Burnout At Work: Why Is Modern Work Exhausting Us?

Andy Goram (left) and Andria Barrett (right) discuss why modern work may leave us more exhausted than ever

There is no shortage of workplace wellbeing initiatives. Organisations invest millions into employee assistance programmes, wellbeing workshops, resilience training and engagement surveys. Yet despite all of this effort, burnout remains widespread and many employees are feeling more exhausted than ever.

The question is why.

In this episode of Sticky From The Inside, workplace wellness and organisational culture expert Andria Barrett argues that the problem may not be a lack of wellbeing initiatives. Instead, the problem may be how work itself is designed.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here:

📄 Prefer to read instead? The full transcript is available below this short blog.

Burnout at Work Is Becoming Invisible

One of the most powerful insights from the conversation is Andria’s observation that burnout has gone underground. Employees are no longer necessarily signalling their struggles through absence or disengagement. Instead, many continue to show up, deliver results and meet expectations while privately questioning how long they can continue.

For leaders, this creates a dangerous blind spot. Performance can appear healthy on the surface while exhaustion quietly builds underneath.

Why More Wellbeing Doesn’t Always Create Better Wellbeing

Many organisations genuinely care about employee wellbeing. The challenge is that too many initiatives remain separate from the day-to-day experience of work. A smoothie bar, a guest speaker or a once-a-year wellbeing event may be appreciated, but they rarely address the deeper causes of stress. What often makes the biggest difference are structural decisions:

• Protecting lunch breaks

• Reducing unnecessary meetings

• Creating space for focused work

• Encouraging recovery and rest

• Giving employees more control over their time

In other words, wellbeing needs to be designed into work, not added alongside it.

Better Hours, Not More Hours

A recurring theme throughout the conversation is the relationship between productivity and recovery. Many organisations still celebrate long hours as a sign of commitment. Yet human performance simply doesn't work that way. People need breaks. They need recovery. They need opportunities to recharge physically, mentally and emotionally.

The goal is not more hours. The goal is better hours. When people are rested, connected and energised, they bring greater creativity, focus and effectiveness to their work.

The Missing Ingredient: Connection

Perhaps the strongest theme throughout the episode is connection. Andria believes many of the challenges organisations face today are symptoms of increasing disconnection between colleagues, managers and teams. Connection creates trust. Trust creates psychological safety. Psychological safety allows people to ask for help, share ideas and raise concerns before problems escalate.

Without connection, people often struggle in silence.

With connection, organisations create environments where people feel supported and able to perform at their best.

AI Should Buy Back Humanity

The discussion also explores the growing anxiety many employees feel about AI. Andria is optimistic about the technology but realistic about the challenges it creates. She believes organisations should involve employees in conversations about AI adoption rather than imposing change from above. Most importantly, she argues that technology should help people reclaim time. Time to think. Time to connect. Time to learn. Time to be human.

Final Thoughts

At the heart of this conversation is a simple idea:

When people feel better, they do better.

Creating healthier workplaces doesn't necessarily require expensive programmes or grand initiatives. Often it begins with a better understanding of what people genuinely need to thrive. Because performance isn't sustained through constant pressure. It's created through people, given the opportunity to bring their best efforts more often.

Full Transcript

[Andy Goram] (0:11 - 3:01)

Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the podcast that explores how to build stickier, competition smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help you turn the lights on behind the eyes of your people, light the fires within them and help more of us lead successful, fulfilling work lives. This podcast is for anyone who believes that's worth going after and is curious about what really drives people, culture and performance.

Each episode we dive into the ideas and conversations that help create what I call stickier businesses, places where people thrive and love to work and where customers stay, recommend you and love what you do and why you do it. So, if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.

Why are so many people exhausted at work?

Okay then, you know what?

It seems to me that we've never had more workplace wellbeing initiatives. We've got more employee assistance programmes, more mindfulness apps, more resilience training, more happiness and engagement surveys and yet burnout remains stubbornly high. Stress related absence continues to rise.

Disengagement is costing organisations billions and people seem more exhausted than ever at work. So, what's going on? Are we just a world of snowflakes now or is there something else going on?

Could it be that we've been looking for solutions in the wrong place maybe? What if the problem isn't that we're just not resilient enough? What if the problem is that we've started and continued to design modern work in ways that just ignore how human beings are actually wired?

Well, my guest today is Andria Barrett, a workplace and wellness and organisational culture expert who's been recognised as one of Canadian SME's most inspiring women entrepreneurs and business leaders and Andria helps organisations reduce burnout, strengthen psychological safety and improve employee engagement through a combination of neuroscience-based learning, experiential development and practical workplace culture strategies. So, in this conversation we'll set out to explore why burnout today may be less about individual resilience and far more about organisational design, why connection is becoming one of the most valuable workplace skills about and what organisations can do to create cultures where people can genuinely thrive and develop.

Andria, welcome to the show.

