172. Career Catfishing, CEO Meltdowns & Why Breaks Boost Learning. PLUS! The 5-Step Formula to Avoid Burnout, with Anna Reddy - This Week in Work, 17th February 2025
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Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered psychologist. My name is Al. I'm a business owner. And we are here to help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Hello. If you're on YouTube, you'll notice something a little different about our background. We finished the studio yesterday, which was a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. I hope. I hope, Leanne. Yay!

I mean, if you don't usually watch the YouTube for this podcast, just bob over. Have a little look here. I might put a little sneaky peek on our Instagram story as well. So go over to one of them and go and have a look because Al has transformed our studio. It looks like a different building, but it is in fact the same room.

It was a lot of work and my back is very sore. That's the problem with approaching 50 is you can't do stuff like this. Talking of having a look at things, today is our This Week in Work episode where we take a look at what's happening in the world of work. Regular listeners will know that every Tuesday like today, Leanne and I bring you a roundup of the latest news in work culture, plus a hot take from an industry expert, and then the world famous weekly workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne.

Yes, and then every Thursday we bring you a brand new interview with a great expert guest who knows all about how to build amazing workplace cultures. So with that out of the way, Leanne, what time is it? It's my favourite time of the week, Al. Cue the jingle. Cueing that jingle. Because it's a news roundup, I didn't say that bit. Oh yeah, they know that. They know that.

Smooth as ever. What have you got, Lee? What have you seen? JP Morgan CEO lost his shiz. Have you seen this? No, I haven't. Oh, actually, no, I did. Was it like a sneak Zoom secret recording that was leaked or something? Yeah, it was basically like he's been recorded on tape and it's been leaked and it's...

I think the poor fella needs a holiday to be honest but this is what happens. So a leaked audio recording of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has surfaced and as I said he really did lose his shiz. He is fuming, fuming, furious Al about Gen Z, remote work, bureaucracy and apparently how hard it is to get anyone on the phone on a Friday. Tell me about it. So this recording first reported by Barron's really just

Just kind of demonstrate the growing frustrations we're starting to see between employees and employees. If you're curious as to what exactly happened in the recording, Mr. Dimon goes on a sweary rant about remote work. He claims that younger employees, the Gen Z or Zoomers, as he calls them, are slacking off and hiding behind video calls instead of being physically present in the office. He explicitly calls out work from home Fridays saying, and this is a direct quote, so excuse the swears, please.

Don't give me this shit that work from home Friday works. I call a lot of people on Friday and there's not a goddamn person you can get hold of. Sounds like an episode of Suits. God damn it, do your job. I know. But he then, right? Honestly, he's in a very stressful place. He then goes on to basically criticise his own managers for failing to control remote work, saying...

According to Mr. Dibman, employees have also been misusing remote work, zoning out on video calls and texting during meetings and generally being unproductive. Those unproductive little pesky Gen Zs. He's basically saying the workforce has lost its discipline.

What's interesting is this isn't really coming out of nowhere. JP Morgan has previously allowed employees to work from home or in a hybrid situation and has just recently scrapped hybrid work altogether and demanded that employees come back to the office five days a week. Understandably, this hasn't gone down particularly well with employees and there may have been a number of staff petitions being signed. Mr Dimon's response? Well, he said, I don't care how many people signed that fucking petition.

Apologies to those people. This isn't me. This is Mr. Dinning. This isn't me. I would never say such a word. No, of course you wouldn't. So yeah. So apparently as well, he's gone as far to say, if you don't like it, do one. Again, this is a quote from this leaked tape. You don't have to work at JP Morgan. So the people of you who don't want to work at the company, that's fine with me. It's a free country. You can walk with your feet.

And walk with your feet. I think that's the only way you can walk. But anyway, carry on. Yeah, well, there you go. He also then went on to have a rant about the bureaucracy at J.P. Morgan, complaining about how slow the pace of decision making is. He said, someone told me that to approve something in wealth management, they had to go through 14 committees. I'm dying to get the name of the 14 committees. And I feel like firing 14 chairman of committees or indeed chairperson, Mr. Dimon.

He didn't stop there. He also trashed performance reviews, saying, I get the thing and I throw it in the goddamn garbage can. It's 100% ballom and bullshit. Wow, this poor guy. I know, I'm slightly ironic about this.

He is furious about these inefficiencies, but it's actually his job to help design the corporate structure at J.P. Morgan, and he's been there for a little while. So it is a little bit ironic. Don't you think, Al? Yeah, poor guy. Well, I say poor guy. I mean, he's worth an awful lot of money, and he's the CEO of a huge bank. So, you know, this is the job. Them's the breakers. That's the job. I don't know.

