Careering

Solutions to support struggling workers must go beyond self-care

Jodi Tingling

The past few years have been stressful, to say the least. We have had to navigate numerous challenges including but not limited to working through a pandemic while managing multiple responsibilities, witnessing and protesting social justice issues that continue to have a negative impact on disadvantaged groups and losing loved ones. The psychological impact of these stressors has tested us in many ways.

For most organizations, it may be back to business as usual. However, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, one in four Canadians has accessed support for mental health challenges and their levels of mental health distress are similar to the start of the pandemic. This suggests the pandemic could have lasting effects on individual well-being, requiring ongoing mental health support.

The typical advice employers give to employees who are feeling stressed and burned out is to take care of their mental health, access counselling, engage in self-care and take vacation days. This advice is not enough. Employees simply can’t self-care their stress away. We must address the systems that enable stress and burnout to continue to harm our people.

So, as leaders, how do we move beyond superficial advice to help support the mental health journey of our team members?

Get flexible

The first challenge we can address is encouraging or supporting team members to have a more balanced life. One of the positive aspects to come out of working during a pandemic was the fact that many companies were able to move to a work-from-home option. A study by Statistics Canada indicated 90% of people who worked from home reported they accomplished as much work at home as they did in the office. This gave employees the chance to prove that their success can’t be measured by the hours they spend in the office, but rather by their ability to get the job done. Working remotely also helped increase employee happiness by as much as 20%, while returning to work and dealing with long commute times decreases happiness, according to a June 2022 study from Tracking Happiness.

“Employees simply can’t self-care their stress away. We must address the systems that enable stress and burnout to continue to harm our people.”

When we think about work-life balance, the ability to work remotely and have a flexible schedule can significantly impact the life of your employees and help bring more balance to their lives. If you are a people leader, think about areas where you can offer these options. This can help reduce some of the stress employees are experiencing when they come to work.

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Be proactive

Another area to consider when you are trying to help your team manage their stress is not waiting to act until employees are burned out and need to take a stress leave. This is a reactive approach.

To be proactive, all people leaders need to engage in professional development around recognizing the signs of stress and burnout. Tuning into your employees’ changing needs and finding a way to help accommodate them can shift their experience from entering a state of burnout to feeling supported in their mental health.

The website Workplace Strategies For Mental Health has some great tips for recognizing signs of burnout in your employees. It outlines actions leaders can take including assessing employees’ workloads, setting realistic expectations and giving high-achievers choices. Leaders and employees may also be able to access training options through a company Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

In addition to professional development, leaders can conduct weekly check-ins with reports, note changes in behaviours or attitudes and provide opportunities for professional development or stretch projects (if employees express the need for a change) to help prevent burnout. When we can anticipate our team’s needs, this can help us to uplift and empower them, especially in challenging times.

Create a safe space

If you want your employees to let you in on what they are experiencing, you must create a psychologically safe work environment. According to the Center for Creative Leadership, psychological safety occurs when team members feel comfortable being themselves, including speaking up, disagreeing with the status quo and embracing respectful conflict.

As people leaders, it’s important to assess where you stand on fostering a psychologically safe environment at work. You can ask yourself:

• Do your team members speak up in meetings?
• Do your reports open up to you when you check in on them or do you get surface-level interactions?
• Do you notice team members tend to agree with mostly everything you say?

A McKinsey & Company study found that organizations that invest in leadership training see an increase in psychological safety. When leaders commit to continuing to build their leadership skills – especially in the domains of emotional intelligence and creating an inclusive environment – this can create a safe space for employees to speak up when they are feeling overloaded, stressed or in need of accommodations. This is an important factor for preventing burnout and creating protective factors.

Courses such as Amy Edmondson’s Psychological Safety: Clear Blocks to Innovation, Collaboration, and Risk-Taking and Anima Leadership’s Authentic Management – Leading Diverse, High Performance Teams are excellent places to start building your skills in the domain of psychological safety.

Take a systems approach

Lastly, burnout can be caused by the workplace systems that keep employees overworked and often underpaid. Consider updating policies that may be causing your team more harm than good. Whether it’s introducing a remote work or diversity, equity and inclusion policy; updating compensation packages; or simply pointing out when policies don’t seem fair, these systems-level considerations can help improve the day-to-day experiences of employees.

If you have spoken up, but you and your team must abide by these policies, what can you do in your power to make a difference? For example, can you show flexibility in areas such as work hours, re-distributing workload, advocating for your employee’s needs, listening or looking out for professional development opportunities that can help your team grow?

As a leader you can also lead by example and model taking care of yourself. And encourage other leaders you connect with to do the same. No longer is working 10-hour days perceived as a badge of honour; rather, it’s seen as a recipe for burnout. When your team sees you modelling the behaviour you want to see in them as well as encouraging other leaders to do the same, this can create a culture of wellness.

In summary, employees are still feeling stressed and burned out. As a leader, you can make a difference. You can work with your team to create more balance through work-from-home options or flexibility in scheduling. You can also take a proactive approach by investing in your own professional development as a leader to recognize the signs of stress and burnout on your team and have strategies in place to minimize the effects. Creating a psychologically safe work environment is also essential for your team to speak up when they need help or accommodations in the workplace. And finally, continue to challenge the systems that can cause your employees harm, find workarounds that minimize the stress your team feels and model the behaviour you’d like to see on your team.

Jodi Tingling is a Licensed Therapist in Ontario and Wellness Coach. She provides wellness training for organizations and helps high-achieving professionals navigate stress in the workplace (including impostor syndrome, toxic workplaces and creating balance). To learn more about her work check her out here: www.creatingnewsteps.com.

The pandemic has set the stage for individuals to reflect on, embrace and overcome challenges related to their career goals

Geneviève Taylor, Kaspar Schattke and Ariane Sophie Marion-Jetten

Julian is a Canadian professional soccer player whose career goal is to get into a European club. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he felt the constant stress of having to isolate when a team member was sick and started feeling disenchanted about having to play without an audience. Things are more “normal” now, but he has not been performing well and has suffered repeated injuries. Thus, he gets anxious about his performance and career goal. He often ruminates about his mistakes and wonders whether he should disengage from his goal or not. He is experiencing a career action crisis.

What is a career action crisis?

An action crisis represents the internal conflict that arises when thinking about whether to continue with or to give up an important (career) goal, for which difficulties have been accumulating. This has important negative consequences, such as elevated distress and depression. It can also make failing one’s goal more likely and often leads to giving it up. Giving up career goals can be unsettling because they are usually identity-defining. However, what if going through an action crisis is exactly what Julian needs to realign his career with the life he really wants to live?

We do not know much about the potential positive long-term outcomes of career action crises. While it is certainly distressing, an action crisis can also represent a “golden opportunity.” It may provide an occasion to reflect on one’s career goals, to let go of the ones that no longer make us happy, and to help us find more motivating and meaningful goals. However, this depends on how we cope with our action crisis, which is precisely where career development professionals can help.

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Action crises through the lens of the Rubicon Model

Career development professionals frequently meet clients who are experiencing a career action crisis, without using that terminology. The Rubicon Model of Action Phases helps us to understand why action crises are problematic by differentiating four phases of goal pursuit (see Figure 1).

