Kris Safarova  00:45

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is also a free download. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. And today we have with us Patricia Grabarek, who is a co-author of Leading for Wellness, and co-founder of Workr Beeing. Throughout her career, she has leveraged her doctorate in industrial/organizational psychology in her work with over 60 different client organizations implementing best practice solutions and research to improve employee wellness, retention, engagement and performance. Patricia. Welcome.

Patricia Grabarek  01:40

Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Kris Safarova  01:44

So maybe before we go into this very important topic, you could give us a little bit of an overview of how you landed doing this work.

Patricia Grabarek  01:51

Sure happy to do that. So I, as you mentioned, have a doctorate in industrial organizational psychology, and in that program, I met my friend Katina, who’s my co author, and a few years ago, we were lamenting the fact that there’s a lot of workplace wellness challenges out there. You know, I was dealing with clients that were struggling to retain employees, engage employees, and they were looking for the wrong solutions instead of addressing the cultural and wellness issues that the organization was facing. And on the other hand, Katina, she went into academia, and she was doing a lot of research on workplace wellness, and she was feeling like her research and the great information that we have on how to create these positive and healthy work environments was just not getting to the people that needed it, because it’s behind an, you know, an academic journal, pay wall. It’s super complicated to read, and so we felt like there was a big gap where people were trying to solve challenges they were facing in the work environment, and they weren’t getting the information they needed. So we started worker being to really just help organizations and employees and leaders get access to information around creating these healthy environments. As we were doing that, we discovered a gap in the research. So there’s a lot of things that you can do, a lot of studies about what is helpful, but what was missing was a clear blueprint of exactly what steps leaders should take to create the right environment where people can be healthy, can thrive, can be productive and effective and really drive the outcomes and results that people are looking for within these organizations. So we decided to fill that gap. We went down the path of creating a study around this and really understanding what is it that drives the right environment, and what are the steps those leaders can take, and that’s what we turn into our book. So our goal is to really just help leaders use the tools that we have in the book to create these environments where employees can be effective healthy, but also getting the results and doing what needs to be done within the job itself.

Kris Safarova  04:02

This is so important, and when it is ignored, when people just focus on getting results, then ultimately you have huge turnover and people get sick. I have seen it. I have worked in an environment like that in the past, so I’m very glad that you guys are doing that work. Thank you for doing that work. So maybe we can start with defining workplace wellness.

Patricia Grabarek  04:23

Of course, yes, I do think it’s also very important work. So I’m glad that you agree with that and workplace wellness, that was another thing that was kind of missing in the research. People were defining wellness in a lot of different ways, and what the studies were showing was unclear as to what exactly wellness meant. So we asked participants in our study to define it for us. So what did they think? How did they define workplace wellness? So what are employees actually thinking about? And what we learned is that employees define workplace wellness really broadly. They’re looking at physical health, mental health, emotional health, work life, balance. It’s it’s kind of everything about their lives that is important to them that encompasses workplace wellness. It’s not just specific programs that exist out there. So they want to live life fully. Employees want to be able to leave work and feel good and then come back to work and still feel good. And that’s how we define workplace wellness. Is just that broad whole person perspective and to think about the entire individual person when you’re thinking about wellness.

Kris Safarova  05:27

What do you think is the single biggest misconception leaders have about workplace wellness?

Patricia Grabarek  05:32

I think a lot of leaders think that you have to have a trade off between wellness and results. And as you mentioned right at the beginning, that when people are not feeling well, they get sick, they leave the organization. They’re disengaged. There’s a lot of impacts of not having a healthy workplace and having employees burn out, but a lot of leaders kind of ignore that piece and they just focus on results, and they think those two things are separate. Wellness is a program that we can give people access to yoga or meditation app or, you know, some sort of walking step challenge. That is what how they view wellness, and then they see results, and all the things around driving those results as a separate thing, but really the day to day environment is what’s important. So the entire experience with employees is what drives workplace wellness, not those add on programs.

Kris Safarova  06:26

That makes a lot of sense. So how do you think definition of workplace wellness differ between leaders and employees?