[Andria Barrett] (3:01 - 3:03)

Hello Andy, how are you?

[Andy Goram] (3:03 - 3:19)

I'm good, I'm all the better for seeing you. I just have to sort of explain to the listenership that this has been a conversation long coming and whether it's illness, fire, we've had all sorts of things trying to get in the way of this conversation and yet here we are today having it.

[Andria Barrett] (3:19 - 3:20)

Here we are.

[Andy Goram] (3:22 - 3:24)

And I, for one, I'm looking forward to it my friend.

[Andria Barrett] (3:25 - 3:27)

Me too, important conversation.

[Andy Goram] (3:27 - 3:53)

Well, I think so. I think it's one of those things that, you know, I know you can start to talk about wellness and you can see people's eyes roll back in their head and go, right, here we go again. I think we're going to take an interesting view at this topic today with your particular angles on it, which I'm really looking forward to getting under the skin of.

Before we get all excited and stuck into that stuff, introduce yourself to the audience. Tell us a little bit about you and where your focus is today.

Meet Andria Barrett and her approach to workplace culture

[Andria Barrett] (3:54 - 4:41)

Absolutely. Good morning, good afternoon to your audience and you did a great introduction. I appreciate that.

So, I am across the border. I'm in Canada and I am a consultant and workplace strategist. So, I work with people and organizations, could be a non-profit or it could be a for-profit, helping them connect the dots on what's happening internally with their organization and their staff and their processes and what's happening with their productivity and overall with the organization.

So, I love to go into organizations, get on the level with the employees and have conversation and workshops and then audit what's happening within the organization. Are you truly having too many workplace webinars or wellness Wednesdays? What exactly is happening in your organization and how can we fix it?

[Andy Goram] (4:41 - 5:26)

And what I love about that already is that there is a serious kind of performance edge to this stuff, right? This is about productivity, getting stuff done. It isn't just wildly stroking everybody and making sure everybody feels lovely.

There's a danger, I think, in today's workplace where the pendulum has swung backwards and forwards pre- and post-pandemic in favor of the organization or in favor of the employee and it's wildly swung both ways. What I think we're really talking about here is understanding the human condition, understanding the way that workplaces are functioning and designed so that it works for everybody, right? So, people feel safe, people feel that they can be themselves, people can bring their best effort and actually organizations can kind of succeed and move forward too.

Have I got that right?

Why feeling better helps people perform better

[Andria Barrett] (5:27 - 5:35)

Yes, absolutely. You know what? I really enjoyed one of your most recent podcasts.

I think his name was Tom and it was the Dance Floor Theory.

[Andy Goram] (5:35 - 5:36)

Yeah, Tom Kriegelstein.

[Andria Barrett] (5:36 - 7:33)

And that just made sense to me as a former dancer. I resonated and the analogy with organizations absolutely makes sense. We are human beings going into work with other human beings and we need to be connected and we need to feel safe and we need to feel like we're in a trusted place and we also need to feel well.

I really believe that people who feel better do better and we spend so much time at work that feeling better needs to happen in our employment. It's up to our team and our managers and the entire organization to make sure employees feel good, that their workload is manageable. You know, I have a background in wellness as a nutritionist and a personal trainer, so I'm all about, you know, the salad bars and the smoothie bars and putting bowls of apples in the kitchen as opposed to bowls of candy bars or potato chips.

But that's not gonna cut it. It's more than a beautiful bowl of fruit. It's making sure your manager speaks to you, your colleagues connect with you, that you are recognized for your achievements, that you are not just staring at your laptop for eight hours a day, eating at your desk using plastic utensils, never going outside, seeing the sunshine, never having a chance to sit down, connect with your customers or your clients or with each other.

I think that is missing in a lot of organizations because it's go, go, go, go, go, work, work, work, work, work, but we are suffering for it. I read a report earlier this morning and no surprise, workplace engagement has fallen and in particular, manager engagement has fallen to 22% globally. So we're not talking about our colleagues, we're not talking about our teammates, we're talking about our managers who should be setting the standard and setting the bar.

So if their engagement has fallen by 22%, what does that mean for everyone else?

The growing challenge of leadership and management burnout

[Andy Goram] (7:34 - 8:03)

Yeah, I mean, I think that is a statistic that we need to keep an eye on because I'm also reading quite a bit of stuff and listening to some speakers recently who've all started to talk about people bailing out of management. So we'd like you to be the manager. We think you're showing great potential and we'd like you to take on this responsibility, that responsibility, look after this team and people are going, yeah, no, don't think I fancy that.

I don't want everything that comes with it, thank you. I'm quite happy staying in my lane. If that becomes pervasive, we have a problem.

[Andria Barrett] (8:04 - 8:47)

Absolutely. It's funny you say that. Just this week, I had someone tell me the exact same thing.

A female manager at a bank said, you know, the person who was a regional manager came to her and said, you know, there's an opening and we'd like you to apply. She's like, no, no thanks, I'm not interested. Like, no, no, we really want you to apply.