In the predecisional phase, people deliberate about how desirable and feasible their different wishes are. Intending to put a wish into action turns it into a goal. At that point, we have “crossed the Rubicon,” as Julius Caesar literally did to conquer Rome. In the preactional and actional phases, people plan and execute their actions, respectively, while ignoring the pros and cons of their decision to focus on goal attainment. In the postactional phase, people reflect on their progress, or lack thereof.

In an action crisis, people start oscillating between the predecisional and preactional/actional phases, preventing them from effectively pursuing their goal because they question it instead of working on it. For example, Julian starts losing games and wonders whether to let go of his European ambitions.

“While it is certainly distressing, an action crisis can also represent a ‘golden opportunity.'”

How can career professionals use the Rubicon Model to help their clients cope with and learn from an action crisis? Our own research suggests that mindfulness is linked to a reduction in action crisis severity and can help individuals who are coping with an ongoing one. Thus, we propose three ways of turning career action crises into “golden opportunities.”

1. Reflecting on career goals and embracing action crises

A career action crisis offers the opportunity to readjust our priorities related to an overarching goal. We will have to “cross the Rubicon” again, either in deciding to keep and recommit to the initial goal, with necessary adjustments, or to abandon it and re-engage in another goal. One means to facilitate this challenge of embracing an unpleasant action crisis can be self-compassion, consisting of three components:

• Self-kindness – being caring toward oneself after failure
• Common humanity – recognizing our negative experiences as a part of being human
• Mindfulness – paying attention in an accepting, non-judgmental way to our thoughts, sensations and emotions, in the present moment

For example, we could help Julian become mindful of his anxiety and self-critical thoughts, be kind with himself for having experienced unanticipated obstacles such as losing games and help him recognize that this just makes him human. This way, we normalize experiencing an action crisis and allow our client to accept his negative thoughts and emotions without avoiding or being consumed by them.

2. To disengage or not to disengage? That is the question

After having reflected upon and embraced the action crisis as an opportunity, we can help the client explicitly explore whether they need to disengage from their goal. First, why did the person initially engage in their career goal? Was it because of external or internal pressure (controlled reasons), or because it was related to their values and interests (autonomous reasons)? A career goal chosen for mostly controlled reasons will be more likely to lead to action crises in the future, and to decrease goal progress and increase distress. If a person already has an action crisis for a controlled goal, it could be time to disengage and search for a more autonomous goal, one that is connected to their values/interests.

Second, we can support clients to consider the attainability and desirability of the goal. In Julian’s case, is getting into a European league still attainable and something worth investing in?

Finally, one has to evaluate the obstacles that triggered the action crisis. Are they surmountable? If it is a desirable, attainable and autonomous goal, is it worth continuing to work on getting over the obstacles? If so, then we can use tools such as WOOP, which helps us reflect on our Wish (goal), its desired Outcomes, internal Obstacles and create an action Plan to overcome the obstacles. If the goal is not desirable, attainable and autonomous, then we can help the client to disengage from it, cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally.

3. Re-engaging after an action crisis

After disengaging from a career goal, the challenge is to help the client re-engage in a more meaningful, feasible and fulfilling career goal that reflects their true passions, interests and core values. They can achieve this through various exercises that career counsellors use daily, such as interest inventories, value exploration, narratives and life space mapping.

Another complementary tool clients can use is a mindfulness practice to pay attention to how they feel when discussing certain goals: Do they feel tight in the chest or open and relaxed? This could help identify new areas for goal setting; however, it is important to explore the source of these feelings first, which could also stem from anxiety around uncertainty or considering a goal that is largely different from what they are used to, rather than because it is not the “right” goal for them.

Finally, since career goals are usually identity defining, another idea is to help clients re-engage in a related goal. For example, Julian could aim for a career as a trainer in a European club if his injuries do not allow him a career as a player at a high level.

Conclusion

An action crisis is an unpleasant experience, yet it also constitutes an opportunity for realigning life priorities with work goals. Using mindfulness and self-compassion can help to embrace an action crisis in lieu of fighting it. It can help to figure out which “Rubicon to cross”: the one that reaffirms the initial goal or the one that disengages and re-engages in a new career goal, while applying the wisdom that the action crisis experience has bestowed upon us. Without the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us would have never had this opportunity.

Geneviève Taylor, PhD, is a professor in career counselling at Université du Québec à Montréal. She obtained a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management from the London School of Economics and a doctorate in clinical psychology from McGill University. Her current research focuses on the role of mindfulness and self-compassion in career-related goal pursuit and other motivational processes. 

Originating from Berlin, Kaspar Schattke obtained a doctorate from the Technical University of Munich and is now an Associate Professor at Université du Québec à Montréal in work and organisational psychology. Dr. Schattke is also a certified management trainer and consultant specialized on leadership and motivation. His current research interests focus on goal disengagement, greenwashing and work motivation.

Ariane Sophie Marion-Jetten, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Psychology and Movement Science at Universität Hamburg, Germany. Her research focuses on the role of mindfulness and implicit and explicit motives congruence for self-regulation and goal pursuit (career and other types).

The ability to find possibility within uncertainty can be key to thriving

Tam Nguyen

In 2020, CERIC released a series of Career Work in Action publications based on its “Guiding Principles of Career Development” to provide insights as well as consistency for career-related support in five key areas: self-exploration, decision making, support through transition, future thinking and mental health. After more than two years of the pandemic, with so much change in the global labour market, one might consider whether our implementation for those five key areas of career support has been sufficient.

According to a survey by Gartner, the pandemic has prompted 52% of employees to question the purpose of their job. Research from McKinsey shows many people are still considering quitting their jobs in the coming months, with lack of meaningful work as a top reason. While the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis, at the individual level for our clients, it has also prompted a crisis of purpose. For career development professionals, it has served as a test case for how we respond to and help clients respond to unexpected challenges.

Writer Bruce Feiler calls those unexpected challenges (whether they are voluntary or involuntary) a “whenever crisis,” as they can happen at any moment in our lives – not just quarter-life or mid-life, as we usually discuss. It’s no longer enough to just support clients through their current transition or external crises. We need to maximize mental health support by helping them learn how to prepare for the inevitable crises ahead.

Mental health support in the era of uncertainty

Each client’s life is a constellation of interconnected pieces. As career guidance professionals, we learn about clients’ life roles, barriers and constraints and help them to take into consideration all variables that might affect their career decision-making. When people feel that some of those variables are out of their control and that they are unable to predict what might happen in the future (as in the COVID-19 crisis), they experience uncertainty.

How could we, as career development professionals, better support our clients to manage uncertainty and be ready for crises? I often work with immigrants and underrepresented groups who have to go through uncertainty more often than others do. I’ve found that what distinguishes thriving individuals from surviving ones is the skill to see possibility within uncertainty.

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According to author Nathan Furr, possibility is reflected in the thinking, “What could happen if I get through my fear and just do it?”

Inspired by the five key areas of career guidance practice in CERIC’s Career Work in Action publications and Furr’s four-stage process to turn uncertainty into possibility, I adapted a five-step process to help guide clients through uncertainty.