Patricia Grabarek  06:34

I think it’s comes back down to that program piece. So a lot of organizations and a lot of leaders, they think about wellness as an initiative, as something that happens outside of work, right? So we’re giving you access to these fitness challenges, some nutritional information. Maybe there’s mental health tools you can access, or therapists, or what have you, that’s provided by the organization, and they think of that as workplace wellness, but really, the employees are thinking about wellness more broadly. They don’t really care as much about those add on initiatives. They’re great, they’re fun, they can be helpful, but if an employee doesn’t have time to use them or access at that program, then it’s not going to help them. What matters is having that culture where people have, not only, you know, a good relationship with their team and their leader, they’re able to get their work done effectively, and they’re not overworked, they can actually leave work disconnect and focus on what wellness means to them. You know, maybe I don’t want to do a step challenge, but I’m really into Pilates, and work’s not going to provide both those things. I just need the time to do what I want to do outside of work and think about myself holistically, and the organization needs to support me to have that life outside of work.

Kris Safarova  07:52

That makes a lot of sense. And sometimes leaders create certain things, like, for example, let’s have drinks everyone, the entire team, on Friday evening. But if you know you have to work at least until 10pm to finish your work, that is the last thing you want to do, because that means you have to stay there until 11 or 12.

Patricia Grabarek  08:11

Exactly. Yeah, if we add things to people’s plates that are supposed to help them, but then they’re working really big hours to make up for that, or we’re not managing the work itself appropriately, then those things are not going to help anybody.

Kris Safarova  08:27

So let’s expand on why do traditional wellness programs fail to deliver meaningful results.

Patricia Grabarek  08:33

So the main reason is because people can’t actually take advantage of them most of the time when we have these traditional programs that include, again, access to meditation apps or therapists or what have you. If there’s no time in your day to actually use those resources because you’re working like you said, till 10pm It’s not helping you. There’s no way you can add that into your day. What matters is for you to be able to take your time and use it in what matters to you, right? Everybody has a different way of self care, a different thing they want to do to take care of themselves. We need to make time and capacity for individuals to actually do that, and the only way to do that is for the work environment to be better and to treat people better and to allow people to have time outside of work and even within work there, if there’s a really negative, toxic culture and environment, those add on programs are not going to help anybody, because they’re people are miserable. If you’re miserable eight, 910, hours a day, you’re when you leave work and you go and do the meditation app that the organization provided for you, you’re not really going to be able to recover and feel better, because that environment is just so negative that you can’t kind of break your way out of it. So that’s why we see those traditional programs aren’t working, is people don’t have the time for them, and the environment itself is really negative, and you can’t just yoga your way out of a toxic culture that is.

Kris Safarova  10:00

Very true, and especially if you are in a difficult place at work and there’s a lot of stress, it’s actually even if you had 15 minutes to do meditation, it’s very hard to get in the right space to do it effectively.

Patricia Grabarek  10:10

Exactly. Exactly.

Kris Safarova  10:14

So let’s talk about specific leadership behaviors that have the greatest impact on employee well being and morale.

Patricia Grabarek  10:22

Sure. So there’s a lot of behaviors that we describe in the book, and we kind of go through step by step what people should do the first thing, if I was to tell a leader right now, this is the first thing you need to focus on as you’re trying to create a healthier environment. It’s to fire your work self. It’s basically come to work more authentically, be vulnerable and build trusting relationships with your employees. You can’t help them and support them if you don’t know who they are, don’t know what they need. Everything that people need in the workplace is different based on who they are, where they are in their lives, what matters to them. And you can’t help and support people without knowing them and understanding them. And when you have a trusted relationship, employees can also feel free to not only share, oh, I need to leave work at this time to pick up my child, but they can also share, hey, I’m really struggling with this task because, you know, I’m not really sure where to start, or I’ve never done this before? I need some help. When you have a strong, trusted relationship with your employees, those conversations can happen much more easily, and you can learn what you need to do to support those employees. So that’s the number one thing I say, is forget about leadership norms. Fire your work self. Come authentically to work, be vulnerable, share your own challenges and struggles, and build trusting relationships.

Kris Safarova  11:45

For leaders that are listening to us right now. And think, look, Patricia, it’s all very nice and good to talk about it, but I myself under so much pressure to lead my team to deliver things, and not only my job on the line, but all of their jobs are on the line. So how can leaders balance the pressure to deliver results with promoting employee well being, given that we live in such a fast, changing, competitive world?