Do you have a resume? Can you submit it? She said, no, no thanks, I'm not interested.

Young woman. So this statistic is showing like, who have we promoted to management in the last little while? It's female managers, people on, that represent different backgrounds and abilities, and younger people.

And these are the people who are now like, thanks, but no thanks.

[Andy Goram] (8:48 - 9:19)

Yeah, they seem, from all the research and experience of being in the room with a lot of these people, they're much more comfortable setting some boundaries now. This is what I will do, this is what I won't do. Perhaps back in my day, I would be asked to do something that I thought was outrageous and I would moan like hell in the staff room or back at home or in the pub to somebody.

And then I would get my head down and just get crack on with it because that's what you had to do. Today, it's not the same, right? People have got much more comfortable in saying, no, that's not for me.

[Andria Barrett] (9:20 - 11:12)

Exactly. And it's because they're taking more ownership of them themselves as an employee. They know what they want their workplace experience to be like, and they know how this impacts their entire human being and their body.

What we do at work affects what we're doing at home, how we're sleeping, how we're eating, our stress level, our relationships. And people are weighing priorities and what's important to them. And if we don't combat this problem now, what is the workforce going to look like in a year or even two years?

Burnout has gone underground

Another statistic that I read this morning talked about burnout, which is such an important topic. And I think people are not paying enough attention to it. That burnout now has gone underground.

So at one point, I think a few years ago, we talked about quiet quitting. People were looking for new jobs, quietly exiting. Now their burnout has gone underground.

So they're still showing up. We're still going to work. We're still producing, but we're quietly considering our next move.

And then before you know it, they're gone. And then what does this do to your body? So the wellness professional always thinks about your body.

What is this doing to your sleep? What is this doing to your quality of life? What is this doing to your diet?

Are you making healthy choices? Are you making choices that are going to affect your health and bring on illness in the future? Are you getting enough sleep?

Are you talking to your partner? Are you hugging and squeezing your partner? Are you going for walks?

Are you going for a swim? Are you stopping and smelling the flowers? Are you taking enough time to do things you enjoy?

Are you smiling? Andy, are you smiling over there? It's important that we smile and we stretch and we see things that bring us joy and we do things that bring us joy.

We become better employees and better colleagues.

[Andy Goram] (11:12 - 12:28)

I mean, there's so many things in there. I think the word that's most fascinating for me in what you've just talked about is choice. Like only yesterday, I was with a fabulous group of people who work in a very big vet practice, lovely bunch of people.

And at the end of the day, we were doing a very kind of light touch on some resilience work. And we were looking at six energy batteries that they might have to think about in their own physical setups of sleep, hydration, etc. And it shouldn't surprise me.

But even at the end of that session, people are looking at the six little batteries that they've drawn out and gone, oh, there's some things I'm really not helping myself with here. But you know what? I don't have a choice.

And when you take a step back and look at those batteries, other than maybe sleep where there's some medical stuff that may be not entirely in your control, they have a bit more resilience. And so I guess the question I'd like to ask you as we sort of wander into this topic, Andria, is, if this is the case, is this why we feel or we're reporting to feel so more exhausted at work today?

[Andria Barrett] (12:29 - 13:43)

A couple of reasons. One is we're not getting enough sleep. Some of us aren't getting enough sleep because we're up late, we're stressing, or we're working.

We're stressing about the work that we have to do tomorrow, either at work or in our personal lives because, you know, they coexist. Or we are working. There are people, you know, whose laptop is, you know, the other person in the relationship.

There are things that need to get done and that laptop is in bed or close to bed because they're trying to get caught up or ahead for the next day. And then when we're at work, sometimes the work is just, there's a lot. There's a lot.

And, you know, the demands are high. It's a global economy. You know, back in the day, we were competing against, you know, the same city.

Now we're competing globally. Businesses in other countries doing what we can do sometimes faster, sometimes cheaper. So it's always that push, push, push and go, go, go to make sure that, you know, we're doing what we can to keep our organization afloat and that making sure that we can still have a job.

So we are stressed and we are tired and it's causing some friction at work. So it's either preventing us from working optimally and being as productive as we can. And, you know, some people it's just making us miserable.

Productivity, pressure and the modern work dilemma

[Andy Goram] (13:44 - 14:41)

Yeah. I'm not quite sure what it's like in Canada, but there's been quite a few tests of four day week over here. There are some companies that have really, really made it work.

And there are others that are looking at it going, you're having a laugh. This is, this is never going to be. And then people start talking about, uh, society 5.0. We're all going to be working three days a week and tree bathing the rest of the time and going, this is just nuts. This is just not going to happen because our history, I think as a race is as soon as we can be more productive, we do that. And we use those tools to put more stuff in the same amount of time, rather than save time and use it for something else. We just, that's what we do.