It's just taking on face value seems very, very Boomer-like. That said, that said, and I'm not agreeing with him, but I also...

You know, some days you just want to rant. Leanne had a little rant at me before we pressed record here. And imagine if someone had recorded that and then leaked it. It would look like you were a terrible person when in actual fact I just annoyed you in just a small way, which I tend to do sort of several times a day. So I think there's part of it is like it's potentially out of context. It's also a little unfair that this has gone, you know, viral, as the kids would say, because it could be taken out of context. But...

Taking that face value, it looks like the guy, like you say, he needs a holiday. Yeah, well, yeah, you could say it was face value, but there's been another leaked audio clipping that came out just today of Mr Dippin. Wow.

He was then apparently speaking at the company's internal town hall. And in the audio, he has allegedly criticized the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of the United States, Mr. Rohit Chopra. Well, he did have some good things to say about the bureau in terms of protecting consumers. He

He also said, this is another quote, they massively overstepped their authority. I think this guy Chopra or whatever his name is, was just an arrogant son of a bitch who just made things worse for a lot of Americans. Now, I don't want to lie. I understand this power struggle. I think my beef kind of comes with that power struggle that you're getting a bit irritable. You're starting to, you know, just kind of,

put new rules in place and do it this way, goddammit, or leave. It's like, well, people would do that for so long, but they're not going to stick around if they have a better alternative. Like Citibank, for example, who have just doubled down on their commitments to remote and hybrid working. I also wonder if this is actually genuinely a little bit of burnout, anger, irritability, detachment from work.

not feeling part of the current culture I think Mr. Dimon you might need to take a little vacation or and I think his actual name is Diamond because I always thought it was Jamie Diamond but it's Jamie Diamond oh Dimon anyway Tomato you're going to find out if there's a bit of leaked audio from him come rant at me for that yeah

plot twist what if this is actually just a really smart pr pr move because there's going to be a percentage of people of americans under their new leadership their new president who are going to be like yeah work at home is rubbish everything's a load of rubbish i want to i want to bank with a bank that has the same values as me so maybe it's just clever pr i don't

know maybe Al maybe well there you go what have you seen this week okay Leigh I've got a new term for you I know you normally do the terms but I'm doing the term this time so yeah career catfishing what have you heard of it what does it mean I've not heard of it I've heard of catfishing which is when you like pretend to be fake online to get people to either fall in love with you or give you money sometimes pretend to do both

Yeah, absolutely. Catfishing, in case you haven't heard of it, catfishing is generally like the ancestors when someone pretends to be like a 25-year-old fitness instructor on Tinder, but then turns out to be a 45-year-old accountant who lives with their mom. Career catfishing is basically the same thing, but for jobs. It's about embellishing your CV or resume if you're outside the UK, or outright lying about your skills and qualifications. According to this new report, which from Owl Labs, O-W-L, Owl as in weeb,

Woo, not owl as in me. And I'm going to quote, 45% of Gen Z workers have reported increasing stress and the data shows that many of them are seeking better compensation and benefits, better work-life balance and more career growth opportunities. When their needs are not met, they find creative ways like career fishing and office ghosting, come back to that in a second, to push back.

Now, I think for the slightly older people like me, that sounds very naughty. You're lying on your resume. But aren't employers guilty of doing the same? Like job descriptions often make the job sound really good. But when someone shows up for their first day, things can be very different. Now, this is the bit where I think you're going to like.

Gen Z has taken this to a whole new level. That term I just talked about there, office ghosting, well, they're actually doing that, ghosting recruiters. So they're accepting jobs and then just not showing up. So I don't know whether, the report doesn't say whether it's actually they're doing it sort of out of spite because they feel like the job has got some stuff in it which is not true, or whether they're just like, yeah, yeah, I love the job, I'm just not bothering. So before anyone starts tutting, there's actually a fairly good reason for this.

Because as we said before, the data shows that 45% of Gen Z workers are feeling more stressed. And rather than just like putting up with it, like maybe the older people like me would have done, they are pushing back. They're setting boundaries. The report also says I think it was 20% or 21% are flat out refusing to answer work messages outside of hours. So they're clearly setting these boundaries.

So if they do discover their job is not quite as great as the recruits made out, maybe they'll just not bother going. Or they'll go for day one and just not bother day two. Of course, we also know that Gen Z are much more likely to air their work complaints on social media. This same report, it was quite a big report, found that 48% of Gen Z employees have posted about their jobs or employers negatively on social media. So Lee, is this just like the youths of today being rebellious? Or is this actually the new generation?

way of work? Is this a new way of recruiting? Both recruiter and recruitee, is that the right word? So what you're basically saying is career catfishing is people lying on their CV to get a job. Lying on their CV to get a job or when they go to interview just saying they can do something. Like for example there's this app that if you're doing a coding interview for example that you can essentially, it'll listen to the interview and it'll show you the solution so that while you're in an interview you

You can go, oh, well, I would do it this way. And it'll actually show you on screen how to do it. People have been lying on their CVs for decades.