Step 1: Self-reflecting

A 2022 Joblist survey revealed that more than one-quarter of Americans who quit their job as part of the “Great Resignation” now regret their decision. Many weren’t ready to handle uncertainty and had a lack of clarity on what they wanted. If we learn who we are and why we do what we do before making decisions, the what and how will come clear.

Our first support could be as simple as creating a safe space for clients to unpack their stories and their experiences. What work-related and non-work-related stories do they have? How do these shape the way they look at themselves and the world? How does that affect their career decision-making process?

Using the Wheel of Life assessment tool, journalling and talking with others are great ways to initiate self-reflection.

Step 2: Reframing

Is it possible for uncertainty to bring opportunity?

I believe the answer is yes. COVID has created new opportunities for running the economy remotely. At the beginning of 2021, 32% of Canadian employees worked most of their hours from home, compared with 4% in 2016.

Our job in guiding our clients through an uncertain world of work is to help them explore different possibilities. We can tap into their creative power by helping them brainstorm new ideas without judgment. We might ask:

• If money and status were no object, what would you do?
• If you had multiple lives with multiple possibilities, what would you do?
• If plan A no longer works, what would you do?
• If plan B also goes awry, what would you do?

This brainstorming and thought exercise helps our clients prepare for future uncertainty and understand that an option they didn’t even consider initially may be more exciting than what they could have envisioned.

Step 3: Priming

A 10-year linear career path with one employer is no longer guaranteed for our clients in this chaotic, constantly changing world. We need to help them prepare for uncertainty, recognizing that a career crisis can happen at any time.

We should help our clients look at their support system including money, people and environment: Do they have savings? Do they keep networking and building connections with people? Do they regularly update their skills and knowledge?

Step 4: Doing

While thinking about the long-term future can be intimidating, many things in the near future or present moment are within our control. Backward goal-setting is a powerful technique to help our clients break big goals into small goals, small goals into tasks and tasks into daily to-do lists.

Reflecting is essential to the success of doing. Hence, it’s important to review Steps 4 and 1 side by side, helping clients constantly take inventory of where they are, who they care about, their purpose and its alignment with their action plan.

Step 5: Sustaining

Sustaining effort to deal with uncertainty and crisis means two things: being proactive and being resilient.

Being proactive comes from monitoring risks regularly. Our success as career guidance practitioners should not be on clients’ dependency but on their ability to self-coach. Start with the importance of regular career checkups and equip them with exercises, tools and materials so that they can periodically go through Steps 1 to 4 themselves.

Being resilient is about building a strong support system. “Resilience” stems from Latin word “resilire” for “bounce,” yet bouncing back while relying on only oneself creates limitations around the sustainability of personal growth. Handling and preparing for the unknown are possible in the presence of a person we trust. A partner, a friend, a coach – they can help us to see our blind spots and cultivate a positive mindset.

An upcoming recession?

Many jobseekers and recruiters are concerned about how a recession could affect the labour market. While the prospect of uncertainty may be alarming for workers, this is just another crisis in many crises we need to prepare for.

By preparing for this reality, rather than waiting to react to it, workers will be better positioned to weather the storm and jump on opportunities that emerge from these challenges. Much as COVID ushered in a new era of remote work, uncertainty can introduce new possibilities. We can never foretell what will come in the future, but by choosing crisis before it chooses us – acting instead of reacting – we walk through life with a real sense of purpose.

Tam Nguyen is a Certified Career/Life Coach and workshop facilitator at Empurpose – a private coaching practice dedicated to helping underrepresented groups unlock professional potential and develop a sense of work/life purpose. She is a member of APCDA and a sustainability enthusiast with an interest in purpose-driven community.

Career professionals can learn how to have safe and meaningful conversations to support clients experiencing this form of bullying

Priscilla Jabouin

I was first introduced to the concept of bullying in the workplace in 2010 during my graduate course in Career Psychology. I realized that although bullying has been a workplace issue for many years, it has received very little attention in the Canadian context. Nevertheless, as a Career Counsellor in private practice, I have often heard clients share stories that highlight clear instances of this issue.

Unfortunately, when I researched tools to support clients in navigating this reality, the resources were very limited. This stayed with me, as I find that it reflects how our society often approaches “negative” topics. For example, in 2003, the Canadian government conducted an Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS) and reported that 65% of underrepresented individuals experienced racism in the workplace. Even though this is a high percentage and it’s a known fact that racism has a serious impact on a person’s mental health, I did not find any follow-up action plans to deal with this situation – until now. In this post-George Floyd era, when racism and systemic racism are a hot topic, we are now witnessing everyone jumping on the equity, diversity and inclusion train.

But are we really implementing lasting solutions to this problem?

I would like to open up the discussion on a topic that is often overlooked: racism as a form of bullying in the workplace. By starting this conversation, my hope is that as career development professionals, you will be better equipped to have safe and meaningful conversations with your clients, and to help them set boundaries to protect themselves from various forms of bullying in the workplace and to limit its negative effects on their mental health.

What is bullying?

In the literature, bullying is described as a series of negative behaviours that includes harassing, offending, socially excluding or negatively affecting someone’s work, taking place repeatedly and regularly over a period of at least six months (Podsiadly, A. & Gamian, Wilk, M., 2017; Samnani, A-K. & Singh, P., 2012; High, A., Hansen, A.M., Mikkelsen, E.G., Persson, R. 2011). However, when working from a trauma-informed lens, one event is often enough for an individual to experience trauma and/or to trigger an individual’s past trauma. Therefore, it is important to recognize that an individual who experiences any type of bullying in the workplace over any period of time could still experience its negative outcomes.

In the context of this discussion, I would like to include in my definition of bullying: any type of workplace situation where an individual feels unsafe or distressed or lacks the tools to protect themself from an actual or perceived threat. In this case, I include racism as a form of bullying and as a consequence, relational trauma in the workplace.

“It is important to recognize that an individual who experiences any type of bullying in the workplace over any period of time could still experience its negative outcomes.”

The psychological impact

Research has not only confirmed that bullying in the workplace leads to negative psychological outcomes (i.e. higher rates of anxiety and depression) for individuals who are targeted by these negative behaviours (Podsiadly, A. & Gamian, Wilk, M., 2017; Samnani, A-K. & Singh, P., 2012; High, A., Hansen, A.M., Mikkelsen, E.G., Persson, R. 2011); it has also identified that targets are often ethnic minority women (Samnani, A-K., & Singh, P., 2012).

Furthermore, in its 2022 training on the trauma of racism, NICABM (National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine) emphasized the hypervigilant behaviour racialized individuals often exhibit due to the serious psychological impact of regular racial stressors in their environments. Thus, we cannot take this topic lightly if we care about the Canadian population’s mental health and well-being.

So, what can we do about it? I’d like to continue this conversation by suggesting some simple interventions you and your clients can start to use to address this problem.

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Interventions and solutions

It can be challenging to recognize that your client is experiencing racism in the workplace; it can also be difficult for your client to acknowledge that they are being bullied at work. Therefore, I believe it’s important to highlight that it is never the “victim’s” fault or responsibility to find solutions and interventions to issues of racism, discrimination and racial micoragressions in the workplace. We do not ask the person who is bullied to come up with solutions, so let’s ensure we take the same approach when it comes to racism in the workplace.