Right. So that must be lying at the heart of all of this. All the tools that are available to us today, the systems that are available to help us do things more efficiently doesn't mean we create more time for ourselves to look after ourselves.

It just means we're more effective at putting more load on ourselves. At least that's what it feels like to me.

[Andria Barrett] (14:42 - 16:53)

You know what? You're right. That is what it feels like.

But I'm, that's not my philosophy at all. I am completely on the other end. I like automation and I like using AI, uh, responsibly and efficiently, but those hours I buy back during the week, they belong to me.

So I can do what I need to do. This is not about work or business. This is about, I want to have lunch in the park, or I'm going to go see an old friend I haven't seen in years, or spending time with an aging parent, or learning how to swim.

I'll tell you personally, I have my own little bucket list, Andy, and there are things that I want to achieve now, not like, you know, at the end, I don't know how to swim. So I'm taking swimming lessons. I like the idea of brining a turkey, and I don't know how to do that.

I am using my time to do things that make me smile or make me happier. Going to the gym is a non-negotiable for me. I, and getting enough sleep is a non-negotiable for me.

I feel better when I am, uh, well-rested and well, when my body has been exercised and challenged and strengthened and I feel strong. And when I can take part in my activities and do things that make me feel good, I'm much more productive and efficient afterwards. So I think our attitude about automation and AI and being more efficient is a little backwards.

I love the idea of a four-day workweek. We don't have enough of those here in Canada. Those of you in organizations that have them, I am a little bit jealous because my colleagues here, we don't have that.

That just makes sense to me. Imagine what you can do for those of us who don't have that. What do you do on a fifth day?

You could perhaps take a loved one to a medical appointment. Surprise somebody one day and drop off some smoothies or send some fruit or some flowers. It, just being able to be human and personable and connect with people or even yourself.

If that's the day, if that's the only day you can do laundry, you can do laundry at 10 o'clock in the morning instead of, you know, 11 o'clock at night, and that helps you have a better productive week. I'm all for that.

[Andy Goram] (16:54 - 17:22)

I love the notion of it. I can hear listeners saying the same sort of things that I hear in lots of other rooms. This is fine for you, Andy, because you are an independent consultant doing your own thing.

The choices that you're making, you have more control than I do. I'm working inside an organization and I don't get afforded those choices. Do you hear the same points?

And if so, what's your comeback to that sort of challenge?

Why leaders must take responsibility for healthier workplaces

[Andria Barrett] (17:22 - 19:13)

Absolutely. I do hear the same points. And you know what?

The employee is right. They don't make the rules. It's not, they're not the boss.

We need to get this message to the boss, to the manager, to the organization, to the shareholders of these companies. Do they want happy, productive employees with longevity? Do they want constant turnover and have to train and retrain and hire an onboard?

Or do they want a team of people that have been loyal to their organization and know that their organization respects them and sees them as valuable contributions to their organization instead of just another employee? The companies that really value their employees, they're doing better than the other companies. Companies that remember your birthday, making sure your employees feel cared for and valued.

I worked for an organization years ago and I always remember them. I like, I will never forget the great experience I had there. They would give us a day off to go and volunteer in the community.

No other organization I've worked for ever did anything like that. But they valued their community, they valued the planet, and they valued us as people and knew that working was, of course, important, but also contributing to our community and contributing to the planet. We got a day off, a paid day off, to go and clean up the harbor or go help clean up at a park or go help and support those that needed help and support.

It made me more loyal to the organization and I felt that they cared, like not just for their clients and their profits, but the people who worked for them, the community they lived in, and for the planet.

[Andy Goram] (19:14 - 19:57)

Like you said, there are plenty of organizations that have and continue to invest in, let's call them well-being initiatives. And yet, we sort of said in the intro, we've still got this feeling of exhaustion that's growing. We've got repeated reports telling us that burnout is not going anywhere other than on the rise.

Why workplace wellbeing initiatives often miss the mark

We've got increased levels of anxiety, not just in younger generations now, but pervasive across different levels of experience. So, with all this investment in well-being, is it just performative if they've not really got to the heart of the things that are really important? What do you see and what maybe frustrates you about the way that workplace well-being is being looked at by too many organizations?

[Andria Barrett] (19:57 - 23:02)

Well, the intention is there. So, I appreciate that at least this is on the radar at upper management or in HR. The intention is absolutely there, but I think it's our approach needs to be fixed.

So, we've seen organizations that will bring in smoothie bars, which is great, so everyone can have a smoothie. But you are taking the smoothie right back to your desk, sitting in front of your computer, and you're drinking it there. You're not having the time to enjoy this and you're not being able to connect with somebody while you're doing this.

And what exactly is it smoothie solving? Maybe it's replaced coffee, which is fine. Or you see organizations bringing in a speaker for a yoga workshop or a meditation workshop or a wellness workshop, but that could happen once a year.

So, what happens after that? What are the outcomes? How is that tracked?

How is that measured? Was it just, you know, let's bring somebody in, have a workshop, and then a checkbox? What's missing is having these systems woven into daily work for everyone.

