Performance Fatigue and Work-Life Balance

On July 7, 2020 fellow Comp Café writer, Margaret O’Hanlon wrote an article titled “What Does Burnout Have to Do with Compensation?.” The article discussed the classic idea of workplace stressors and how compensation professionals can contribute to a better approach. It’s a quick read, you should check it out. This article views the current workplace that of a performer. It is less about compensation, but just as critical for compensation professionals working remotely.

Try to remember the ancient history of two or three years ago when video calls, not viruses, were novel. Many of us chose to not have our webcams on. Lots of people disabled their cameras entirely. The majority of humans do not enjoy being in the spotlight. Most people don’t even want to be on the stage. For them, the new world of constant video calls is simply exhausting.

Jobs that are truly about “high performance” are everywhere. Surgeons, professional athletes, teachers, and Broadway performers are just a few of the jobs that require being “on” when they do the bulk of their work. Ask any of these professionals and they will tell you that they are exhausted after a few hours. It takes about twice the time of a performance to both prepare and recover. A two or three-hour performance eats up the full workday.

Performing is intense work, even for those born to do it. For the average introvert, wallflower, or heads down excel jockey, performing can be caustic. The average compensation professional did not sign up to be “watched” or have to “smile for the camera.” It feels like the past 120 days have taken a year or two.

One of the “tentpoles” of the total rewards profession is retention. Very few performers can continue performing into their later years. Physical, mental, and emotional fatigue quickly wear down all but a few. When people feel used-up they have no desire to be retained. As Margaret mentioned in her article, classic burnout is real, and we can help contribute to fixing it. Performance fatigue is also real, and if we are going to retain our teams, fixing it requires adjusting our recently adjusted version of work.

5 Steps to getting started.

1. Do not require people to have their camera’s on. I know you like seeing people. I know it can be weird having a meeting when it feels like you are speaking to an empty computer screen. But, you can and must adapt.
2. There is no need for every meeting to be a video call. Many of us saw each other in person only occasionally before we began working remotely, we communicated via phones quite well.
3. Let people “hide in the back of the room”. Even when video is needed, let people be there but do not require everyone to chime in. Many people strategically chose the chair the farthest from the action in conference rooms. Let them do the same on video calls.
4. Stop assuming everyone is working the same hours as you. For now, and maybe forever, the workday is no longer a group of 8-10 consecutive hours. You need to figure what time of day is “performance time” and what time of day is “I am going to leave people alone” time.
5. Suggest to people that they get an external webcam and set it up several feet away from their desk. Not having their face fill the entire screen can reduce performance stress. The distant camera also allows them to move in and out of frame on longer calls. (someone may actually want to blow their nose in peace.)

Performance fatigue is real. The fatigue you are feeling is real. Give yourself a break. Give others a literal break and rebalance the work-life balance now that they seem to be increasingly merging into the same combined work-live-school-eat environment.

Dan Walter is a CECP, CEP, and Fellow of Global Equity (FGE). He is a “Compensation Futurist” who works as Managing Consultant for FutureSense. Dan is also a leading expert on incentive plans and equity compensation issues. He has written several industry resources including the only resource dedicated to Performance-Based Equity Compensation. He has co-authored ”Everything You Do In Compensation is Communication”, “The Decision Makers Guide to Equity Compensation”, “Equity Alternatives” and other books. Connect with Dan on LinkedIn. Or, follow him on Twitter at @DanFutureSense.

Comments

[Chris Thorpe]

Good stuff, Dan! I'm an introvert, and this really rings true...