Educating employers and employees

It should no longer be acceptable for employers to lack training and/or education on issues surrounding equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace. To create a safe space for all leaders and employees, it should be mandatory for everyone to receive training on bias and anti-racism in the workplace. Employers need to question their current practices and go beyond simply reaching their employment equity quotas – a practice that does not protect underrepresented individuals. On the contrary, individuals can experience serious repercussions when they are tokenized and thrown into unsafe work environments where their colleagues have not explored their personal biases.

Acknowledge complaints

If you are a non-racialized individual, or your client is working with a non-racialized supervisor, it is important to remember that your experience of power and privilege means you are not in a position where you have experienced what racism looks like, feels like or sounds like. This lack of awareness can lead you to ignore serious complaints that require your immediate attention.

Denying an act of racism can be as harmful as the actual racist experience your client has endured. Remember that calling out racism requires a lot of courage from a racialized individual and puts them in a very vulnerable space, emotionally and psychologically. Treat every complaint with the amount of attention it deserves.

Understanding microaggressions

It is also important to remember that microaggressions are very subtle acts, incidents or comments that cannot be easily identified – (see Microaggressions in Everyday Life by D.W. Sue & L. Spanierman). Some things are felt in the body, and not easily explained by the mind.

Setting boundaries

This is where you can teach your client strategies to protect themselves against racism in the workplace. How can you help your clients identify safe working spaces? How can clients voice their concerns and opinions to encourage positive change in the workplace? When should a client consider leaving a toxic work environment? How can you support your client to ask questions such as: What anti-racist policies are in place? How do these translate in the workplace?

Co-operation and commitment

Is your client’s employer ready for open and uncomfortable conversations? Are they ready to hear suggestions from the groups affected by racism and discrimination? Are they ready to dive into the complexities and subjective realities of their employees? Have you prepared yourself as a helper to explore these ideas and to be in an uncomfortable space with your clients?

In order to create meaningful and positive changes in the workplace and to ensure safe work environments, employers as well as the work environments and culture need to be open and willing to listen and communicate with racialized individuals about their experience.

Conclusion

The interventions and strategies I have shared only scratch the surface of the conversation that needs to be had about racism as a form of workplace bullying. As Canadians, we will have to participate in in-depth discussions to shift mindsets and dismantle the systems that uphold work environments that are conducive to bullying and racism. If we want to create meaningful changes where the goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives are optimally reached, we will have to do the uncomfortable work.

Priscilla Jabouin, M.A., C.C.C., c.o. After a career change in 2010, Priscilla returned to school to complete her master of arts in counselling psychology. She then embarked on a new path as a Career Counsellor in university career centres in Canada and the United States, and is now in private practice helping creative professionals who are unhappy at work, wake up to a career they love.

Additional sources

Crisis & Trauma Resource Institute (CTRI) (2021). Trauma: Counselling Strategies for Healing and Resilience (Training Manual)

Khan, C. (2006, Summer). “The Blind Spot”: Racism and Discrimination in the Workplace. In J.S. Frideres (vol. 2). Our Diverse Cities. (pp. 61 – 65). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anita-Friesen/publication/332180728_Winnipeg’s_Inner_City_Research_on_the_Challenges_of_Growing_Diversity/links/5ca4db0da6fdcc12ee9113e9/Winnipegs-Inner-City-Research-on-the-Challenges-of-Growing-Diversity.pdf#page=63

This experiential learning opportunity can help students broaden their horizons after two years of pandemic learning

Michelle Dittmer

No prom, no graduation, no high school plays. It’s no surprise to anyone that students who graduated in 2022 did not have a normal high school experience; their only non-pandemic high school year was Grade 9. They have missed out on experiential learning opportunities like sporting events, school plays, international trips, part-time work and summer jobs. While this is showing up on resumes as lack of experience, it is also showing up in a variety of other deficits such as confidence, optimism for their future and understanding the full range of opportunities that lie ahead of them.

While the pandemic highlighted some of these challenges, the trend toward focusing on academic achievement over engaging in a variety of experiences has been developing for a while. At the Canadian Gap Year Association, students taking gap years (“gappers”) have noted trends of feeling compelled to choose the full repertoire of STEM courses over co-op experiences and pressure to build “med-school-ready” resumes. With a rightful focus on equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility, many schools lack funds and resources to create financially and culturally accessible experiential learning. To complicate things further, increased liability concerns limit longer and more intensive programming such as school trips or overnight experiences.

Reflecting on the high school experience rarely brings about memories of balancing chemical equations or reading Hamlet. The formative teen years rely on novel experiences to broaden ideas, get exposure to new concepts and people, make memories and form lifelong connections. Without these experiences widely available, students are learning and developing in a much narrower ecosystem while the world continues to become more complex and globalized.

“The formative teen years rely on novel experiences to broaden ideas, get exposure to new concepts and people, make memories and form lifelong connections.”

One antidote that expands young people’s horizons is to take a gap year – to push pause intentionally on formal education to learn more about themselves, the world around them and how they see themselves contributing to a complex future. A gap year supports foundational skills development through any combination of working, volunteering, travelling and project work. In other words, a gap year is experiential learning and career development work. While some may dismiss a gap year as wasted time or a detour off the proven track to success, they actually support physical and mental well-being and help young people develop passions and interests that provide clarity for their life’s next steps.

Exploring the gap year

Long gone are the days of a gap year being strictly the domain of affluent youth strapping on a backpack and travelling Europe for a year or “helping in Africa” (although travel and service are still part of the equation). Instead, 2021 gappers in CanGap’s network focused on their mental health, bought their immigrant parents a house, started a vegan bakery, ran non-profit organizations, secured substantial scholarships, worked and travelled in the UK while taking courses on social media management, and worked with the mayor of Toronto.

While these are the newsworthy undertakings, many other gappers share how their experience-focused gap years allowed them to overcome burnout, build confidence, make a more informed decision about their academic pathway and become more financially stable – all core components of stepping into their desired futures and entering adulthood feeling more prepared and balanced.

Students often want to take a gap year but are frequently met with barriers such as societal expectations to continue education through to post-secondary graduation, pressure to progress alongside their peers, cultural norms that don’t include gap years and a strong desire to not disappoint their parents. Parents, educators and advisors can be a powerful gateway to students realizing their gap year goals.

Read more on youth career development

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Articles and organizations to support students considering a gap year

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How to be a gap year influencer:

• Normalize non-linear pathways after high school: While all post-secondary pathways are valuable, students and parents are still heavily influenced by the antiquated hierarchy of post-secondary choices, which puts gap years at the bottom as a “failure to make it” to the more desired options.
• Share more stories: Invite gap year alum or gap year professionals to come speak with your young people so that they can learn what possibilities are before them. The US-based Gap Year Association’s 2020 Alum Survey stated that students’ biggest barrier to taking a gap year was deciding what to do during their year.
• Talk about post-gap year transitions: A gap year is a break from being a full-time student in a traditional classroom. Parents may feel more comfortable and students can be better positioned to enjoy their gap time when they understand how to navigate the transition out of their gap year into the next phase of their lives (trades, further studies, workforce, military, etc.) up front.
• Set up a gap year plan: There is a difference between a purposeful gap year and spending the year on the couch. Designing a year’s worth of experiences that push the gapper closer toward their goals is the key to a successful gap year.

