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Hi there, Maureen Chiana here, founder of the Mindsight Academy, neurocoach to executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, and a neuroleadership trainer using insights from neuroscience to help you deliver results by learning to work smarter, be in control of your brain, manage yours and other people's emotions, change behaviors, flourish and exceed expectations. I am so pleased to be back here with another episode of Lead to Excel Podcast. Our topic this week is how to overcome pandemic and morale fatigue. Before we start, remember to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already done so. And I always appreciate your comments or reviews or even suggestions of topics that you want me to talk about. So let's get into the topic for today. Pandemic fatigue evolves gradually over time and it's gripping many people. It's the uncertainty of how long the current precussions would last and the fear of falling in really weighing heavily on people in terms of their mental ability to be able to deal with it. While the administration of the new vaccines gives us new hope, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are struggling, and this feeling or mental state may go on for a while. There is mental fatigue which comes from lack of information and not being able to make decisions. I heard someone also describe crisis fatigue, which comes from constant bad news and the body producing these reactive chemicals, which can also lead to physical effects. Our brains are more alert now and having to make decisions about simple things that we previously wouldn't even have paid attention to. Our brains are like a mental gas tank. When you're constantly having to dig deep and worry about all these extra concerns, thereby activating the prefrontal cortex, which is our conscious brain, you find that our energy and ability to make effective decisions diminishes, causing the fatigue feeling. Our brains are wired for short-term fight or flight response to immediate danger. Dealing with stressful circumstances over a prolonged period of time requires different coping strategies. At the beginning of the pandemic, many people and organizations went on high alert, survival mode kind of, but this is not sustainable and is causing many executives, many leaders and individuals to be exhausted and feeling burnt out. The real crisis comes as things drag out with prolonged social isolation and keeping a work-life balance for those who are working from home. We are now seeing people feeling exhausted because change in itself is exhausting. Many are feeling disillusioned, demotivated, and a lot of organizations and many organizations are now experiencing low productivity because there's so much restlessness, anxiety, because people are struggling to sleep. People are having trouble concentrating. Many are even experiencing loss of appetite, or some are even just stress eating. There's a lot of feeling of grief, grief from loss, loss of family, loss of friends, loss of jobs, loss of income. So there's so much disappointment. And this is all giving rise to feeling of overwhelm. People are genuinely feeling burnt out at work. Employees are feeling disconnected at work. There's now increased absenteeism. And research shows that the health crisis is also causing a parallel mental health crisis with many feeling depressed. Finding effective ways to tackle this fatigue and reinvigorate yours and your employees' energy is a growing challenge as the crisis continues. There are three types of organizations in terms of how they have responded to this crisis of uncertainty. You have the organizations that are very optimistic, they don't feel they need to change. So there's no motivation to do anything difficult. And the unfortunate consequence is in a lot of cases false hope being given to the employees. This is a typical example where leaders are unintentionally making the situation worse. Then you have the organizations who are overly pessimistic and they have no motivation to do anything because what's the point? And then you have the organizations who I'll say are more realistic because they believe that things could go on for a long period, but also they believe that it will get better. They believe that there will be a few years of intense disruption, then things will work out. They are the ones that are investing in learning and growing their leaders and their people. So which one are you? Can you identify your organizations from any of these three? The key is to avoid being overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. So what can leaders do to help themselves and others overcome this pandemic fatigue? Research shows that organizations that started off by focusing and caring about humans have successfully been able to pivot and take their people along. And they've also noticed sustained team engagement in organizations like this. Leaders definitely need some time to move from more extractive processes to more regenerative ones, focusing more on valuing the human. So this means leaving people better than you found them. What employees are saying is that they feel they are working harder, a lot of people feel underappreciated, and many are finding that they're getting less focus from week to week. So it's important for leaders, for executives, for organizations as a whole to understand your people and give them more autonomy than they expect. Such as get them to set their own goals. Get them to come together as a team and set goals for themselves where you will foresee the goals that they're setting. Let them decide who they work with, how they work. This form of unexpected autonomy will help build trust and also help with engagement. Engage your people in decision making or problem solving. I know organizations that have insisted on staff coming in every day while senior leaders work from home. This will create more distrust and more disconnection and more demotivation. So the question is what will reduce stress? Examples such as, like I said earlier, giving them that autonomy, giving them flexible working hours, shorter work weeks could make a difference. For example, workers at Microsoft Japan this summer enjoyed working four-day weeks with a three-day weekend and getting their normal five-day paycheck. The result, the company says, was a productivity boost of about 40%. There was more efficiency in several areas, including lower electricity costs, which fell by 23%. A recent report by Mackenzie says the New Zealand Trust Management Company announced a 20% gain in employee productivity and a 45% increase in employee work-life balance after a trial of paying their people their regular salary for also working four days. The concept of flexible work time requires a culture change for many organizations and employees, and it would need to be supported by training, guidance, encouragement because too often as well, staff feel guilty taking time for themselves during the traditional working week. So there needs to be a lot of change of mindset and in effect helping people rewire their brains. Flexible work time