And I know because I have maybe elaborated on my CV a little bit at times early on. There's a Jamie Dimon moment. But lots of people do. And why? It's because there's so many, and it's so ridiculous, entry-level roles asking for X number of years of experience or this type of experience that young people in their career or people early in their career won't have that experience. Recruitment is fundamentally flawed because we're asking for...

when we should be assessing for potential. And for me, and this is a big, big idea really elaborated on beautifully by Adam Grant in his book Hidden Potential. But the idea basically being that if we actually put more effort into assessing people's potential, the interview process, we do a much better job of selecting people who are going to be strong performers in their future roles because experience isn't really a great predictor of future potential.

Performance, behaviour is better, but experience in terms of X number of years isn't particularly effective. And equally, if you're using that app in an interview, if that's the right answer and that's how you'd want it to be done, then cool, because if you don't know, you're going to go and find the answer, aren't you? You're not just going to assume that you know how to do it because that's how you've always done it.

So actually, I don't think this is that much of a problem. I think it's been done for a long time. I think it's just being talked about a little bit, a little bit more in the public arena. The office ghosting, though, that seems a little bit uncool. That's wasting a lot of people's time and energy, that, isn't it? I don't know. I don't know.

maybe it's just the way this world's going to be. Everyone's lying and, you know, it's like if you look back dating, you put your best photo online, don't you? If I had to go back dating, I would just take a picture of me sitting on the sofa watching telly. They'd be like, well, that's what I look like. So if you hate that, then you're going to hate me when you meet me. Why am I putting on a beautiful AI picture of myself when I don't look like that? Anyway, wait, I digress. Lee, what else have you seen this week? Well, what else?

What else have I seen? Apparently you know how practice makes perfect, that saying that's been around for like 500 years or something. Nonsense. Right. According to science, or kind of. So I was scrolling through LinkedIn the other day and I came across this post by Katie Clinton about a study from the National Institute of Health that claims that real learning doesn't happen when you practice, it happens when you stop.

And I was actually, again, over the weekend re-watching the David Beckham documentary and it kind of made me think of this study again because you remember that bit in it where his dad's like, again, again, getting him to practice the free kicks. And clearly it worked out quite well for David. But equally, this might not have been the best approach, Mr. Beckham Senior. So researchers have basically found that real improvements don't happen when you're practicing, they happen when you stop. And this is in terms of learning a new skill.

So they put participants through a task where they had to learn a five digit typing sequence, practicing in short 10 second bursts and then 10 second breaks in between. And here's a really interesting bit. When they scanned their brains, they saw that during the breaks, their brains were replaying what they just practiced 20 times faster. So like a mental fast forward button.

And the more the brain replayed the activity, the better they got in the next round. Now in workplace psychology, we kind of know that breaks are a thing for a little while in terms of focus and productivity and reducing burnout. But this type of research that is now possible because of the MRI technology we have is really kind of taking it to the next level of understanding in terms of what happens in our brains when we take these steps.

So yeah, we should be encouraging people to take breaks. Fun fact, that's also where the whole ping pong table in the break room came from. Ever wondered why there's a ping pong table in the break room? Because it's meant to encourage taking breaks for productivity and such things. Not that anyone actually has that intentionality around it anymore.

But anyway, if you're feeling guilty about stepping away from your desk, taking a little break, worrying that it's lazy, or indeed if you're a manager that starts to question why people are taking so many breaks, don't. It could actually be very good in terms of learning new skill, consolidating learning, and just being an all-round better human being. Our thoughts? Give me the skinny on this again. So what was it that practice doesn't make perfect? What should we be doing instead? Break.

Breaks allow us to consolidate the learning, which is ultimately more effective than just repetition. Now I get it. So instead of, if we learn, like we need to be learning Bosnian because we live here. Duh. So if we were learning Bosnian, then rather than just going over verbs for an hour over and over again, you'd go over verbs like once, then you'd take a five minute coffee break, then you'd come back and the idea would be that you'd actually be absorbing that in your coffee break. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. So these researchers did it in kind of like sprints.