Tips for planning an effective gap year

The non-profit Canadian Gap Year Association’s role is to help students and families decide whether a gap year is the right fit, and then give them the tools and support to make their gap time purposeful. The recommendations below are based on 15+ years supporting Canadian gappers, and all links are to free resources that expand on the bullet points.

• Define goals: Look at three main categories: personal, strategic and fun. Having well-balanced goals will help set the intentions for the year and factor in personal needs, future planning and the need to have a good time while doing it! Once goals are established, decisions about the types of activities to pursue becomes much clearer and less overwhelming.
• Set expectations: Discuss expectations as a family. Having everyone on the same page at the start of the year will reduce conflict and ensure that everyone understands the parametres for the gap year (budget, acceptable activities, rules about living at home, etc.) and expectations surrounding what happens at the end of the gap year.
• Research options: Did you know that most activities for a gap year are not found by googling “gap year”? The possibilities include internships, volunteer opportunities, jobs, clubs, hackathons, courses, passion projects or starting a business. All can be done within Canada or abroad. There is also a wide variety of designated gap year programs to choose from as well.
• Track progress: As the year unfolds, find opportunities to document the learning that takes place, the skills that are developed and the networks that are being built. This can be through journalling, conversations with a mentor, developing a gap year portfolio or however the gapper processes information. CanGap offers a micro-credential, The Student of Leadership and Humanity Award, that supports reflection on experiences and making connections to future scenarios.

A gap year is experiential learning. It compliments and augments classroom learning. Gap years expose students to new situations, provide immediate and relevant feedback on career options, and allow students to discover or showcase knowledge and talents that might not get exposed in the classroom.

Let’s celebrate the gap year pathway as a wise choice that supports personal and professional growth and add it to our toolkits for supporting positive youth development.

Combining youth’s need for experiential learning and developing reflective and values-aligned practices, Michelle Dittmer, an educator, founded the Canadian Gap Year Association as a solution to mental health, lack of clarity and the skills gap.

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for the new workplace

Brian Lambier

Organizations are asking employees to return to the office and a “new normal” workplace. However, while some employees are eager to separate work from home, not all are keen to return to the office full time. As businesses implement new working models from fully remote to strictly office-based, and everything in between, career professionals need to be prepared to support clients to consider what meets their needs.

In a 2022 survey conducted for Global News, 32% of Canadians said that they’d look for another job if their employer forced them to work exclusively at the office, a sentiment more widely shared among those aged 18 to 34 (42%) than those 35 to 54 (29% ) and 55 and over (22%).

Microsoft’s Annual Trend and Index Report 2022 also reported that the collective experience of the past two years has left a lasting imprint, fundamentally changing how we define the role of work in our lives. For Gen Z and millennials, there is no going back. And with other generations not far behind, companies must meet employees where they are.

In response, employers are now considering hybrid-working models, where employees will work both in the office and at home. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

What does hybrid work look like?

According to Webex by Cisco, there are four primary models of hybrid work that employers are implementing:

1. Flexible hybrid: Employees choose their location and working hours based on their priorities for the day.
2. Fixed hybrid: Employees may be required to work in the office on fixed days and times, to ensure that everyone is on-site at those times.
3. Office-first hybrid: Employees are expected to be on-site most of the time but have the flexibility to choose a couple of days a week to work remotely.
4. Remote-first hybrid: Employees work remotely most of the time with occasional visits to co-working spaces or the office for team building, collaboration and training.

Career professionals need to support clients to look at each of these hybrid models to determine which one offers the best “fit” for their lifestyle and expectations of work.

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Benefits and limitations of hybrid work

Hybrid work provides the freedom and flexibility for employees to manage their life and workdays from home, and still stay connected with co-workers and managers in their workplace. These connections can prevent remote workers from experiencing isolation that affects their mental health, productivity level and job satisfaction. There is also a cost-savings benefit as they will commute less to the office, saving time and money spent on transportation, clothing and other expenses.

A Gallup study found the optimal engagement boost for millennials occurs when employees spend 60-80% of their time – three to four days a week – working remotely. This generation often defines flexibility by when and where they work.

It is important for employers to be attuned to employee needs and desires to help improve recruitment and retention. The degree of workplace flexibility will influence some employees’ decisions about whether to accept a job offer elsewhere. Understanding employees’ need for flexibility can lead to engaged workers who are also often more productive and happier, which can be a win-win for both the employer and employee.

“It is important for employers to be attuned to employee needs and desires to help improve recruitment and retention.”

While there can be benefits to hybrid work, these models are not the best fit for employees who prefer to go to their workplace every day to enjoy the culture of the organization, teamwork and face-to-face interactions with managers, co-workers and clients. These employees may face challenges when working from home. They may not have the self-discipline to stay on task nor have an appropriate workspace or resources required to manage everyday interruptions. This may decrease their productivity and overall job satisfaction.

Setting clients up for success

So, what does this mean for career professionals? How can you support your clientele to make an informed decision regarding their career direction and how it fits with different models of working?

Career professionals can continue to support their clients to increase their self-awareness by helping them to identify their skills, values, interests and work preferences, as well as their perceptions regarding the benefits and challenges of the “new normal” workplace. Helping clients explore who they are, as well as the wide variety of models of work including the hybrid options outlined above, will equip them with greater self-understanding. This increased knowledge will place them in a better position to answer the following four questions and begin a process to determine which type of work environment is best for them.

1. Are you concerned with feeling disconnected or isolated from the workplace and the other members of your team?

In a study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour in 2021, researchers examined rich data including the emails, calendars, instant messages, video/audio calls and workweek hours from before and after Microsoft imposed a company-wide work-from-home mandate in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that working from home caused workers to become more siloed in how they communicated with others. Employees engaged in fewer direct conversations and spent less time in meetings.

2. How do you prefer to communicate and collaborate with co-workers, managers and other stakeholders?

Do you prefer in-person, direct communication with others or are you comfortable communicating via email, texting or via an online digital platform? Everyone shares and receives information differently, so the quality of information exchange will be influenced by the method of sharing, as well as each individual’s level of comfort with it.

3. When working from home, will you be able to create a balance between your personal and work life?

All employees, including hybrid workers, need to have a positive work experience that increases their overall health and wellness. Work-life balance has numerous positive effects such as decreased stress, a lower risk of burnout and a greater sense of well-being. Some benefit from working remotely because it allows them to juggle their work and non-work responsibilities from one base of operation. Others prefer to find balance by working away from home because they can create a separation between these two areas of their life.

4. What circumstances need to exist in a hybrid model for you to be productive?

This includes the physical work environment (e.g. home office setup), the type of interruptions the individual can expect and how they can manage them, and the daily structure they create to support their productivity and overall well-being.