It's making sure that people are given time every week or every day to do what they need to do. I was once a part of an organization as a board member, and their policy was there were no meetings during lunch hour. So, between 12 and 1 do not schedule a meeting because there will be no meetings.

No meetings during lunch. Now, as simple as that sounds, that was really impactful because people are in different time zones and scheduling video conferencing meetings all the time. They see one little opening in your schedule and they're running in there.

So, no meetings between 12 to 1. That's not a one-off. That is consistent and runs throughout the organization for everyone, and that is something that has a long-term impact.

There was another organization I worked with and there were no meetings on Wednesdays. No meetings on Wednesdays. That gave you time to catch up to do what you have to do or be proactive and so you can plan because, again, now that we're online, everybody is filling in on your calendar.

They see an opening and they're just jumping in there. Yeah, just learning to block off time. Just time blocking.

You know, when do you need time to catch up on your email? We shouldn't be checking email throughout the day. We should be time blocking.

Checking email at a certain time or now using AI to help us filter out the email or using AI to help draft common emails. So, embracing technology, embracing AI, embracing automation to help us buy back and give us some more free time in the day. Other things that organizations are doing are bringing in different types of training.

So, again, some of us are hybrid. We are working remote or we're working in the office, but we have sort of disconnected from each other. So, bringing workshops in on a regular basis where you're building team cohesion or team building or conflict resolution.

Just making sure we don't use these amazing human soft skills that are so important to our organizations.

Better hours, not more hours

[Andy Goram] (23:03 - 24:14)

Okay, so there's a couple of things in here I think are really interesting. The stuff around performance and all the initiatives that you've said you've seen and witnessed and helped organizations put in there about having some time. To me, I guess the message behind here for organizations is to really understand that performance pressure bell curve, that a little bit of pressure helps us perform, but an overload of pressure, doesn't matter how long we keep going, performance drops off.

So, this kind of notion of like be at your desk and work 11, 12, 13 hours straight because we're getting some more stuff done, the reality is that's not how we perform as humans, right? We have an ability to focus, to concentrate for a certain period of time. If we don't recover from that, our performance drops off significantly over time.

So, I guess the initiatives that you're talking about, coupled with a better understanding about what productivity is really elicited from when it comes to that bell curve, goes to the heart of, it's not about more hours, it's about being better in the hours that we work. And these initiatives that you're talking about are fueling that engine, right?

[Andria Barrett] (24:15 - 25:47)

Exactly. And you want, it's not more hours, you want better hours. You and I could work on a project for 12 hours straight.

In the first couple of hours, we're going to be great and fresh and brilliant and bright. Around our 10 and a half and 11, we won't be thinking straight, we won't be as fresh, we won't be as creative. So, making sure we're breaking up the day or breaking up the tasks or breaking up the projects, bringing in new people.

It's like how we're doing projects. Do we have little groups coming in to help us or the same people working on a project from beginning to end? And making sure we have enough breaks.

If we have enough breaks, either, you know, taking a break from, simply looking from the screen, giving our eyeball break. I'm all about eyeball breaks. We cannot stare at the screen all the time.

Stretching, like I, you know, I'm always moving because we're sitting all the time. We need to make sure we're stretching and moving our body and, you know, changing our gaze and making sure we're taking care of ourselves. We're, you know, we don't want to cause any issues for our eyes and our vision and our body and our posture.

But also making sure we have the right breaks that give us rest. I think it was Henry Ford who used to take naps or used to take breaks. We need breaks.

We need naps to refresh our brain and help us, you know, give us some more creative juices. Not, we're not allowing people to be rested. And sometimes we like to work at different times of the day.

So, making sure that you're giving people the chance to be their best when they are their best.

[Andy Goram] (25:47 - 26:47)

I think this is the thing about workplace design. It's about this stuff rather than different types of chairs or different decor, right? When we talk about workplace design, it's how we organise the day and how we set ourselves up for success.

Using creativity and sensory learning to unlock innovation

Andria, what I would also like to talk about, because I do love it when guests come on with some kind of science and some neuroscience and all that kind of stuff, because I'm a huge enthusiast for that sort of stuff. And I, in my research into you, which always sounds creepy when I say it's not meant to be at all, right? But I think a lot of your work focuses on experiential and sensory based learning and how that kind of works neurologically.

So, I wonder if you could just kind of bring us into your world and what sort of things are you helping organisations and the employees working in there do and think about in that human system to try and, you know, really respond to how humans are really wired and how we can really set ourselves up for success.

[Andria Barrett] (26:47 - 30:20)

All right. So, what I like to do is when we go in and we do workshops or presentations, we like to throw people off and catch them off guard and sort of bring them back to childhood when things were fun and they were at their most creative and innovative. So, one of the things we do in some of the workshops is I'm accredited Play-Doh partner.