So I think they did 10 seconds on, 10 seconds off. So you might want to do like a minute on, a minute off or indeed, yeah, a longer session and then take that break. But the whole point is, is that kind of relentless repetition does not help us consolidate learning or learn new skills better or more effectively. In fact, it's better for us to put in that intensive practice and then walk away. That makes

perfect sense as a little bit of an anecdote when we were by the way that's the end of the news roundup I hope you enjoyed it if you've got an article you'd like us to talk about then check out the show notes because there's ways to get in touch there and so far only a couple of people have sent stuff in so yeah if you fancy us talking maybe about something some research you've done then send it in

Just a little anecdote before we go to the break. I totally agree with this whole idea of taking a break from something. This is what happened when I was... We were building the studio and Leanne was away when I was doing a lot of it. And there was certain problems I'd come across and be like, I don't know what to do. And I'd be like, well, I'll do this then. And I'd spend an hour and a half fixing a particular thing. Then I'd go and have a cup of coffee and I'd be like...

huh, there's a much easier way of doing this. And that's happened three or four times. But anyway, I'm not sure I might keep that in if that seems a little bit superfluous. So after this very short break, we'll be back with this week's hot take from a woman who has invented a cool method to keep your energy up all day, regardless of how long your to-do list is. So do not go anywhere.

Welcome back. As regular listeners will know, every week we have a workplace expert and we ask them for their hot take on the world of work. We want bold insights, surprising predictions, and occasionally unpopular opinions. We want to know what's going on in the world of work, what's broken, and what is coming next. Today we are joined by Anna Reddy, who is the founder of Leap Health.

Anna is a workplace health and well-being leadership coach and host of the Lead Health Workplace podcast that Leanne's been on. I think it's out this week, next week. After nearly two decades in the pharmaceutical industry, Anna founded Leap Health to help organizations from finance to healthcare. They help them to prioritize well-being through workshops and coaching on burnout.

burnout, that's a weird way of saying it, burnout, nutrition, and obviously menopause. Her mission is very simple, to bridge the gap between health and business performance, creating workplaces where people thrive. Now, READY is not just her name. READY is the acronym of the five things you need to do to stay healthy, stay energized, and stay motivated at work. So let's go and meet Anna and hear about her READY method.

So I'm Anna, I am the founder of Leap Health and I'm a workplace health, wellbeing and performance coach. So I deliver workshops around all different areas of health, including nutrition, burnout, menopause, all different areas of health, which are ultimately a catalyst to performance and energy one-to-one coaching as well. Often when people start on their career pathway or start in an organisation, they have that honeymoon period where they're

they're so excited and they're trying to give it their all and go that 150% to show everyone how wonderful they are. But over time, that starts to take a toll on us and stress starts to build up. And burnout in essence is that buildup of chronic stress. So it's all those little stresses that we might not notice that are starting to increase in our life until we've got that chronic stage of stress.

and you know when we've experienced that for a long time that's when burnout does occur so we all need to be aware of what the signs and symptoms are and how we can call it out in other people so such as people becoming a bit disengaged with the job disengaged from other people feeling tired all the time not being able to concentrate not in physical symptoms as well maybe in terms of the heart rate in terms of

muscle aches and pains, just understanding those different signs and symptoms that might be happening. And then for people to understand how you actually have conversations. Because all too often we'll say to people, how are you feeling? Are you okay?

And response is always, yeah, I'm fine. And I posted recently on LinkedIn, people might have seen this image before, but of a chap that's smiling and in his head is a child that's all punched up and frightened and

I think a lot of people are feeling this in organisations. They put a brave face on, smile, and yet they're crumbling inside. And we need to be able to voice that crumbling a little bit more so that we can support each other to have that true, authentic smile on our face. So I do truly believe it's about being able to call people out. But it's also being able to empower people

to put strategies in place to prevent that long-term chronic stress building up. And I often use a ready method, which I'm going to introduce you to now.

R is for rest, recovery, recharge. E is for eating well. A is for activity. D is for distraction management. And Y is for you. So people might be thinking this doesn't really sound very business related and very performance related. But actually setting these as your foundations help you be stronger physically and mentally and be able to perform better.

So in terms of our Breast Recovery Recharge program,

we need to realise that we can't just keep go, go, go, go, going because ultimately our productivity levels do start to dip. We need to prioritise that rest, recover, recharge. And by prioritising that, and particularly getting adequate amounts of sleep, so making sure that we're not doing emails late at night that are going to stimulate our brain so that we're awake all night, making sure that we're not having mega-railing meetings start so that we're thinking all night, I've got to be up early in the morning. Making sure...