The answers to these questions can provide both the career professional and their clients with additional information and insight to engage in a more in-depth conversation about the new world of work. The client will be in a better position to make a more informed decision as to which model of work is the “best fit” for them, and the career professional can help identify the necessary actions to effectively prepare their clients to work in this “new normal.”

Brian Lambier, BA, CRC is the President/Owner of Career Vitality Services Inc., a career coach, a certified retirement coach as well as an adult education workshop facilitator who has worked in a diversity of positions in the human services and career development fields for the past 30-plus years. He also teaches in the Career and Academic Advising Certificate Program at the University of Calgary.

Examining the role of rational, intuitive and emotional dimensions in career decision-making

Hélène Brisebois

The career decision-making process is complex. It does, after all, require an individual to choose a career that will make up a significant part of their life. While some people rely primarily on their rationality, others are chiefly guided by their intuition, while others still rely mostly on their emotions.

Many researchers agree that it is important to consider the rational and conscious dimension, the intuitive and unconscious dimension, as well as emotions when making career decisions (Baumgardner, 1977; Cournoyer & Lachance, 2018; Falardeau, 2007; Gelatt, 1989; Krieshok, 1998; Krieshok et al., 2009; Krieshok et al., 2011; Lecomte & Savard, 2008, 2009; Motl et al., 2018).

As such, this article discusses how these three dimensions combine with respect to career decision-making.

The rational and conscious dimension

When it comes to decision-making, many people will see themselves using a rational and analytical approach. There are many aspects to consider when looking ahead into the long term: “Will my career choice provide enough income for the life I want? What about job stability? What qualifications do I need to move in this direction? How much study time is required? What are the costs? What are the risks if I drop out?”

By taking a rational, logical and concrete approach to career decision-making, individuals can therefore match their personal characteristics with career characteristics. This can be done through verbal communication, rational analysis work and psychometric testing (Krieshok, 1998; Krieshok et al., 2009; Krieshok et al., 2011; Motl et al., 2018). That said, this approach does not account for emotions or the intuitive dimension.

Intuitive and unconscious dimension

The intuitive and unconscious dimension lies beyond the conscious and rational dimension. Decision-making based on the intuitive and unconscious dimension allows an individual to choose a meaningful career that leads to self-fulfillment. The flow concept (Collin et al., 2022) can also be included in this dimension. In short, intuition can help with decision-making, as reported by a number of authors (Cournoyer & Lachance, 2018; Krieshok, 1998; Krieshok et al., 2009; Krieshok et al., 2011; Motl et al., 2018).

“Decision-making based on the intuitive and unconscious dimension allows an individual to choose a meaningful career that leads to self-fulfillment.”

In this context, we might wonder how to tap into our intuition and unconscious. To do this, Motl et al. (2018) suggest “journal writing, guided imagery, and counselling” (p. 618).

Emotions

It should be noted that many authors suggest that emotions, which also contribute to decision-making, are part of the intuitive and unconscious dimension. According to Falardeau (2007), Prévost (2021) and Young et al. (2015), being in touch with emotions can facilitate the decision-making process.

For example, the more intense the emotion, the more important the subject of that emotion is for a person, which highlights the factors to consider in decision-making (Prévost, 2021). Positive emotions foster engagement and the understanding of emotions helps with the career selection process (Prévost, 2021).

So, how do we get in touch with our emotions in this context? Among other things, Prévost (2021) suggests striving to explore and understand emotions.

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Actions that combine all three dimensions

In essence, rationality, intuition and emotions are three dimensions that can work together to facilitate career decision-making. However, this raises the following question: What action can be taken to combine these three dimensions in this context? According to my study, both artistic creation and art therapy could set the stage for bringing these three dimensions into play (Brisebois, 2021). It is important to note, however, that art therapy is a practice specific to art therapists.

As for the approaches to take to incorporate these three dimensions in the career decision-making process, I would also mention Gati and Asher’s (2001) PIC (Prescreening, In-depth exploration and Choice) model, as it takes into account both rational and intuitive decision-making methods (Gati & Kulcsar, 2021).

Another way to use these three dimensions when making decisions is to engage in activities that foster occupational exploration and the experience of career decision-making. This is what Krieshok et al. (2009) suggest in their trilateral model of career decision-making, which combines conscious and non-conscious processes, as well as engagement. In this model, the non-conscious system involves intuition and emotion, while engagement, which falls under the experience of career decision-making, includes career exploration and enrichment.

Volunteering, mentoring, information sessions and work experiences are also endeavours that can provide access to engagement and thus to career decision-making.

Conclusion

In short, rationality allows an individual to make a connection between their personal and career characteristics while taking their reality into account; intuition provides direction toward self-fulfilment, and emotions allow them to shed light on what is important to them, among other things. Ultimately, we make the best decisions when we examine these three parts of ourselves: rationality, intuition and emotions.

Hélène Brisebois is a career counsellor. She holds a master’s degree in counselling from Université de Sherbrooke and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Concordia University. She has many years of experience as a college-level academic advisor and employment counsellor. She has also written several professional articles on counselling and a dissertation on art therapy in counselling.

Additional sources

Lecomte, C. et Savard, R. (2008). Counseling de carrière : enjeu d’orientation et d’insertion professionnelle. [Recueil inédit]. Université de Sherbrooke, Faculté d’éducation.

Lecomte, C. et Savard, R. (2009). Counseling de carrière avec ses enjeux d’orientation, de réorientation, d’insertion, de réinsertion, d’adaptation et de réadaptation. [Recueil inédit]. Université de Sherbrooke, Faculté d’éducation.

This article was translated from the original French.

Flourish mentorship program aims to address data and programming gap while centring the lived experiences of racialized individuals

Abarna Selvarajah and Herleen Arora

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on the economic, physical and social well-being of racialized women, newcomers, immigrants, LGBTQ2+ communities, people with disabilities and those who are low-income. The burden of unemployment, precarious employment and poor working conditions has fallen more heavily on these marginalized populations as they are more likely to be working in front-line sectors that have been greatly affected by the pandemic (i.e. retail, food service, hospitality, health care and education).

At the same time, they are also performing essential work in occupations that care for and meet the needs of communities. In addition to the economic barriers experienced by racialized women, we have also seen a rise in gender-based violence and racism across Canada.

The pandemic has also presented challenges for students and young workers. Following a shift to virtual workplaces and learning environments, students and young workers continue to express feelings of isolation as they navigate the transition period between school and work. Young people often express a longing for careers that align with their passions and spark positive social change. This becomes increasingly difficult to achieve as spaces to connect and build authentic relationships with other professionals follow different social conventions in a virtual world.

There have been numerous reports and op-eds about the impacts the pandemic has had on women and youth and the need for feminist recovery responses. Yet, there is a data gap here. We have yet to address the distinct experiences of racialized women and South Asian (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, etc.) and Tamil women and gender-diverse communities in particular.

So, how can we support young, racialized women and gender-diverse communities navigate this period of transition? What role can mentorship, sponsorship and coaching play?