Patricia Grabarek  12:11

That’s a great question. Leaders have hard jobs, especially the leaders that are kind of in between, right, like more middle management, if you have a team of your own, but you also are reporting to more senior leaders. You’re often stuck in the middle, and it’s really difficult to make huge changes yourself, because you’ve got a lot going on. I think the problem that we face is realizing that setting up this correct culture actually will save you time in the long run. So we often think, oh my gosh, if I have to add building relationships, my employees to my to do list, and if I have to add, you know, all these different things, that’s I’m not gonna be able to do everything I need to do. It does take some investment up front. So yes, you’re dealing with a lot of pressure. There’s a lot going on, but once you get the ball going, you’ve got everything moving, then your team is going to start supporting you too. It kind of creates this dynamic where everyone’s helping each other on the team, everyone’s kind of creating this positive environment, and they’re able to support you and support each other. We also have some tips on like how you can try to push back on leaders, that maybe, if you’re in the middle management level and a leader is pushing on you with different priorities and trying to put a lot of pressure on you, there’s some tips and tricks as to how you can handle that. I mean, one is finding an ally if your boss is not helpful and is not willing to listen to your priorities and help you properly manage time for your team. Try to find another person the organization that is senior and is an ally that actually believes in this too, that you know, maybe has a lot of great things said about them. Employees love that person, someone that could help you that’s maybe a little bit more senior, and if not, work with data. Another thing you could focus on is really being very concrete in how many hours every single thing takes. Most leaders don’t want to bombard their teams with hundreds of hours of work right in a week. That’s just not possible. They understand that the work will not get done. So if a senior leader is really putting adding more and more and more to your plate, take the time, even though it’s going to take time, but take the time to actually plan it out, map out how long things are going to take, and then have the conversation with the person. When you show the data, you show the numbers in a way that’s really clear, people will often start to prioritize, because they recognize that it’s impossible to do all of these things just given the amount of time it takes. So thinking through how you can have those conversations with your leaders most effectively can really help you kind of create that a little bit of space to then tackle the relationships and things you need to do on your own team. To create that environment.

Kris Safarova  15:01

Could you give us maybe an example of a leader who successfully transformed the team’s wellness culture?

Patricia Grabarek  15:08

Yes, of course. So I had a leader within an organization that was kind of startup very, very high paced, high stress. And what this leader did is something that I learned from personally, which is great, because it does line up with the research that we found. But what this leader did really well was they kind of try to insulate their team, so we call it like a micro culture. They created their own little culture on their team, where they started by they came in new to the organization, and they started by getting to know all the employees, you know, and finding out, what are they doing, what are they working on? What’s stressful for them? How much capacity do they have? Like asking them directly, what is their workload look like? What are the things they care about? What’s been working well, what hasn’t been working well, spending that time up front to create, you know, some understanding of what’s going on was really valuable. And then just transparently talking to the team and saying, Hey, I know there’s a lot of burnout going on the organization. There’s a lot of pressures and things that are coming up outside of this team. I want you to focus on these six, seven initiatives as a team are going to debate up this way, if anybody’s coming to you and pushing for anything else that’s outside of these areas that we’ve focused on, come to me and I will deal with it. So these types of leaders do a good job of kind of protecting their team from other people that are coming in and trying to add more work to their plate, or trying to bake, break the boundaries that they set. So they kind of become like boundary bouncers, right? If I know that team members have to go, like I said, Go, take, pick up their kids from school or go to doctor’s appointment, this leader would do a good job of protecting that person’s time and basically saying, like, Nope, that person is out of commission at 4pm they can’t meet the make that meeting and just stepping in and saying no for them, it does take a little bit of power, right? You have to be at a certain level to be able to do some of that. But if you create that, you are the person that the team, the leaders and other parts of the organization, come to, you can create a little bit of protective space as you build out a team culture where people can help each other and thrive. So he did a great job of creating this bubble where we were able to get to know each other, we were able to learn how to work together, pitch in support each other, and he was able to kind of keep away those additional asks. It wasn’t easy for him. It was a really hard job to do that, and it takes a lot to make that micro culture when you first are trying to do it, and that’s where allies and other supporters in the organization can help. But once your team kind of thrives in the space, they see how well it works, they’re going to help each other out. They’re going to help you out. They’re going to come you know, I asked him all the time, what can I take off your plate to help you? Or sometimes I would work a little extra hours just to help him with some ask that came out of nowhere, and he was trying to protect us from but I knew if I did this, it would only take me a couple hours, and I could do it, and I could help him out. So you start to create this environment where everyone’s helping each other out, so you can tackle the problem together, but you have to show that you have your teams back first and really create that micro culture first.

Kris Safarova  18:24

You talk about a generator leader. What are the core traits of a generator leader? And how can leaders develop them?