So, what that means is I have been trained to bring Play-Doh into workshops. And, you know, the last time a lot of people saw Play-Doh was maybe when they were two. But we bring Play-Doh into workshops and the workshops are about team building and innovation and creativity and unconscious bias and conflict resolution.

So, you would think, you know, this orange block of Play-Doh has nothing to do with team building or cohesion. But you would be surprised. Studies show that when we are using our hands and we are manipulating a product and creating product, we are triggering different parts of our brain.

So, we put people in groups of two or by themselves or in larger groups. And we ask them to take this Play-Doh and create how they're feeling or create what it means to be a part of a team or create what their job means to them or, you know, create an animal. Use this Play-Doh to create an animal that reflects the type of person that you are.

It triggers different parts of your brain and you're creating something. And then when we're sharing, you are then able to learn more about the people you are working with because you're learning what animal they see themselves at or what team building means to them or what their job means to them or what ideas. There are people that we work with that have brilliant ideas but don't have an outlet to share it with.

These are the people that can help grow your company or that can help create new products or policies or help streamline workflows in your organization. They actually just need an opportunity to share it or create it. So, it's tapping into that other part of our brain that allows the creativity and the innovation to come through.

And it's fun. Again, it reminds me of the podcast I heard about the dance analogy where we are connected humans. We like to connect.

We like to talk. We like to support each other. And we like to win.

These sort of workshops allows you to tap into, you know, what made us really great when we were kids. We were fearless. We were creative.

We were imaginative. It allows us to tap back into those days and do brilliant things. So, I encourage organizations to, you know, give your employees an opportunity to tap into their creativity and to innovate and, you know, try different things.

We are competing with people around the world. We want to make sure we can tap into what makes us brilliant, what makes our organization brilliant and how we can best serve our clients and our customers. The people we work with, they have the key and the answers to what can make your organization better and more impactful and can help, you know, you hit some revenue limits you thought were not possible.

Just allowing them the time to play and create and the breathing room to, you know, tap into themselves and rest and be able to give back and support the organization in the way they can.

[Andy Goram] (30:21 - 31:32)

I guess that sensory experience is connected to the release of pressure or at least the non-direct contact with pressure because you're releasing them. You're putting me in a different state of getting to think differently and therefore that normal, let's innovate, let's find a new idea, that's pressure, right? But you're taking it through a different neurological path of play to explore, which can open up all sorts of different pathways.

And some of us will be more open to that, I guess, than others. Others will maybe struggle a wee bit. It's just trying to find the right cues.

Stress, cortisol and the physical impact of overwork

I also want to pick up on the word you used in there, which is a really powerful word, the fearless element, because I think that pressure-fear link is large. Again, I sort of mentioned it at the intro and I know it's something that you look at, but when we think about how we're wired and we think about our nervous system and we think about productivity, what's going on? What's going on with us?

And how do some of these different techniques help us get over some of that fear, that pressure, and actually, you know, not be constricted by what's going on in the nervous system, maybe?

[Andria Barrett] (31:32 - 34:04)

Mm-hmm. You know, we do ourselves a disservice when we push ourselves to these limits, go, go, go, all the time, like physical harm to our body. So our adrenal glands, which sits behind us, they sit on top of our kidneys, they produce a lot of cortisol.

And we have, I'm not sure in the UK, but in North America, unfortunate high levels of inflammation, which can then lead to some sorts of diseases like type 2 diabetes. We have like a type 2 diabetes epidemic here. So one part of this has to do with the adrenal glands.

When we are stressed and go, go, go, go, no time to eat, all we're drinking is coffee and we're eating things out of vending machines or sugary snacks and not nourishing and feeding our body well, our body is going to produce too much cortisol. Cortisol means we're always on guard. Cortisol levels, when they're continuously elevated, cause inflammation in the body.

So when we have too much cortisol in our body, we are promoting a negative environment that is then leading to disease. And you would think, really? So I'm just, just because I'm working 12 hours a day and I'm not getting enough sleep and I'm not eating well and I'm not exercising and I never have time to rest or do creative things, you are on a trajectory to illness.

So it's important to make sure that we, we, you know, look back to how, where does this start? It starts with our day. It starts with the amount of sleep that we're getting.

It starts with the amount of movement our body is getting and how hydrated we are. And are we eating good food that is nourishing our body? Are we eating a lot of sweet and sugary things that can lead to inflammation in the body?

So making sure that we are getting rest, that we are treating ourselves well, that we are working productively and efficiently, but not excessively. We're being hydrated, we're eating nourishing foods, a lot of green leafy vegetables and lean proteins and lots of good omega threes and healthy fats and oils. It'll combat inflammation throughout your body.

Now you talked about hydration and I always like to mention that, that we are chronically dehydrated. We do not get enough fluids in our body and like good fluids, lots of clean water and a lot of water can help your brain and can help you think. When your brain is working optimally, you're a little more creative and a little more innovative.