We minimise that conflict with colleagues so it's not playing on your mind all the time. Making sure we've got clarity in what we're doing so that we're not confused and it's keeping us awake at night. But being able to prioritise that rest, recovery, recharge

enables your brain to be able to push out, clear, reset itself at night so that you can greater clarity, greater confidence and know more what you're doing so that you can perform better without getting overwhelmed and stressed. And recognising during the day when we need to take breaks away. And again, this comes back to calling other people out, noticing maybe when they're getting a bit agitated, when they're struggling a little bit,

and calling them out telling them to take a break tell them to have five minutes around the block to get a bit of fresh air and reset because people don't always recognize themselves and the next one is eating well and as a nutritionist i always encourage people to focus on fueling demand because what you eat has a big impact on your brain and although

it's on two percent of your body weight it consumes 20 percent of your calories so we really need to fuel our mind and i always you know all these areas i go to in deep dives in terms of workshops i'm just giving you a little taste of them all but um

Yeah, in terms of what I would always recommend is prioritize the nutrients that you need for yourself. Don't compare yourself to anyone else, but prioritize the nutrients that you need. Make sure you're feeling well during the day. Feel your brain like it's a Ferrari, like you would your car, so that you can perform and be at your best. So you're not becoming overwhelmed and work's getting too much for you. You've got that clarity. You're not getting yourself in a food coma because you're eating that many snacks during the day. You're not letting yourself go for massive periods of time so that you're hungry and you can't focus. Beautiful.

Fuel your mind like it's a Ferrari. Prioritise the nutrients that you need. And indirectly, you'll have less of the ones that maybe you don't need as well. But try to encourage those healthy habits in the workplace. Have healthy food out, you know, nutritious food. Fuel your employees like you would fuel your Ferrari. The next one is...

is a activity. And again, often we feel like we're too busy or we've got too many things to do. We're overwhelmed with work that we need to sit at our desk all the time. Actually, we need to take time away. Again, that will reduce that chronic stress, reduce some of those

symptoms that are coming on with burnout as well. And actually reframing exercise into movement that's going to stimulate your mind, that's going to stimulate your creativity, that's going to boost those neurochemicals in your brain, such as dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, which are going to enable you to be more productive so that you can switch off and get that rest time at the end of the day. So again, calling other people out, making health contagious, which is one of my favourite things

phrases you know go up to someone in the office or phone someone if you work in hybrid you know let's have a walk and talk outside let's solve one of our business problems on a walk and talk outside believe you and me you will get far more from that than sat in front of a screen or just sat face to face in an office and d is for distraction management and i talk a lot about positive noise and negative noise and

You are in control of a lot of that noise. So really try to absorb and expose yourself to as much positive noise as you can. If you see leaders...

that are leading the life that you want to lead, learn more about them. Learn more about them. Don't expose yourself with lots of negative noise of people that work, work, work constantly, that think, you know, the more hours, the better. Because, you know, in the background, they're probably suffering from signs and symptoms of burnout and are probably...

completely drained or get a good dose of positive noise a good podcast like this you'll get you get yourself all that positive noise and that can overcome that negative noise as well

And why is the most important one. So this is think about you. So if you're getting overwhelmed with work and you're thinking that, you know, I can't take my foot off the brake, I'm too involved in this, I can't let anything go, you need to think about your bigger purpose. What's really important to you? Is it just what your boss thinks? Is it just that paycheck at the end of the day? Or is it actually how you're showing up now as a person, you know,

How are you interacting with other people right now? Is it your long-term health? Failing to sleep, there's links with lack of sleep and the buildup of amyloid plaques in your brain, which are associated with Alzheimer's. There's lots and lots of long-term chronic complications that happen when you fail to prioritize your health. So really try to dig deep and think of your purpose. Have you got something going on in your world? Maybe I do a lot of work around menopause. Maybe you're a woman who's struggling with your hormones right now.

you know and could be at higher risk of burnout because you're trying to manage all different things what can you empower yourself with to help yourself today

So that is the ready method, which you can use at any time of the day. If you just feel a little bit down at one point in the day and don't know why you're feeling down, check in with the ready method and think, what's the small little things that I could do today? What are the small steps I can do that could have a big difference? Or if you want to look at your life in a bigger picture, what are the small things that I can do that would have a really, really big impact?

And I know that this is all about truth and lies and misconceptions. So I'm going to give you a quick misconception now is that it's people that don't know how to manage the stress that are at risk of burnout. It's not those top performers. Well, actually, no.

I truly believe it's the people that just don't prioritise empowering the health and wellbeing as a catalyst to performance. And by prioritising your health and wellbeing doesn't mean that you perform less or that you're not going to achieve your goals. It means that you're going to get there faster. You're going to get there faster, but you're going to get there happier as well. And it's not just at an individual level we need to target this. It's at a

a collective level in organizations. This REDI framework, I love that it's also a name, although I think it's spelled differently. I love how it kind of connects the health foundations to performance because, you know, often we see organizations implementing these well-being initiatives without understanding those basic building blocks of rest, nutrition, and performance.

