Tips to combat stress, fatigue, and burnout in a post-pandemic world
It’s been three years since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, forever changing the way we look at our work lives. For Nada Vuckovic, it has meant altering and realtering the expectations she has for herself and for the employees whom she is responsible for as the head of environment, health, and safety and sustainability officer for Siemens Canada.
“We were keeping a very close pulse check on our entire workforce the whole time,” explains Vuckovic, who says they constantly monitored each section of the organization, from senior management to regular office workers, to those performing their jobs out in the field.
Vuckovic says at every point throughout this long, uncertain journey, employees have been encouraged to raise their concerns without fear of reprisal. “We pride ourselves here on that very open speak up culture.”
Like many workplaces during the pandemic, stress, fatigue, and burnout became issues that needed to be confronted, among both employees, and on a personal level for Vuckovic.
“I've done a lot of education on mental health and wellness over the past two years,” says Vuckovic with a bit of a laugh, “I've learned everything there is to know about it.”
While health and safety professionals were worrying about the employees within their organizations, it was easy to forget about their own individual needs. Vuckovic recognizes she needs to recharge and relieve stress daily and found moving her body helps a lot.
“Continuously taking daily walks, even if it's 15 minutes, I found fresh air helped my brain to reset itself,” claims Vuckovic, who also advocates for flexible working hours when possible. “Like in the summertime we do what we call summer hours. Every other Friday, you can take a day off… and that did help in managing some of that anxiety.”
Vuckovic will be sharing some these strategies when she speaks at the Women in Safety Summit in March. She encourages Siemens employees to find similar ways to cope, whether they’re working from home, out in the field, or returning to the office.
Hybrid work environments are much more common now, and it’s a model Siemens is currently experimenting with. “The challenge is how to help people manage the anxieties, the mental health, while bringing them back into the work environment.”
Vuckovic says people have grown comfortable working from home 100 percent of the time. But she says that comes with its own set of negative consequences, and espouses the benefits of working face-to-face with colleagues.
“You know how it is when you go into the office, you'll get up, you grab a coffee in the kitchen, you'll go talk to a colleague, you'll do the social piece,” says Vuckovic, and she believes social interaction is a break in its own way, “a lot of people got stuck just sitting in front of their screens and not taking those breaks.”
What works for some will not necessarily work for others and Vuckovic says, “at the end of the day, it's important for all of us to know what's going on and how they feel about it.”
That culture of openness and understanding will be a fundamental navigational tool as Siemens, and everyone else, moves further away from pandemic life.
Learn more about the winners for this year's Top Female Safety Leaders in Canada here.