In this recurring Careering feature, career professionals share their real-life solutions to common problems in the field. Read more Case Studies from Careering:

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Understanding lived experiences

According to the 2016 Census, South Asians are the single-largest visible-minority (racialized) group in Canada, accounting for 29.6% of visible minorities in Ontario and 8.7% of its total population. Approximately 18% of South Asian people in Ontario live in poverty. While data is available on the South Asian community as a whole, there is little information gathered on the lived experiences of women and gender-diverse folks within this community.

In March 2022, Pink Attitude Evolution released a National Study analyzing the experiences of South Asian women’s experiences in the labour force. The report documented that this group of women felt unfairly pressured to choose between caring for their family or prioritizing their career. It observed that these “cultural expectations placed on South Asian women have resulted in them having less time to devote to career-building activities such as social networking.”

The study offered several recommendations directed at employers, including increasing access to targeted mentorship and sponsorship opportunities for South Asian women. At the South Asian & Tamil Women’s Collective (SATWC), we believe that it is important to have these conversations on mentorship with those affected by the lack of supports. Now, more than ever, there is a need to build support networks that mentor South Asian and Tamil women and gender-diverse folks in a way that respects and nurtures their lived experiences as part of their personal and professional journeys.

Helping people ‘Flourish’

SATWC creates spaces for connection, growth and learning in the Greater Toronto Area. Our work has been driven by the lived experiences and stories of our community members, many of whom describe facing a diverse set of challenges in their journeys through education, employment, mental health and well-being.

In recent years, we observed a need for more spaces to nurture long-term, wellness-centred mentorship for young South Asian and Tamil women and gender-diverse individuals. To help young women and gender-diverse folks navigate career pathways and transition to employment, SATWC launched the Flourish pilot mentorship program in September 2022. Mentors and mentees applied to the program and were paired following consultations with community advisors. Mentors included South Asian and Tamil women and gender-diverse folks in fields related to mental health, health inequity, social work and post-secondary education.

Flourish aims to centre wellness and community through the curation of spaces for collective learning and reflection. It offers six guided workshops for mentors and mentees to achieve sustainable personal and career development goals. Topics for each workshop include:

1. Understanding confidence and our authentic self
2. Navigating expectations and pressures
3. Career mapping and exploring pathways
4. Resume and cover letter writing
5. Skill building and interviewing
6. Workplace rights and negotiating wages

The series of workshops ends with a learning circle, where program organizers and participants share their experiences with Flourish. Each workshop takes place over an online platform, where mentors and mentees participate and learn together in community with one another.

Guided by community

This mentorship structure grounds community-centred perspectives from start to finish, as it fosters reciprocal relationships between adult allies and youth. Reciprocity and community-centred methods were informed by the work of bell hooks, who writes in the book Teaching to Transgress, “[in] a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.” While mentors and mentees are encouraged to meet once a month over the course of this four-month program, program organizers hope that these relationships will continue to flourish past the end date.

Flourish recognizes that one’s career and personal growth are not separate from their unique experiences and identities but rather are interdependent on one another. The migratory histories of the South Asian and Tamil diaspora are intimately tied to young people’s everyday experiences of family and the workplace. It is important to be conscious of these interconnected realities by nurturing relationships that will enhance a student’s learning and surround them with people who have similar lived experiences.

“Flourish recognizes that one’s career and personal growth are not separate from their unique experiences and identities but rather are interdependent on one another.”

For instance, in the “Navigating expectations and pressures” workshop, facilitators not only explore pressures within a workplace, but also connect it to family environments and even the personal expectations we set for ourselves. It also addresses the many forms of oppression faced by and within this group of people, including colonialism, racism, casteism, sexism and homophobia.

Moving forward

We believe that through the creation of the Flourish mentorship program in York Region, ON, SATWC will address a core data and programming gap for South Asian and Tamil young women and gender-diverse communities across Canada. By providing data on community needs and creating valuable resources for mentorship, Flourish aims to present a program model for organizations and grassroots communities to implement in their own spaces that is centred on the lived experiences of racialized folks. While the impact cannot be fully grasped at this stage of the program, the collective is focused on providing clear definitions and guidelines on mentorship in the South Asian and Tamil community, to advocate for greater investments into building sustainable mentorship programming models.

Abarna Selvarajah is the Flourish Program Lead and Herleen Arora is Managing Director at South Asian & Tamil Women’s Collective. Reach out to us via social media @satwcollective on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thank you to our Community Advisors for their contributions and edits: Shamitha Devakandan, Sivathmiga Kumaraswamy, Qudsiya Jabeen and Varenya Kuhathaas. For questions about South Asian & Tamil Women’s Collective, please email: satwcollective@gmail.com.

Prevention starts with knowing the risks and triggers for helping professionals

Jo-Ann Trudeau

Compassion fatigue is now widely recognized as an occupational hazard for those careers that are dubbed “the helping professions,” such as nurses, police officers and lawyers. People working in career development, such as employment counsellors and vocational rehabilitation professionals, are also part of this group. Job title notwithstanding, compassion fatigue is a risk for professionals whose jobs require empathizing with another person requiring help, in order to provide competent and effective care.

By developing awareness of what compassion fatigue is, how it happens and strategies to prevent it, career professionals can instead strive for compassion satisfaction at work. 

What compassion fatigue is – and what it’s not

Compassion fatigue is sometimes confused with burnout. These conditions share some symptoms and can co-exist but are not the same. Burnout is the physical and emotional exhaustion that a worker experiences when they have low job satisfaction and feel powerless and overwhelmed at work. Individuals who are experiencing burnout might feel drained, hopeless or resentful, and experience lower levels of motivation. Being burned out does not mean that you have lost the capacity to feel compassion for others. Changing jobs – as many people chose to do during the Great Resignation – can provide relief from work-related burnout.

Compassion fatigue develops over time and is described in many ways. Recognizable symptoms include feeling reduced compassion and sensitivity in the face of clients’ pain. People with compassion fatigue may also experience increased anxiety, anger and irritability; cognitive concerns such as decreased concentration and decision-making; sleep issues; and physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea and dizziness. Some people may neglect their own self-care, withdraw from friends and family and increase substance use as a form of self-medication.

In fact, more precisely, compassion fatigue is secondary traumatic stress disorder (STS). This is a form of post-traumatic stress, also called vicarious trauma, that is brought on by indirect or secondary exposure to stressful or traumatic events. While we do not experience the events clients are sharing with us, hearing their stories can still have an impact.

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Compassion fatigue triggers

Compassion fatigue can be brought on by a stressful workplace or environment, lack of resources, excessive hours or even workplace culture. What does a CF trigger look like? To name a few, this can include:

• providing services to someone who has a mental health disorder
• reports of discrimination and race-based trauma
• providing care that introduces you to issues such as refugee settlement living conditions
• being physically and verbally threatened when providing support
• providing care under a heavy workload
• excessive demands or long hours

With an accumulation of these experiences, your thoughts, mood and well-being negatively change. Being affected by your work is a normal part of a work day; however, when it starts to overwhelm you, you may be feeling compassion fatigue.