is important, and your employees need to understand that flexibility means the permission to take breaks, walk, engage their brain in other ways throughout the work day. Another area that could be quite useful is introducing shorter meeting times, cap attendance to five or six employees, and bear in mind that there is no reason to tie up multiple people from the same team in a meeting. Examples that I've worked in some organizations as well are things like minimum meetings on Mondays and minimum meetings in the mornings and also Friday afternoons. This frees up the brain to do more productive work and also give them a feeling that they are actually completing tasks and making progress, which ultimately increases motivation. Next is develop more efficiency in time management by using more collaborative chat channels rather than wasteful emails and meetings. Elevate well-being of your people. Teaching employees to take care of themselves is really important. The same electronic tools that have made working from home easier have also made it harder for employees to fully unplug from their jobs, and many people sit at one spot going from one Zoom meeting to another for hours with no breaks. Train your people to intentionally insert breaks into their day and make it a culture in your organization so that people feel confident to decline a meeting or ask for a reschedule where there are no breaks for them. Connecting effectively and efficiently with your people is extremely important. This involves listening deeply to what they are saying. Include people in planning. This means listening deeply to what your people are saying. Focus on care and well-being. Look for signs of exhaustion and other signs of stress. Ask them authentic questions. Not just how are you, but how are you really? Get them to answer the question: How are you today? How are your children? How is working from home going? Ask them questions about themselves, ask them questions about their families, ask them about them, how they are really coping. Show them you care. 2021 will have many surprises, so you need to take care of your people, and they will take care of your clients, they will take care of your business. Transparency and decision making is really important as well. We as human beings are attuned to social cues. When we don't see faces, we assume the worst. Uncertainty creates a threat response. So not seeing people for a long period of time, we assume the worst. And at this time that everyone is on Zoom in some form of virtual meeting, you can't really tell a lot about how people are feeling, and this is why the questioning is really important. Don't jump to conclusions, ask questions and let them ask you questions as well. Uncertainty about how the manager perceives work can actually create a threat response which can spiral emotionally, causing people a lot of stress. Also, people tend to read nonverbal gestures differently if they only see someone's face versus if they see a person's upper arm and arms. So it's really important to see how people position themselves while in the Zoom meeting. Nonverbal cues are easier to read when you actually see more of the person. So also go beyond your FaceTime and actually make phone calls as well. Greet people, talk to people, get people talking to each other. Another important aspect that will make a huge difference is transforming your organization culture to one of a growth mindset. Create that growth mindset culture where you have a willingness to try new things and you give people the opportunity to try out new things. Create confidence in your people, let there be flexibility in things, let things not be rigid. You don't have to keep doing things the way it was done before. Let people bring in new ideas of how to work, of how to carry out things, because you find that the ideas will actually make things a lot better, much quicker, and more effective and more efficient. Help your people develop the ability to grow and adapt. If you want to know more about how to introduce a growth mindset into your organizational culture, I'm going to leave a link below for an online training program that I have with the coaching to go alongside it to really help you and your team on your organization. People want relatedness, they want to be treated fairly. You know, the question where they're asking, do I get the same information as others? Am I included in conversations? All this will go a long way in helping your organization, helping your people, helping you overcome pandemic fatigue. Test things out, experiment, try out different things, find out what works for you and your team. Because the world has certainly changed and it's going to keep evolving, it's going to keep changing. Long-term work from home might end up being a thing. People have experienced what it's like working from home, so they want some form of flexibility where they can work from home and go into the office as well. A lot of headquarters are closing, so be open to trying new things so that you see how it works effectively for you. People are going to be combining having that hybrid work from home and office. You've got to be able to trust them. They've also got to believe that you trust them, that you care. Some organizations are worried that the culture of the organization has been affected negatively, but many people feel that the culture of the organization has actually improved with this new working from home concept, especially in organizations that have focused on their people. Going through all these tips will help your people, your organization build your resilience and be able to sustain it as well. So, in conclusion, as a leader, as an executive, ensure that you take care of yourself first. Put on your own mask first. Role model the behaviors you want your staff to have, such as taking time off yourself. It's okay to be vulnerable. Show your people that it's okay not to be okay. Many leaders feel that they have to project certainty. In reality, what works is you being authentic because there's no certainty. You don't have to have all the answers as a leader. The answers will come from your people. Get them to come up with the ideas, listen to them and include them in decision making. So I hope this has really helped you. Put it into practice, you will find that you and your people will overcome pandemic and moral fatigue and you move on to be extremely productive, increase your performance, and increase your staff's mental well-being. Thank you once again for tuning in. And remember that if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, click on the button wherever you listen to it so that you don't miss an episode. And I would really appreciate you leaving a review as well or even a comment on the podcast or ideas of topics that you want me to talk about in future. I've got some exciting episodes coming up with some interesting guests that you really wouldn't want to miss. So, in this climate, wherever you are, do remember to keep safe, look after yourself, and I truly wish you perfect health. Stay limitless, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Bye for now.