Fuelling Success: Combating Burnout And Enhancing Resilience In The Modern Workplace

Addressing physical and biochemical stress with preventative strategies

Burnout is a hot topic in corporate wellness. However, contemporary employee well-being strategies appear to be falling short. A survey published by Deloitte in 2022 estimated the total cost of burnout to UK employers at £56 billion, compared to £45 billion in the previous 2019 survey. As well as absenteeism and reduced performance, burnout is contributing to increased levels of staff turnover, with 61% of leavers citing poor mental health as their reason for leaving. 

When it comes to burnout, prevention is certainly the key, however, few employee well-being strategies focus on this. Instead, many react to illness as it occurs and focus on supporting mental well-being after the fact, an approach that mirrors our health service: Exceptional in a crisis, inaccessible for preventable issues. 

Nutrition, an immensely modifiable risk factor, is rarely mentioned in the context of stress management and mental resilience. Something is not quite right. In our quest for new and novel ways to support employee well-being, are we overlooking the basics? 

 

The Problem with Home-Working

The stats on burnout are somewhat surprising given that contemporary hybrid working was hailed as the cure for better work-life balance. Instead, this approach emerges as more of a pandemic hangover than an actual solution for increased employee well-being. 

Why? Well, the move towards more home-working may be confounding mental health issues at work. Home-working is inherently more isolating, sedentary, and potentially less engaging than true co-working: 
 

• Isolation: The brain recognizes isolation as a stressor and initiates the primal physiological response. To the brain, isolation is no different than a traffic jam or a deadline. Consequently, the stress response is no less active by being at home than in an office. 
• Physical activity is a known countermeasure to stress and is beneficial for our mental health in whatever form. By and large, commuting from the bedroom to the home office or kitchen table exerts significantly less effort than walking to the train or from the car park. 

Some researchers highlight that, as human beings, we perform better under stress when we are surrounded by a community. The “tend and befriend” theory is an alternative behavioral coping mechanism (to “fight or flight”) observed by Shelly Taylor. The theory is that individuals tend to their children as a way to distract themselves from stress and/or surround themselves with others to cope – primitive safety in numbers. Home-working may indeed be beneficial for the former (assuming employees have children, of course) but less so for the latter. Hybrid working is, therefore, not the panacea we had hoped it would be.

What Current Strategies Ignore

The way we cope with stress is a very individual experience, which makes it tricky to deal with from an employer’s perspective. Recognition of this has led to an emphasis on self-awareness and individual responsibility, with employers drawing the line to providing guidance and education on coping strategies and creating the right culture for individuals to thrive. 

These are steps in the right direction. Guidance, encouragement, and education on stress management undoubtedly strike the right tone - employees' lifestyle choices are, after all, their choices. However, most current employee well-being strategies focus on the psychological elements of stress, i.e., tools and techniques to support emotional well-being and mental resilience, whilst ignoring the fact that stress is also a physical and biochemical event.  

Burnout can indeed be prevented through the right mindset, lifestyle changes, and by seeking emotional support through an employer-offered talking therapy. However, understanding the physical elements of stress and resilience can take it one step further. Nutrition fuels optimal mental health and stress resilience. 

The Building Blocks for Stress Resilience

Diet and lifestyle choices are often emphasized for physical health however, few employers are joining the dots for their employees that these elements are the key to building individual resilience and preventing staff turnover due to burnout.  

Consider that our stress response and overall mental health rely on neurotransmitters and hormones to function effectively. These chemical signaling models require protein and unsaturated fats for their synthesis and function. Consider also that stress depletes us of vitamins B and C and magnesium – nutrients that are essential for brain function, energy production, and resilience. 

Not only is this knowledge often overlooked, but there is also a lack of awareness that alterations in hormones, neurotransmitter function, and nutrient levels required for optimal performance can actually be tested for and supported functionally. What could organizational performance look like if individual employees had a greater understanding of their biochemistry and their own unique nutritional needs for optimizing performance and burnout prevention? 

The Future of Employee Well-Being

So, what can employers do about it?

Firstly, employers need to continue to foster a community experience of working – an environment where employees can tap into their primal “befriend” coping mechanism. This needs to go beyond a hybrid work policy that provides a space to co-work on certain days. Employers need to become more innovative for home-working days so colleagues can still connect socially every day if they choose. Virtual lunch halls, break rooms, and even a virtual water cooler to chat at to break up the daily isolation! 

When teams are meeting in person, employers could consider what they are fuelling their teams. There is little value in providing educational webinars or workshops about nutrition for burnout and mental health if they then offer soggy sandwiches, biscuits, and cakes at team meetings. Lunches that favor the Mediterranean Eating Pattern, scientifically proven to reduce symptoms of depression and improve mental health, are more conducive to productivity both during the session and longer term. It also sends a clear signal that they are leading by example and not just paying lip service to the latest trends.  

The promotion of self-awareness and the provision of education and guidance should continue but with an expanded focus on the physical elements of stress. Providing access to nutritionist-led content alongside the traditional mindset and emotional intelligence workshops can help complete the circle in stress-resilience education. 

Beyond that, truly forward-thinking employers consider providing functional health screens and individualized support for employees. This goes beyond the traditional medical health screens and health insurance, which are looking for markers of disease. Functional health screens look for markers of optimal health. This is the truest form of prevention rather than cure and may provide the key to absenteeism reduction. This would typically cost employers £3-5K per employee and may be worth considering as part of an employee benefit scheme, offset against the current cost of staff turnover and absenteeism.  

Like with anything in life, there is no one-size-fits-all. Stress resilience is individual, and the support provided by employers will also need to be individualized to their business. An emphasis on self-awareness and responsibility will form part of the strategy but offering services that are truly preventative and leading by example is the key for the future of employee well-being. 

Rachel Philpotts is a Nutritionist and Mental Health Expert. She is the author of The Burnout Bible: How to tackle fatigue and emotional overwhelm naturally, and the Founder of the re: Nutrition Functional Medicine Clinic, helping exhausted career women to overcome burnout and beyond, utilizing root cause clinical testing and ultra-personalized health programs.