[Andy Goram] (34:04 - 35:17)

I think it's true. I said earlier in this conversation, and I would recommend anybody does this if they're listening, just draw yourself six little battery shapes. And within each of those batteries, give it five little power bars and think about the six.

I think I've counted six from what you've talked about today so far, because we've talked about hydration. We've talked about sleep. We've talked about breaks, talked about diet, talked about exercise.

And then I think also there's the social battery, right? Making time for people outside of work. You've mentioned that.

And if you just sat down and looked to those six batteries, and on any given average week, how would you grade yourself in how well you are refueling or recharging or keeping that battery maintained? I bet you there's some answers there as to why you feel exhausted, why perhaps your performance drops off, what you notice when you are dehydrated. And as I tried to explain to someone the other day in a workshop, it's not a problem.

When I'm thirsty, I'll drink. When you get thirsty, it's too late, mate. That's telling you you haven't got enough water in your system.

But I think if you looked at those six batteries, you'd find some answers that link to performance.

[Andria Barrett] (35:18 - 35:34)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And these are little things.

You don't need to do a massive overhaul in all areas of your life. These are just little things that will help. And consistently doing these little changes will have a large impact on how you feel and how you look and how you will perform.

The six personal batteries behind sustainable performance

[Andy Goram] (35:35 - 36:08)

Exactly. So I think this landscape of getting the message to organizations is it doesn't have to be overly kind of worked, some of this stuff, right, to put your employees in the best space possible. Maybe it's how you assist them dealing with some of these things, how the organization can help them be in a good place and perform for them and be less about who turns up earliest, who leaves latest, and who's worked the most hours, because that is not the key to productivity, right?

Why leaders must model healthy behaviours

[Andria Barrett] (36:09 - 37:30)

Exactly. And managers and leaders have to model good behavior. So it's one thing to want this for your employees, but you need to model good behavior, because we look to our managers as an example.

We want to see that you are rested. I want to see, you know, a manager walk in and share the story that they had a wonderful night with their family or their friends or their loved one, and they tried something new. And I want to see them participating and enjoying the workshops.

Your staff are looking to managers as an example. So managers, all managers out there, we want you to get more sleep. We want you to be successful.

Your team is there to help you be successful, but we all have to follow the same steps. We need rest, we need time to play, we need time to hydrate, and we need time to buy back some of our hours. Embracing AI, not forcing it on anyone, not doing tool switching, but making sure that everyone buys into how you can make your organization better, more productive, and more efficient.

Because imagine, you have all this time now. It's time to connect with your team. It's time to go have a team lunch.

It's time to, you know, try a four-day work week and see if you can have a better life, because I really, really believe that when you feel better, you do better. And that's from all levels of the organization.

Connection as a workplace superpower

[Andy Goram] (37:30 - 37:42)

And before we think about trying to wrap this up, the word has come up several times, connection. Why for you, Andria, is this connection thing so vital?

[Andria Barrett] (37:43 - 39:23)

You know, because I think connection is deteriorated or it's broken. There are people who, you know, we think mental health is becoming a larger and larger problem. We are not connected to each other, not our clients in the way we used to be.

We're missing some of the face-to-face or the human interaction and some of the rapport. And I think connection is important because we all need help. If I have a problem or something I need help with, I want to be able to reach out to my colleague.

If I don't feel connected to my colleague, I'm not going to be encouraged to reach out for help. Or if I am challenged and I need support from my manager, without a connection, I'm not going to be reaching out to them. And that's a disservice to me, to my manager, and then to the entire organization.

It's important that our employees and everyone who works in an organization know that they can reach out to someone. Being able to pick up the phone or sending a, you know, a Slack message to, you know, your boss or your colleague. Hey, do you have five minutes?

Can we connect? You want to be able to feel confident that you can send that kind of message and confident that you would be able to get a positive response. And sometimes it can be a quick little connection.

You have a question about something. Am I on the right track? Or, you know, I have to take my mom to a doctor's appointment on Friday.

Can we connect? Can I do this at that time and work at another time? So I think it's important that people feel that there is someone that they can go to and that there is the opportunity to have this sort of conversation in a safe space.

[Andy Goram] (39:23 - 40:33)

Yeah. I mean, look, we're wired for connection, right? As humans.

And the feeling that we're not on our own, I think, is a powerful motivator for a lot of people. But it's something that's maybe just taken for granted in our lives a lot of time. I think maybe an overused word for me is definitely intention, right?

If we put a bit more intention behind this stuff, maybe people will feel it a bit more and respond appropriately. The final thing I want to talk to you about briefly, we know from this conversation, you are an AI optimist, but we know that the workplace landscape is quite uncertain for people. And it's anxiety breeding, particularly with the pace of change for AI and organizations making huge changes at the moment with regard to bringing it in and changing workforce and the landscapes kind of changing.