Patricia Grabarek  18:33

It’s great question. So generators, that’s what we call, these leaders that really do a good job of helping support employee wellness. These are the leaders that you know everyone wants to work for and we all want to become one day when we go into leadership, right? Because they’re the ones that are great. They’re just great people that you want to be around and work with. Generators. They exhibit the behaviors that we kind of outline within the book. So they’re very authentic. They share their struggles and vulnerability with the team. They do a great job of protecting boundaries and setting boundaries. So they show by example what it means to have work life balance. They don’t break their own boundaries. So that, let’s say they, you know, when they go on vacation, they’re fully offline, and show people that that’s the correct thing to do. It’s okay if you do those things too. So they create their own boundaries, protect them, and then they learn from their people what the boundaries are that they have, and do the same for them. Help them protect their boundaries. They are the leaders that also, as I mentioned before, they get to know people very well, so they look to create unique solutions for each person. So if somebody’s struggling with something, or they’re having a hard time with the boundary, they will work with that person in a process we call person centered planning, where we’re really provoking honest and transparent conversation so that they can find a solution together that works for that individual. So. They’re flexible. They understand that the way that they do things doesn’t work for everybody, and so they’re open to other ideas. Know that people have different preferences and how they like to work. You know, some people are mourning people. Some people are not. They they’re able to kind of maneuver the environment in a way where they understand the different people and different players on the team, and can tailor their approach to each person’s needs. And then, as I mentioned with they help build the connection between the team as well. So they start to help each other out. They start to share gratitude with each other, and they kind of create this perpetual positivity where people are able to, you know, feel really good and happy with their colleagues, with their team in a way that lets them be more productive.

Kris Safarova  20:47

You mentioned getting to know people. One question that our listeners may have is, how can you build deeper connections with your team, your employees, without overstepping professional boundaries?

Patricia Grabarek  21:00

I love that question, and it’s a really good one. And people are going to have different preferences, right? Some employees are happy to share everything and anything, and other employees are going to be much more reserved and not want to talk about their personal lives in the same way. And that’s okay. What you can do to build those stronger relationships is, as a leader, you can share your own stories and your own struggles. So we have this concept of a struggle statement where, basically, let’s say you’re coming up on a deadline with a team and you want to be able to help people understand like, what? What if the stress might feel like and that you’ve gone through it before, you can share your struggle. Or you can share a struggle that you’re currently having, that maybe you’re not doing something as well at work that helps people see you not as perfect, and so they’re more willing to share when they’re having struggles and challenges at work, at least for leaders building those relationships, I don’t recommend asking, you know, very deep questions. You want people to bring their stories and their information to you on their own. So you just start by sharing your own things. And if somebody’s not really into sharing personal stuff, that’s okay. You can just talk to them about, you know, things that you felt at work or struggles that you’ve had in your roles or in previous jobs, so that you can start to build that trust and show them that you’re vulnerable and you’re telling them something that you know really could be used against you, right? That shows that you trust that person, because you’re giving them information that they could use against you. And once they see that, then they’ll start to feel like, okay, they obviously trust me. I can trust them. And they’ll start to open up, but the level of being open is going to vary by employee, and leaders should not be pushing them to divulge more than maybe they’d like. So you just make the space, and then employees will come and share what they’re comfortable sharing.

Kris Safarova  22:55

And that makes me think about truly toxic cultures where you never want to show blood in the water, because things will be used against you. So how would you recommend someone navigating it if they are finding themselves in a workplace like that?