Risk factors

People who are most susceptible to CF usually lack a support network outside of work, have a personal history of loss or trauma, are perfectionists and have difficulty dealing with their emotions. The emerging psychological research behind perfectionism suggests that it is a coping mechanism and a sign of trauma exposure that results in much anxiety. The evidence points to protecting oneself against the distress of being perceived as a failure, as perfectionists’ self-worth is based on success and achievement. Unfortunately, trauma can lead to self-judgment and judgment of others, social isolation, stress and negative self-talk. The personal characteristic of perfectionism requires greater research attention on account of it exacerbating the risk of compassion fatigue.

Responses to these feelings can cycle from self-blame and feeling you have neglected your professional standards, to blaming others for errors, to overworking. These are common reactions and there are methods of prevention to heal and maintain balance.

Prevention is the best medicine

The ABCs of compassion fatigue prevention are:

• Awareness: Consider times when you were annoyed or wound up at work. Ask yourself, what was the trigger?
• Balance: Practise work-life balance. Do I make time for things that I enjoy? Do I set boundaries between work and home?
• Connection: Who in my network can I vent to or discuss work challenges with? (e.g. friends, family, colleagues, spiritual mentors)

Answering these questions can help you determine your potential risk factors for compassion fatigue and take preventive action to maintain your well-being.

Adopting self-care routines, including proper sleep, exercise and nutrition as well as practising mindfulness, are also good preventive practices. You may find it beneficial to work with a psychologist or counsellor to develop positive coping strategies and process challenging feelings about your work situation. Above all, learn to have self-compassion and treat yourself with the care and concern you would a friend, sibling or parent.

Getting to compassion satisfaction

Compassion fatigue is one dimension of professional quality of life; the other dimension is compassion satisfaction (CS). Professional quality of life describes the negative (CF) and positive (CS) psychological outcomes of working. CS works as a protective factor and refers to the pleasure and benefits of working (and is not exclusive to helping professionals). These include feeling valued, having a sense of belonging in the workplace, having self-efficacy in the ability to make a difference in the workplace and achieving personal goals.

From a workplace perspective, employers can try to prevent compassion fatigue by encouraging work autonomy, providing role clarity, offering mental health days and creating a safe space to share challenges and successes and openly discuss CF. Employers can also give employees the opportunity to attend training regularly (skill training specific to job or training on how to deal with trauma), and encourage them to ask for help with their workload and overall wellness. Look at it as an antidote to CF as well as burnout.

Remember, compassion fatigue is a normal, human reaction to witnessing another person’s pain. Having a compassionate organizational culture increases compassion satisfaction, resetting the boundary between the professional and personal, and allowing helping professionals to return to work engaged, caring and healthy.

Jo-Ann Trudeau is a sought-after expert, speaker and practitioner of return to work/disability management and vocational rehabilitation. She is currently on a second master of art, this time in counselling psychology and holds a human resources management diploma and is a Certified Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist.

We all face barriers that affect our ability to perform our jobs, both during the workday and outside of it

Gillian Cattle

As an occupational therapist working in the employment sector, I have witnessed the significant impact of the pandemic on employees and jobseekers. The pandemic has caused disruptions to our daily routines, lifestyles, employment, financial planning and future goals, which has led to increased stress, anxiety and sleep disturbances and a decrease in physical activity.

Occupational therapists are experts in occupations, which are any activities that add meaning and value to your life. Occupational therapists support individuals when they cannot participate in activities such as employment and help them overcome barriers to participation.

When we break down the activity of working, it consists of much more than just the job description. All the activities completed before, during and after work affect our ability to perform our jobs, and barriers can exist at any step. For example, if you cannot sleep, you generally have a hard time focusing, completing tasks and managing your emotions. If you cannot decompress and unwind after the workday, you may develop chronic stress, which can lead to anxiety, headaches, memory and concentration issues, or high blood pressure. Employment is more than a job description and COVID-19 has not made it easy for any of us these past few years.

The following are strategies I have used during the pandemic to support clients with employment and ease some of their stress so they can focus on their job duties and have a more balanced/healthy life.

Routine

Our days are made up of social and behavioural patterns like morning/evening routines, mealtimes and work schedules. Studies have shown that maintaining a regular routine leads to increased mental and physical health, while irregular routines are associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depression, anxiety and stress.

However, the pandemic continues to disrupt our routines. As workplaces pivot from virtual to in-person, we find that our routines are in flux. Creating consistency where you can is key. The act of planning out your morning/evening routines will be beneficial in maintaining some normalcy. Being able to make new routines a habit and maintaining them throughout change is important.

Sleep hygiene

Quality sleep is important for overall health and affects your ability to manage emotions, respond to stress and restore bodily functions.

There are various activities that we can engage in to improve our sleep:

1. Avoid caffeine, nicotine and alcohol before bed.
2. Avoid screen time 30 minutes before bed or make sure to set your gadgets to night mode to get rid of the blue-light emissions.
3. Have an adequate sleep environment: ensure the temperature, sound levels and darkness are to your liking.
4. Create a “worry time.” Set aside 15-30 minutes to write down all your worries at the end of the day. Make sure to do this before 8 p.m. to give yourself time to wind down before bed. See which worries are within your control, and then make a plan to address them. Cross the items that you have no control over off your list; you have done everything you can.
5. Create a consistent sleep routine and stick to it. If you stay up late on the weekend, wake up early on Sunday to give yourself time to readjust.

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Stress management plan

When you’re stressed, your ability to think and be emotionally flexible decreases. Coming up with a plan before you are stressed gives you a list of dependable strategies that you can reference if you are not feeling like yourself.

1. What keeps you healthy? Make a list of activities that keep you well and incorporate them into your routines. (e.g. eating healthy, exercising, drinking water, walking, spending time with friends/family)
2. Triggers to manage: What stresses you out? Try to avoid these things or make plans to improve them. (e.g. caffeine, poor sleep, saying “yes” to everything)
3. My warning signs: What are you thinking, how are you feeling, how are you behaving? Our thoughts, feelings and behaviours tell us when things are wrong, but we often ignore them. If we are aware of our warning signs, this will signal us that we have to use coping skills/strategies to enact change before it becomes too much (e.g. tension headaches, thinking “I can’t do this,” isolating self, not participating in activities).
4. Strategies to help with warning signs: What coping strategies have worked well in the past? Recognize that there are different strategies to help with our thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and everyone has their own strategies that work best for them (e.g. practising positive self-talk, self-compassion, mindfulness, exercising, music, contacting your support network). If you are struggling to find coping strategies, BounceBack is a free skill-building program to help you develop coping techniques.

The pandemic has caused a lot of change, which has been difficult for everyone. Keeping consistent routines, being aware of triggers for stress and having coping strategies ready can be helpful during these times. Take it slow and introduce one or two changes to start building the routines that meet your needs. Maintaining these routines during periods of change can add the needed consistency in your life when you have to pivot from virtual to in-person or change positions altogether.

Gillian Cattle is an occupational therapist with a background in neuroscience and recreational therapy. At the YWCA Hamilton, Gillian supports clients with self-disclosed disabilities obtain and maintain employment by breaking down barriers and providing strategies to support their employment journey. Gillian’s goal is to provide workers with tools to juggle all their meaningful activities and reduce the risk of employee burnout.