AI anxiety and the future of work

And I'm getting a sense that there's an amount of anxiety growing in the workforce because of these changes, because certainty comes with a much shorter window, it seems nowadays with the amount of change. What are you seeing and what are you saying to people who are facing into this stuff and maybe, yeah, feeling more anxious about the whole landscape?

[Andria Barrett] (40:34 - 41:59)

Oh, absolutely. I see AI anxiety and fear everywhere. And understandably so.

We fear what we don't know. I think it's important that organizations educate themselves and their teams on AI literacy and what it can do for their organization. You know, when people say, you know, don't worry, AI won't displace workers or won't change the workforce.

I don't believe that to be true. And we've seen it. It is displacing workers and it's augmenting the workforce.

But while we are losing some positions, we're also creating other positions. I don't want anyone to lose a job. If we're able to alter the way we're working so that we are more productive, more efficient, and have more time for ourselves, that is the ideal scenario that I'm looking for.

So I think it's important that organizations include their employees on the strategies and how they can bring AI in. I think this should be an open conversation. What can we do to make sure that we are all still employed and we are all becoming more productive?

What can we do? What tools should we be looking at? What sort of organization do we want to be in the next five years?

That's how I like to approach it. So I think some of these decisions should be made as an organization, not just top down.

[Andy Goram] (42:00 - 43:16)

I think it sounds like an eminently sensible position. My question for us as a race is going to be, are we going to take the sensible path or not? And I think this is the thing about AI right now.

I mean, I'm an optimist for sure, but we are at lots of different crossroads on this thing. And I think the way we make choices is going to be, well, it's going to be life-changing either positively or negatively, depending on those choices that we make. But I do agree with your position.

I just wonder how we're going to get there. Andria, you have a very, very positive outlook on life. You have a great energy about you.

I'm approaching this part in the show I call sticky notes. And I've kind of introduced it by prefacing it with some more negativity around AI anxiety and all the rest of it. I want you to pull us back into the world of positivity, my friend.

Andria’s 3 Sticky Notes for healthier workplaces

I would love you to think about three little bits of advice to leave the listeners with. Let's focus on the organizations and the leaders, those guys who have the opportunity and can create healthier workplaces for their employees. What are the three chunky bits of Andria's best advice that you would stick on three little sticky notes to leave them with today?

[Andria Barrett] (43:16 - 45:06)

You know what, the first thing I would suggest, if you're a leader listening to Andy and I today, I challenge you to reach out to someone on your team and ask a question. Ask like a random, not a work-related question, not what were the numbers for were for the last quarter, just a question. Hey, so-and-so just wanted to check in and see how things were going.

It's sort of like a wellness check. So surprise someone out of the blue and ask a question that is completely unrelated to their job. When people do what I call a wellness check, it catches people off guard and they feel seen and are pleasantly surprised.

It's just a check. People want to know how you're doing as a human being. The second piece of advice I would have is, again, it's about questions.

So I think one of the problems we have is we're making decisions in our own silo. We're not asking enough questions. Ask questions from people in different departments.

Ask them what sort of wellness program they would be interested in or what are they looking for. You would be surprised to hear of the answer. Maybe it's something that is individualized that you should be rolling out for your organization instead of something that is a one-size-fit-all for everyone.

And then the third piece of advice for a leader or a manager listening to this call is I want you to get some rest. We know how hard you're working. You are managing people.

You are managing organizations. You are managing large budgets. And you are dealing with your customers or consumers.

I would like you to get some rest and think about what rest means to you and how if you're more rested, you can become more impactful.

[Andy Goram] (45:06 - 45:24)

Love that. I love that. And positive too, which I knew I would get from you, which is wonderful stuff.

Andria, I've really enjoyed meeting you. I'm really enjoyed that finally we got to have a proper chat and record it. Before I let you go, where can people find out a bit more about you, the work that you do, and all that good stuff?

Where should they head?

[Andria Barrett] (45:25 - 45:48)

They should come visit me in Canada. Or you can find me online. My website is andreabarrett.com.

Now, Andria is spelled with an I. I'm a little different. It's A-N-D-R-I-A.

And my last name is Barrett, B-A-R-R-E-T, andreabarrett.com.

[Andy Goram] (45:49 - 45:54)

And you're available on LinkedIn, right? I've tracked you down there before. We can find you on that platform for sure.

[Andria Barrett] (45:55 - 45:55)

That's right.

[Andy Goram] (45:56 - 45:59)

Andria, it's been wonderful spending some time with you. Thank you so much for coming on.

[Andria Barrett] (46:00 - 46:03)

You are welcome. It was great to meet you. Thank you so much.

[Andy Goram] (46:03 - 46:04)

Okay. You take care.

[Andria Barrett] (46:05 - 46:06)

All right. You too. Bye-bye.

[Andy Goram] (46:07 - 46:45)

Okay, everyone. That was Andria Barrett. And if you'd like to find out a bit more about her or any of the things that we've talked about in today's show, please check out the show notes.

So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like, comment, and subscribe.

It really helps. I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.

Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.