Patricia Grabarek  23:10

Yeah, it’s a great question, and so sad, and it happens a lot. What I so from a leadership perspective, what I would recommend is you start small, and really as an employee, too. If you’re wanting to build trust with somebody, start with smaller struggle statements. Start with things that won’t really hurt you if they get out, but they might still be a little bit vulnerable. Like, let’s say I am a painter, right? We share this story in the book of this leader who her hobby was painting, and she always felt kind of vulnerable about people seeing her art. And one day, she decided, because she’d seen other people opening up and being really honest about themselves and sharing stories, she decided to make her zoom background one of her pieces. So that’s not really something that could be used against you, right? Like, I don’t, I don’t know what you would do. You’re gonna go to the CEO and say that so and so painted that’s probably not going to be very harmful, but it starts to show a little bit more of yourself in a way that maybe you had it before. So you can start to see, like, how do people react to that? How to what are people saying about your artwork? You know, to have a conversation about it. You’re sharing something that’s not super vulnerable, but a little bit vulnerable, just to test the waters. And then you can start opening up more and more as you get to know people and see how they respond to the things you’re sharing. If you’re going down to the path, like you said, like the blood in the water, the struggle statement side. So what are things you actually struggled with. You can start by sharing something that you struggled with in a previous job and in and in a way that you resolved it, right? So maybe I got in an argument the co worker at a previous job, and I was able to resolve it by some communication tactic, right? Yeah, I could share that story. There’s less that that’s going to hurt me with within the new organization, right? If this person then goes and tells someone that I had a conflict with a previous co worker, people probably don’t care as much about that, and I could kind of test the waters and see, are they telling people? Are they not? Is this something that we can actually build trust on once a person starts sharing back, it makes it clear, right, that they’re obviously trusting you too. So that helps know that that relationship is safe. But I say start small and then build to something bigger as you get to know the person and get to feel safer.

Kris Safarova  25:35

Patricia, and another question that I think many of our listeners may have now is so they are in a leadership position. They have a team, and they understand that there may be benefit in sharing your struggles, but at the same time, they thinking about, okay, but I need to maintain a position of authority, otherwise I will lose all respect. What would you say?

Patricia Grabarek  25:56

That is a very common thing that we hear is people worried about that. It’s like, I want to seem competent. I want to see like a seem like an authority figure. To be quite honest, you being in a leadership position. People already assume you’re competent, right? Unless you’re completely failing at everything you’re doing. And you know, it’s very obvious to your team that you’re missing deadlines and things like that. If you’re doing your job, you’re doing it decently well. People assume that you’re competent, so the fear around that is typically unfounded. Most people are not looking to find holes in your authority. They just already give you that it’s given, given your title, given where you are in the organization, and if you’ve been in the role for a while, that probably already exists, and your struggles don’t need to be, you know, that I’m terrible my job, and something really big like that, right? But I think it’s reasonable to say, like, hey, you know, I have a really hard time being on a two hour zoom call. Like, I have a hard time focusing on that. You know, here are some tactics that I work on. Or, like, do you have some even with your team member? Do you have some advice on how we could do that? Or maybe you ask to not have two hour zoom meetings with the project that your team member is leading, because you’ve given them that struggle that’s not really going to completely counteract the competence that you’ve already shown or the authority that people already assume you have based on your title and your position in the organization. It’s going to just show that you have, that you’re not perfect. So I think you don’t need to kind of give everybody everything, especially all at once. But if you share a struggle here and there over time, it starts to continue to build that that relationship and that trust over over that period of time that you’re sharing it, but yeah, don’t just divulge everything you’ve ever struggled with in one conversation. That’s probably the only time you’ll see it may make people question you.

Kris Safarova  27:53

And do you think that that connection with employees can be achieved without sharing your struggles, as long as you’re authentic and doing all the other things you mentioned, such as being flexible and finding unique solutions, getting to know people?

Patricia Grabarek  28:08

I think you’re gonna create an environment that’s good, but not the best if you aren’t sharing any of your struggles, and the reason is because you’re still not fully being authentic with you who you are, because you’re not perfect, right? So if you’re still trying to show this facade of perfection, then employees are going to see right through that they know that you they’re either going to think, wow, that person’s too perfect, and I’m scared of telling them something because they won’t understand, or they’re going to feel like you’re hiding it from them, and either way, that’s going to make the trust a little bit smaller than it could have been. It’s going to make the relationship a little bit weaker than if you actually opened up about things you’ve struggled with. And it, you know, can depend on the situation. You don’t have to, like I said, just come out and just start. I don’t recommend you just start sharing your struggles randomly and just a team meeting, like, here’s all the things I’m not good at, but sharing it when it’s relevant, when an employee is dealing with a difficult client, sharing a story when you had to deal with a difficult client, when an employee’s maybe having a hard time understanding Some statistics and some data that they’ve been given, you can talk about like a time that maybe you didn’t do that well with that, or a different thing that you struggled with that maybe is different than theirs, but like how you overcame it, or what you learned from growing from it, or maybe you’re always been bad at that thing, and you just find other people to help you be better at that when you’re at work. So I think sharing those stories helps people relate to you, helps them be more open, and it also helps them aspire to even be a leader, because they think, Oh, wow, like this person’s a great leader, but they also struggle, and that’s okay. It’s normal to do.

