LifeHub

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D.

 

Did you ever take a vacation from work and think you needed a vacation?

Did you ever leave the office but never really leave the office?

Well, here are a few things we know about both taking vacations and getting away from work (emotionally, cognitively and physically) based on some recent research:

VACATIONS MAY BE GOOD FOR YOUR LIFE

The famous Framingham Heart Study followed approximately 12,000 men ages 35 – 57 at risk of heart disease, for nine years. Researchers wanted to know if there were ways to improve the men’s longevity. The participants were asked about a number of lifestyle topics, including vacation. It was found that taking an annual vacation actually cuts the risk of a fatal heart attack for male employees by 32 percent (Brooks, G. & Matthews, K. (2000). Are Vacations Good for Your Health? The 9-Year Mortality Experience after the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, Psychosomatic Medicine, 62, 608-612). This held true even when controlling for variables like higher education and income (which are predictive of longer lifespan). It appears that the link between vacation and longevity is undeniable.

MENTAL DISTANCING FROM WORK IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Mentally distracting oneself from work during non-work hours can help resource emotional, cognitive and spiritual resources lost because of long hours, work stress and demands (Fritz, C., Yankelevich, M., Zarubin, A. & Barger, P., (2010). Happy, healthy and productive: The role of detachment from work during nonwork time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 977-983).

At its core, psychological detachment is often conceptualized as specific cognitive and affective states where there is an absence of work related thoughts and feelings. Detachment is different from disengagement as the former means activities, experiences, thoughts and feelings during non-work time and the latter refers to attitudes and behaviors connected with work. Earlier research (e.g., Sonnetag and Fritz, 2007) found significant associations between psychological detachment and well-being such as job burnout ( r = .-56) and life satisfaction (r = .37).

Although talent need to detach from work for well-being and performance, high levels of detachment might take longer to get back into a work mentality and mode which could actually interfere with work performance. Two new studies help to understand whether detachment is important and if so, how much actually is needed.

Sabine Sonnetag from the University of Konstanz and the University of Mainz conducted a 12-month longitudinal study with 309 human service employees to explore the role of psychological detachment when jobs are high in demands (e.g., heavy work load and low control). They found that psychological detachment at work during off–job time significantly predicted less emotional exhaustionand buffered the relationship between job demands, psychosomatic complaints and employee engagement (Sonnetag, S., Binnewies, C. & Mojza, E. (2010). Staying well and engaged when demands are high: The role of psychological detachment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 965-976).

As with their earlier study, these findings again suggest that getting away from work (mentally, emotionally and behaviorally) is most important when we are stressed, have a high workload or overloaded. The lesson from their study is that when job demands are really high employees should use rituals such as winding down at the end of the working day and deliberately use commuting time and off-work time to disengage from job-related thoughts (e.g., avoiding the temptation to check emails or mentally prepare for a meeting or work related interaction scheduled the next day).

Charlotte Fritz and colleagues from Portland State University and Bowling Green University surveyed 172 working adults and measured detachment, emotional exhaustion, life satisfaction, task performance and proactive behavior (i.e., personal imitative) while controlling for negative affectivity, workload, autonomy and demographics. As in previous research, higher level of detachment was related to higher life satisfaction and significantly lower emotional exhaustion. Interestingly, they found a curvilinear association between psychological detachment and coworker reported job performance.

This study seems to suggest that although psychological detachment is indeed associated with enhanced psychological well-being, it appears that a moderate level of detachment is actually most beneficial for job performance.

Lack of detachment might not always be bad–positive work reflection during weekends and holidays increases well-being of employees when they return to work (Sonnetag, 2006) and social support from non-work sources appears to protect physical health and psychological well-being.

So, it appears that getting away from work is important (taking vacations) and mentally detaching generally is conducive for feeling less stress and burnout.

Maybe it’s time to stop reading this LifeHub blog and take a mental vacation!

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D.

Talent today are stressed, highly disengaged, ready to leave organizations when the economy improves and doing less work with more resources

For example, a late 2010 Careerbuilder.com survey (2,700 employers and 4,800 workers) found:

• Work/Life Balance and Stress–Just about one quarter (22.0%) reported being stretched and dissatisfied with the lack of work/life balance
• Compensation–almost a third of all employees (32%) were frustrated with their pay/compensation
• Career Progression/Advancement–More than a quarter (27%) were dissatisfied with opportunities for upward mobility compared to 24% last year

A survey by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), has confirmed what other surveys have found that that high-potential employees are increasingly disengaged and looking for new career opportunities. Their findings suggest that 25% or more plan to leave their current employers in the next year compared to only 10% in 2006.

More disturbing was that 21% identified themselves as “highly disengaged” which was 3 times more than what was reported in 2007.

Maybe there is a disconnect between what talent are looking for from their leaders and what bosses today think they are doing to keep high performing and high potential talent engaged.

We were interested in mining some data from our own management 360 assessment called Manager View 360 (MV360) and analyzed a random sample of leaders (over 2,500) from diverse industries to compare self-perceptions of strengths with those from direct reports of these leaders. Analysis of this data allows us to at least compare what managers think they are doing behaviorally compared to how their own bosses and direct reports are experiencing them. Any “gaps” might be interpreted as an indicator of what leaders may need to do more frequently or more effectively to meet the needs of those direct reports providing feedback.

HOW LEADERS RATE THEIR STRENGTHS AND DEVELOPMENT AREAS

We did a comparison of how leaders in managerial positions rated their own strengths and development areas and compared these to how their own bosses and direct reports experienced them. Some interesting conclusions we see.

1. Strengths: Managers seem to feel they create a climate where talent are informed, feel comfortable to share their feelings, develop their teams and are decisive. In general, their bosses agree.

Direct reports in our sample (8,000+) seem to experience leadership above them as pretty strong in various aspects of communication, making quick and firm decisions and effectively delegating.

2. Development Areas: The biggest self-reported are of development for leaders was performance management, holding talent accountable, following up on poor performance and making sure a clear “line of sight” existed between performance goals and evaluating progress. This task orientation was clear with only one interpersonal skills perceived to be lacking by managers–active listening.

Again, bosses of these leaders seemed to also see these same weaknesses–perhaps because they also have a strong task orientation that sets a tone for most managers to follow.

Most interestingly, direct reports seemed to want more participative leadership from their managers. They viewed managers as not demonstrating the “transformational leadership” to resolve interpersonal differences, build a strong team, recognize and reward the efforts of talent working so hard and most importantly–not feeling involved in planning, decision making and problem solving processes that positively contribute towards engagement.

To win the talent war today it appears that managers should sharpen their skills around building high performance teams and increasing the use of participative leadership approaches.

Our data suggests that managers are acting as if they are leading in “white water environments” where decisive, authoritative and transactional approaches to leadership is what is required to facilitate performance and commitment to the discretionary effort required today to survive. However, talent seem to be asking for more involvement in the things they have control over and given the time they are putting in at work, to work on teams they value, enjoy and respect based on how they evaluate the actual practices and behaviors of their leaders.

What do you think talent want from leaders today to remain productive and engaged?”….Be well…