And what really stood out to me was her point about calling out behaviors in others, because we often talk about psychological safety, especially here on the podcast. But she made a great point about how people put on this brave face while crumbling inside. That LinkedIn post she mentioned really sort of captures it possibly.

And speaking of psychology, I also know she was very specific about sleep. It's not just about getting enough rest, but about all those sort of organizational factors that affect it, you know, like late night emails, early meetings, workplace conflicts, arguments about where the monitor should go in a podcast studio, that kind of thing.

Yeah, it really is steeped in some really great science there. We know that sleep is really important. There is no such thing as just some people that can live effectively a five hour sleep. It will catch up with them eventually. And I also like you said those behaviours and how this is that those behaviours won't be tolerated. They will be called out, which we know is the definition of a positive workplace culture when these more toxic, even unintentional toxic behaviours aren't tolerated.

But also that there's this idea that we need to be taking accountability for our own mental health, our own wellness. And that is an expectation of employees now. We're seeing that come through in the research that employees want to see their leadership teams investing in their own mental health and well-being. Because with that authenticity, they know that they're going to mean it when they say we're also going to prioritise the employee, the mental health and well-being of our team.

So I think that was really cool as well. And I think that that core message really just around prioritising health and wellbeing and not as a trade-off, and I think this is where we're seeing a lot of frustration as we saw from Mr. Demon, is it? Diamond. Diamond, I think it's Diamond. Diamond, Demon, whatever. JP Morgan dude. We're seeing this frustration with employees because there's a lot of like talk and...

fluff and you know just trying to just lip service really and that's pushed to the point where we see these outbursts by these CEOs and clearly everything they've said previously about working from home flexibility work-life balance well-being mental health is nonsense because now it's clearly not not believed it at the top so I think as always intentionality is really important in these things

Yeah, definitely. So go and find Anna on LinkedIn and definitely go and give her podcast a listen. It's called The Leap Health Workplace Podcast. You'll find it wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, on to my favorite time of the week. It's time for the world famous weekly workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Just in case you hadn't worked it out yet, Leanne is my wife, my co-host, and also a chartered occupational psychology with a lot of experience helping organizations create amazing workplace cultures. I'm a psychologist, not a psychology, but it's close enough.

Did I say psychology? No, but it doesn't matter. Sorry, you're carried away, you see. And it's her job to help give you, our lovely listeners, advice on work-related problems. Here is the first problem, Leanne. Our friendly culture has become too friendly. Way too friendly. We're a fast-growing startup, and I've noticed that my informal, friendly culture is starting to cause problems as we scale. And I just said my culture, which is maybe...

a point to take on. Boundaries are blurring and what used to be casual catch-ups are turning into gossip sessions that affect work relationships. How do I maintain a close-knit atmosphere while introducing more professional boundaries? I mean, the first thing to...

to remember is that your culture is going to evolve and shift and change as your business grows it's not going to stay the same and there could be an element of some of these more casual informal policies ways of working don't quite work in a more mature organization

This could potentially be a really tricky one to unpick. So I want to try and keep it really simple and practical for you. There's two different types of team cohesion in organization, the social cohesion, which it seems like you have a lot of, although that's starting to maybe get a bit shaky, and there's task cohesion. So I think what

my thought would be is how can you implement some processes, systems in consultation with your people to improve task cohesion, to make sure that the work is getting done in the way it needs to get done to be the most effective, the most productive, the highest performing.

And the cool thing about task cohesion as well is once we start to get that right and people understand their individual roles within it, people start to appreciate their colleagues a lot more because their work is easier, their job is getting easier because of this cohesion within the task. That process, you know, anecdotally, when you've worked in places that just kind of really slick on their processes, it's nice, it's a good place to be. And that good place to be feeling...

that satisfaction you're finding in your actual transactional work then starts to spread and foster what's called social cohesion, which is those more professional, effective relationships between your colleagues whilst remaining friendly. The thing is, you know, the thing I reflect on as well, you say that it's, you know, this friendly culture, but it's starting to seep into kind of gossip.

that's they're very uncivil behaviors gossip could be depending on the nature of it deemed as bullying or discrimination so it actually needs to be taken quite seriously um if these gossip sessions are getting a bit dark to the point they're starting to impact relationships in a negative way so it might also be time to revisit some of your values and when i mean say values i mean the behaviors associated with them so if it is about being an effect

team player what does that mean and that will mean no gossip it will mean you know helping your team members as and when you're able to or mean making sure that you're fulfilling everything you need to in terms of your tasks to make everyone else's job easier.