Kris Safarova  29:56

What do you think are the most damaging leadership habits that persist today?

Patricia Grabarek  30:01

Oh, that is a great question. The most damaging habits, I think, saying yes to everything, so not considering workload boundaries of employees, and just saying yes to any project or anything that comes their way, I think is really bad. I think there’s obviously the kinds of negative behaviors like bullying or throwing people under the bus, you know, kind of putting a lot of blame and negativity in the environment. And then I think there’s one that’s not as intentional is the failing to lead by example. I think the thing we see often is leaders that are well meaning, like they do want to create a good environment, but then they don’t actually do the things that need to happen to make that environment positive. They work, you know, till midnight every day, and send emails at two in the morning, and then on vacation. They’re always texting or jumping on calls. Those people are having a big impact, and they don’t even mean to be having that impact. So I think that’s something that we all need to be aware of as as a leader, people are looking to you, and when you do something, they’re going to react to that action more than what you say.

Kris Safarova  31:31

So how can someone who is not good at saying no, can start saying no? Do you have any advice on that?

Patricia Grabarek  31:38

Yeah, so I think the first piece of advice I’d give is kind of what I mentioned before, with creating a documentation of priorities and workload. So what is everybody working on? What is, you know, how much time is it taking? What are the timelines and deadlines that you’re dealing with? So then you have that always ready, right? So it’s really great planning tool, just to even under keep track of what’s going on on the team. But then when something comes up and someone asks you to do something, you can pull that out and say, Okay, well, based on this, we have a couple of hours on this day. And then you can try to negotiate or say, simply say, we don’t have the time and no. And then here’s why. Think the hardest thing when you say no is you don’t want to you don’t want to upset somebody, right? You want to make do something good that your boss sees, right? You want to also look good. You want to feel like you’re getting things done so you have, we have a tendency to say yes, because we want to seem like high performers. We want to seem like we’re doing everything we can. But really what ends up happening is we end up doing everything, but at a worse capacity. So coming with armed with information as to why you might say no, that, I think, is super helpful for people that struggle to say no, because it’s not you’re saying no. I don’t want to do this. It’s no, I can’t do this. Let’s figure out a different solution, right? Maybe we drop one of these priorities, or we push this other project out by a few weeks. That gives you an opportunity to negotiate, but you’re not just saying yes right away.

Kris Safarova  33:13

How do you see wellness evolving in remote and hybrid work environments?

Patricia Grabarek  33:19

It’s a great question, and it’s something that I know everybody’s still tackling and trying to figure out remote environments do make it a little bit harder for leaders to get to know their employees quickly, right? We know that when you’re in person, you can build those relationships a little bit faster. So I think when it comes to workplace wellness and really creating positive environments and leaders really making these thriving places to work there’s gonna take more intentionality. You have to really focus in on the relationship. Spend a little bit of extra time making sure that we are getting to know people in that new environment, where maybe we’re not face to face all the time, trying to have some face time when possible, but being able to, like really intentionally, think through, how do I create this relationship? And then we know that how you manage people’s gonna vary a little bit, and their needs are gonna vary. So someone that’s remote might need things a little bit differently, need information a little bit differently than someone that’s hybrid. So it kind of works out the same way as everything we’ve been talking about. It’s really want to tailor our solutions and how we’re working with people and the environment creating to those people’s needs. And remote work can give us a lot of really great benefits for workplace wellness, because we can, you know, do tackle some at home tasks potentially, right, when we’re sitting between meetings or what have you. So there’s great benefits, but there’s also potential for great harm when people are remote, because they can work long, long hours, they don’t have a commute that stops their day, right? And they might end up working much longer. So paying attention to those. Cues so you can help protect people’s boundaries and make sure that they take time away from work and they they end their day at a specific time. Can be helpful when you’re dealing with remote employees. There’s a lot to consider. I could talk about this probably for a very, very long time, but I think we just need to start thinking about wellness less as a program, as we said at the beginning, and more about the individual employees experience, and then where they’re working matters less. It’s still about what makes sense for them.

Kris Safarova  35:31

If we build on it and think about what will happen over the next 10, 15, 20 years, what is your prediction for the future of workplace wellness, what trends should leaders be preparing for?

