#177 Avoiding Burnout for Data Professionals with Jen Fisher, Human Sustainability Leader at Deloitte

Jan 29, 2024

Jen Fisher, Deloitte’s human sustainability leader and former chief well-being officer, discusses the alarming rise of burnout among data professionals. She shares her personal experiences and insights on fostering a supportive workplace culture. Jen emphasizes the importance of genuine well-being initiatives over superficial perks, while explaining the complexities of high-performance environments. Additionally, she highlights the need for connection in distributed teams and the role of leaders in prioritizing their own well-being to create a culture of trust.

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INSIGHT

Recognizing Burnout

Recognizing burnout in oneself is difficult, especially in high-performance cultures that encourage pushing through.
Look for patterns of behavior like lack of motivation, emotional reactivity, and changes in sleep or eating habits.

ADVICE

Key Components of Well-being

Focus on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health for well-being.
Consider the impact of work itself, including relationships with leaders, work design, and autonomy, on overall well-being.

ADVICE

Beyond Superficial Perks

Perks like kombucha don't address the root causes of poor well-being, such as toxic leadership or poor work design.
Focus on improving these fundamental issues instead of superficial perks.

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Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, woke up in a pool of blood nursing a broken cheekbone after collapsing at her desk in 2007. Various stresses and pressures in her life had manifested themself into an episode of extreme mental exhaustion. This event was the catalyst for her to write a book on well-being as well as start the behavioral-change company Thrive Global. Many of us have, or will, experience burnout at some point. The build-up of stress, negative emotions, and internal tension may not result in the same shocking scene Huffington found herself in, but its effects are serious and permeate not just through our profession but into our home life as well. Stress and burnout are especially prevalent in working environments where there is an emphasis on urgency, and with the constant advancements we’ve seen in the data & AI sphere in the past year, leaders and practitioners working in the data space will need to know how to recognize the symptoms of burnout and create workplace cultures that prevent burnout in the first place.

Jen Fisher is Deloitte’s human sustainability leader. Previously, Fisher served as Deloitte’s first-ever chief well-being officer. She’s also a TEDx speaker, coauthor of the book, Work Better Together: How to Cultivate Strong Relationships to Maximize Well-Being and Boost Bottom Lines, editor-at-large for Thrive Global, and host of the “WorkWell” podcast series.

In the episode, Jen and Adel cover Jen’s own personal experience with burnout, the role of a Chief Wellbeing Officer, the impact of work on our overall well-being, the patterns that lead to burnout, defining well-being in the workplace, technology’s impact on our well-being, psychological safety in the workplace, how managers and leaders can looking after themselves and their teams, the future of human sustainability in the workplace and much more.

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