So I think that would be my thought in the immediate fix it, focus on task cohesion for a little bit. How do you make things a bit slicker, a bit more process driven, particularly as your organization grows? You're going to thank yourself for doing that now. That in turn is going to breed that social cohesion over time. And secondly, maybe revisit your values and specifically the behaviors related to them, because as your organization grows, these are going to be the behaviors that you don't want to tolerate.

Absolutely fantastic. I think the last thing to add on this is not from a psychological point of view, but just from like a turnover point of view. I think with startups, and I've done several startups, some have worked well, some have not worked well at all. But what I have noticed, and a lot of people notice, is that the people who get you to the first, like the first 12 people aren't always the 12 people who are going to be around when you're up to 60, 70 people.

A lot of people join a startup because they want a specific excitement, a bit of an adventure or something, and they're not the ones who are going to be around later on. So yes, it's important to look at your culture. Yes, your culture is the worst behaviors tolerated. Is that the right definition, Lee? But at the same time, it's going to change massively as you grow. So don't set it in stone and don't stress too much that,

Like Leanne said, she's pointed out some really bad stuff that you need to be careful of there. But also, you know, you're not going to get it right because it's going to change it with employee number 13. Then it's going to change again with employee number 26. And then if you ever get to like 600 people in, you know, it'll be a very different culture as Jamie Dimon found out. Okay, Leigh, should we be ready for question number two? Yes.

The work after hours club that I just can't join. My team has a weekly optional, and they've put this in kind of like, you know, inverted commas, optional social events that our manager heavily encourages everyone to attend.

These are always after work hours and often involve drinking. I'm a parent with a young child and I can't regularly attend, but I'm noticing I'm missing out on important informal conversations and team bonding. How do I address this without seeming antisocial? Just before I ask you, Leon, this does remind me of maybe 20 years ago when people used to smoke at work and then quite often there's a bit of friends, I think, what happened to seeing friends where people were talking in the meeting, they'd all go outside for a cigarette and then the decision would be made and they'd come back in and those non-smokers would miss out. But

Sorry, Lee. So what are your thoughts on this? It's always going to be the way, isn't it? You're not going to be able to be in every conversation at every point in time. There's going to be an element of some decisions you won't have as big an impact on. The key, I think, is first of all, understanding the things that you do want to have a say in and you want that influence over in terms of decisions being made and let go of just these little small process driven decisions. Sometimes it doesn't really matter as long as the decision is the right one.

You said you can't go regularly. That sounds like you can go sometimes. I would encourage you to go as and when you can. For you as well as for the work scenario, it's always good to build up that social support network in as many different aspects as you can as a parent and work is a really important one of those as well. So definitely go as and when you can. I

say the other thing is maybe suggest an alternative. Maybe say, can we rather than after work, can we alternate it with a breakfast club or going for lunch or, you know, some other kind of during the day activity. And I appreciate that might be a harder sell for some of the managers involved potentially. But if you explain the situation, I'm sure as well, if you point out some other people in the organisation that equally impacted because they can't attend it, whether it be in terms of family or family

religious beliefs or whatever there could be a whole host of reasons why people wouldn't want to engage in just this after work drinking based activity. So I think that would be my thoughts one don't sweat the small stuff if it's not decisions that that you really need to be involved in and the decisions that are being made are quite right let it go. Secondly go when you can make yourself heard seen work the room and make sure that your presence is noted and appreciated and

And finally, maybe suggest to your colleagues, to your manager about shaking up these social events with some alternatives, whether it be something after work that doesn't involve drinking, maybe something that is more child friendly, a breakfast club, lunch, that type of thing. Just with the view that it will be more inclusive for the different demographics that there are in the organisation and inclusivity and diversity is only ever a good thing.

Perfect answer. I have no notes. Good work, Leigh. That's brilliant. So I hope that helps. And there's some really, really sound advice in there. It sounds like something you're not going to be able to immediately fix, but as Leigh-Anne's given you some really, really good opportunities or alternatives to this, which I think is cool.

Okay, question number three. Is my employee really this unlucky or am I being played? I love this. I have a team member who seems to be in constant personal crisis. One week it's a flooded apartment, the next it's a family emergency or their pet's ill or something like that.

While each individual situation seems legitimate, the constant stream of dramatic life events is affecting team morale and productivity. Other team members are picking up the slack and starting to resent it. I want to be supportive, but I'm struggling to balance empathy with maintaining professional standards. How do I handle this chaos without seeming heartless? This person is chaotic, that's for sure. And there are just some employees like that. I've had

a few in my time as well. And they're exceptional people, exceptional members of the team, very high performers, but just chaotic. Some people just attract chaos.