Patricia Grabarek  35:44

It’s a great one. So I think that you know the future. There’s a lot that we don’t know yet, like, how is AI going to play into the work environment in the workplace? But ultimately, I think if we really focus on the core of creating positive work environments. The trends, whatever trends come our way, won’t matter as much, because what matters is just how we treat people and how we ensure that people have what they need to get their jobs done and what they need to disconnect from work at the end of the day. So ultimately, I think the trend is going to go back to the basics. We are seeing a lot of people already talking about how wellness programming isn’t as effective as it could be. So I think we’re going to move towards going back to the basics, creating those really healthy environments, and focusing on that, and not letting trends influence where we go, trying to really just make sure that we’re giving people what they need at work and then we’re giving people what they need to leave work and take time on their own.

Kris Safarova  36:49

What do you think are the most overlooked yet impactful ways to improve employee engagement?

Patricia Grabarek  36:55

Well, I think it all comes back down to the culture you create when you are able to have strong relationships, your employees on your team and your team is supporting each other, helping each other out. What you end up seeing is those employees are more engaged because they’re happy to be there. And that is, you know, wellness ties into engagement so strongly. That’s found time and time again in the research. And something that we heard in the work that we were doing is we heard a lot of employees say, Oh, I love this leader. I would go out of my way to do the extra thing for that person. I would be, you know, willing to spend a couple extra hours doing X, Y, Z, because I knew that it would be great for the team. So when they feel connected to the team and the people around you, and you feel good about where you’re working, you’re going to be more engaged, because your people want to feel productive. They want to feel happy and excited and with what they’re doing. And if they have that positive environment that supports that, then they’re able to actually practice that effectively. So I think in order for us to improve employee engagement long term, it’s really about creating that healthy space where people feel safe and comfortable and able to produce and be productive, and they’re willing to step in and support the people around them, because they’re being supported back.

Kris Safarova  38:16

And for someone listening to us right now thinking, you know, I really want to implement some of the things I heard today. What do you think are the biggest roadblocks they will face in implementing what you recommended, and how can they overcome them?

Patricia Grabarek  38:31

It’s a great question. I think one that you mentioned is one of the biggest ones is time, right? So, what time do they have to commit to this? How hard is it going to be to implement some of this within their own teams if they’re overloaded with work? So figuring out how to find the time is going to be a big challenge for a lot of people when they’re overwhelmed and overworked. As leaders, that’s one you’re also going to face people that push back on this idea, right? We call them extinguishers. They can come in the form of a leader. Sometimes they’re your employees, and they’re people that are just, they don’t see the point. They don’t care about wellness. Or sometimes they’re actively trying to derail things. They’re, you know, trying to sabotage the team. Or you find those people from time to time, or they don’t care about boundaries, right? They’re just like, well, I’m working at this time, so someone else should be working at this time, and they don’t care if you’re on vacation or you’re doing this, and that just doesn’t matter to them. Those people can be difficult to to manage as you’re trying to go through this process. If they’re on your team, there’s obviously conversations to be had, feedback to be given, you need to be very explicit about the type of culture you’re trying to drive and reward really positive behaviors and people are helping each other out and and setting proper boundaries, like make sure that that’s clear, that that’s what you value and what you are expecting of people, so that those extinguishers on your team will hopefully start to share. Mean, change their attitude, because they also would like to be seen as a good performer and get that kind of recognition. If the extinguishers are outside of your team, we kind of have to think about, how do we block that person from having huge influence on us? I know I talked a little bit about the leader that I had that kind of, you know, blocked people out that were trying to give us more work or trying to kind of influence our team negatively, but that can take a toll on the leaders as well. So we do have some tips on like recovery. What are things that are most helpful as a leader that’s really trying to make a change and fight against the toxic culture? Recovery is really important. So this is where you disconnect from work at the end of the day, and you find a way to recover from the stresses and the actual there’s like four different ways you can recover, but I’ll tell you the number one tip, the number one way to recover from stress difficult day from work at the end of the day, is to actually find something where you get to practice mastery, or you get to learn something new, which I know is a little counterintuitive, most people are going to just turn on Netflix and like, eat some candy, and that’s their stress release, right? Or take a bubble bath or whatever. But it’s the mastery piece that actually is the most rejuvenating and helps you replenish your resources so you can kind of come back a little bit fresher the next day. So that would mean learning a new recipe, if you’re really into cooking, or maybe you want to learn a new language, so you do some language app in the evening, anything where you’re doing something and learning something new that you’re really excited about can help you recover best at the end of the day. So I think leaders need to take a moment and think about what that could look like for them, and try to practice some of that when they’re having stressful days, fighting off the extinguishers and people that may not be supportive.

