a mind shift, our mindset shift about what wellbeing is all about. You know, we need to stop treating, know workplace mental health or workplace wellbeing as some type of perk. Entitlement that we're giving to our people. Mental health in the workplace or wellbeing is not just about supporting people once they start struggling.
[00:36:45] It's really much more about designing work so people don't need to recover over the weekend. It's about building the type of environment where people are able to kind of thrive and perform at their best, which is good for them, but also good for you as an organizational, uh, leader as well. Another sort of part of that, um, mindset is really thinking about sort of wellbeing, not just being an initiative.
[00:37:10] Like it's not just one thing that you do here at there. Uh, think about it more as a performance accelerator, right? If you're creating the right. Environment. People are able to perform better than they feel better, organization does better. It is a win-win. So really change that mindset about what you're doing.
[00:37:31] And also sort of the piece of that is about, you know, thinking about it, it's not hrs job for. Wellbeing or employee mental health. Uh, right. It's not your work health and safety person's job. Every leader, every people leader, every executive. If you are a person that's able to kind of shape workloads or direct work at people or setting timelines, setting expectations.
[00:37:56] Any of that, you are shaping people's mental health, whether you realize it or not. It's so, it's not nice thing, extra thing you're doing. This is your job. I think a lot of times we hear from leaders, oh, I can't, you know, I'm not gonna do the. Mental thing because I'm not a professional, I'm a psychologist, all of that.
[00:38:12] But I think we all need to spread the word about this a little bit more. That if you have control over someone else's job or the workload and all those things, you are shaping people's mental health. It makes such a big impact on the timelines that you set, the amount of work you give people. That is your job, and that's something leaders really need to think about quite a bit more.
[00:38:34] Alexis Zahner: That's a really powerful call to action, John, that if you are a leader and you are listening and you do have people in your care, that it is 100% within your remit to make sure that their experience of work is life-giving and not life detracting. I think that's such a critical note there, John. Sally, John, thank you so much for joining me today on We Are Human Leaders.
[00:38:57] It has been a real privilege to sit down with you both and unpack this important research from the State of Workplace Burnout Report. Thank you. Thanks so much, L Thanks so much.
[00:39:14] Thank you for joining me on this episode of We Are Human Leaders. I hope that exploring the state of workplace burnout report with Sally Clark and Dr. John Chan has illuminated how together we can begin combating burnout in the workplace and how we can make work a place that is truly productive and thriving for all.
[00:39:36] Dr. John Chan is the principal, consultant and researcher at Infinite Potential, who has recently published the State of Workplace Burnout Report for the fifth year running. Sally Clarke is co-author and researcher of this report and author of two bestselling books on burnout. Please visit our show notes at www dot.
[00:39:58] We are human leaders. Dot com for direct links to the report and to Sally's books. The good news folks is that burnout is absolutely preventable, and as a leader, this is your call to action. Together we can end burnout and create workplaces where people thrive. Thank you for being with us for this episode of We Are Human Leaders, and we'll see you next time.