I think the first thing is to always assume that everything this person says is true unless you're given evidence, evidence not kind of gossip, evidence to the country. Assume this is true and approach it from a place of how can I support you to dial down the chaos so you are able to engage in your work more calmly, more effectively which would ultimately be better for the individual and for you and the business.

So yeah, sitting down kind of saying, I'm nervous. There's been a lot going on for you recently. You okay? Is there anything that I can do to help? Is there anything that will help? You know, you manage these life scenarios and events more effectively. If it is starting to impact that performance, bring that into the conversation as well and say, look, you know, I know you're having a hard time. My concern now is it's starting to impact your productivity, your performance, the team. We need to find some solutions to this as soon as possible.

do that in consultation with your employee. It might be that you need to look at what signposting you have in place depending on the actual chaos this person is going through. Because there could be a million underlying reasons that you'll never know unless they choose to disclose it. They could have an addiction issue. There could be violence at home. There could be a mental illness. There could be a physical chronic illness that is impacting their ability to work. There could be loads of different things and they're not necessarily going to disclose that to you no matter how many conversations you have with them.

So you might need to signpost them to various things where they might disclose that. Occupational health is usually a really good outsourcing option in these types of scenarios. Your EAP program, all that kind of good stuff. And finally, I think with all of that in place and setting these goals and goals,

milestone check-ins with that person just through the lens of the more calm this is for you the less stress this is going to cause because there's going to be less conflict between work and life and that's good for you it's good for your performance good for me and it's good for the business we want everyone to be happy and to do that we're going to have to have this very informal you know development plan in place.

if those goals start being missed, that performance starts being dipped, you really have to treat it without any disclosures from this person in terms of needing additional help. You're going to have to treat it like you would any other employee who is having a dips in performance as per your policy, what you normally do, whether it's personal performance improvement plan or otherwise, and really just follow the letter of the law within your organisation. So that would be my thought. Take it all as true.

Try and have these conversations to see what practical things you can do. Empathy isn't just about having the understanding of how somebody is feeling and getting in the hole with them. Empathy is also about actions. We have empathic concern as a manager. And that means what can I do to make your job easier? And making your job easier might be helping you deal with some of the chaos that's happening outside of work.

So, to tip that empathy into action, you're well within your right to do that. And that's a key part of empathy in the workplace. And use all your resources, all the outsourcing that you can do, signposting. And if that continues not to work and it does impact performance, then follow your normal policies within your organisation. Yeah, fabulous bit of advice as always, Leanne. If you're listening to this, you're going, occupational health, I feel like we should have that.

then definitely check out harry kramer's company smartclinic.com um he's a previous guest friend of the show and just a generally genuinely lovely lovely guy with a fantastic product um we've got we're not shilling we've got no we've got no no skin in the game here he's not paying us to say that it's just definitely go and work that out check that out because i think that could be a really good addition to your sort of like hr stack

I think that's it Leanne I've got no more questions if you have basically maybe you've got more questions if you've got a question you'd like me to put to Leanne then maybe just check out the chat notes and there's a way to get in touch as always we can do it anonymously or we can actually read out your name if you'd like us to but very few people would like us to because most of the problems are well of a personal nature sensitive nature yes of a sensitive nature

Okay, so this Thursday, we're bringing you an absolute zinger. We are joined by Skye Waterston, who is one of the top experts on adult ADHD. She is a podcaster, an author, a PhD, and a coach, which is why she's one of the top people in the adult ADHD world.

If you're a leader or a business owner who wants to understand ADHD better, then this is going to be a good one. And if you think you might have adult ADHD, then you shouldn't miss this interview because Sky caught hers, I think, when she was doing her PhD, I think. I don't want to spoil the story. You'll hear about it next week.

So now might be a great time to hit that subscribe button. Yes, that is on Thursday. And of course, we will be back next Tuesday with another edition of This Week in Work, where we will bring you our news roundup, another hot take from an industry expert and our world famous weekly workplace surgery, where I try and answer all your questions. You say try, you do it effortlessly every single week.

Talking of helping, if you really want to support the show, then maybe consider posting something on LinkedIn, something like We're Loving Truth, Lies and Work podcast or something like that. That would be really cool because then your network sees it and we get more listeners and...

actually there's not much else in it for you apart from if you tag us in we will try and send you something nice community that's what's in it for you that's what's in it for you yeah connecting people listeners who believe that this stuff is important that think that the dude from JB Morgan just needs to retire or just have a really good rest Jamie if you're listening then yeah drop us an email Leanne will do a free session for you for me but not on a Friday because I won't answer

Okay, is that everything, Leanne? That's everything, yeah. All business concluded? Business concluded. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye-bye.