Kris Safarova  41:55

Thank you, Patricia, very important topic. I want to wrap up with two questions outside of this topic. Okay, first one is, are there any success habits? So to say that you really rely on on a daily or weekly basis that really help you stay organized and maintain your own well being and maintain your ability to be productive and contribute?

Patricia Grabarek  42:17

Oh, I love this question. So for me, it’s really about scheduling everything I try to block. And I actually learned this from my co author, Katina. She does this exceptionally well, and then I started kind of mirroring what she does, and it’s helped me a lot too. So what I like to do is kind of go through my week and figure out what do I need to do, and I block time, so that way someone can’t steal certain time for meetings, and I can actually get the work done. I think we have a tendency of just keeping our calendars wide open. People start scheduling meetings, and then you never get the work actually done. So I block time. I’m going to need two hours to work on this slide deck. I’m going to need an hour to do this thing. I will block the time throughout the day, and I’ll also block my workout. So I mentioned Pilates, that’s been my thing lately. And I will book my Pilates class, and I will block it in my calendar. So I make sure I go if it’s in my calendar, I’m gonna do it right. I just try to follow my calendar as a way to to stay productive. And if I don’t get the Pilates in I know I’m gonna feel worse at the end of the day, so that’s helpful. Plus they have a 12 hour cancelation policy, a policy which is super helpful. So I can’t cancel at the last minute. Someone is asking to get on a call, but it’s right before my Pilates class. I have to say no, because otherwise I’m gonna lose money by not going to class. So I think that’s super helpful for somebody like me, at least, to make sure I get some that physical activity in.

Kris Safarova  43:46

And the last question, my favorite question to ask over the last few years, women can be 10, 20, years, 30 years, any amount of time you want to consider what were two, three aha moments, realizations that really changed the way you look at life, or the way you look at business?

Patricia Grabarek  44:04

It’s a great question. Let me think about it a little bit. Well, a few years ago, I have always cared, first I’ll start. I’ve always cared about workplace wellness. This is something that in college, I was reading a lot about stress, and I was a psychology major, and I was like, well, stress, you know, is obviously a bad thing, like, how can we fix that? And then I started getting into the research around companies and organizations and people at work and stress, and that kind of led me down that path. So I’ve always been kind of interested in workplace wellness and stress in general. But a few years ago, I went on a trip to Iceland with my husband. And I don’t know if you’ve been to Iceland, but it is spectacular. It’s so beautiful, and the air is so clean and crisp, and everything just feels very like pristine and also calm. I don’t know. It was gorgeous. Gorgeous. Loved every. Minute I spent there, we did the whole country ring road. And while I was there, it really solidified the fact that I need to practice what I preach. There was a moment where I was like, I don’t take time to revel in the beauty of where I live the way I am right now on vacation in Iceland, and I felt like a different person, in a way that I had it in a long time. I felt more calm and more at peace, in a way that, you know, years of work and difficult organizations, etc, kind of derailed that. And in that moment when I was I were on a boat and who’s off of whose Vic look whale watching when I was just like, The air smells different, and I’m like, paying attention to little details of things that I hadn’t before. And it just kind of made me think that, okay, I keep talking about workplace wellness, and yet I work a lot, and I care about the message, you know, like of the book, and I’m putting a lot of energy into the things that I want to get out into the world, but I need to make sure I take the time to smell the air, breathe the air, see the beauty every day, not just when I go on vacation.

Kris Safarova  46:10

That’s a very, very important thing to remember for all of us. Patricia, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you sharing everything you did. Where can our listeners learn more about you, buy your book, anything you want to share.

Patricia Grabarek  46:23

Yes, thank you so much for having me. This has been really fun. Everyone can find us on our website, workrbeeing.com which is W-O-R-K-R-B-E-E-I-N-G.com. If you do /book, there’s all the details on the book and where you can order it, Amazon, Barnes and Noble bookshop. Anywhere you can find a book, you’ll be able to find the book as well. It’s called leading for wellness. And you can also connect with us on LinkedIn. So both myself and my co author, Katina Sawyer, we’re all very active on LinkedIn, and love connecting with new people there. So find us there.

Kris Safarova  46:57

Thank you, Patricia. Our guest today again has been Patricia Grabarek. Check out her book that is co-authored. It is called Leading for Wellness. And our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/overallapproach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG-winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com/resumePDF. Thank you everyone for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.