Chapter 8
The Processes: Well-Being in the Workplace
Workflows
There is no single right way to work, but there are many ways to work badly, and almost all of them can be avoided. Laying out specific ground rules for how and when to work and how and when not to work is a start to managing your organization’s workflows. For example, constant interruptions from e-mails, phone calls, and office drop-ins can be disruptive to focus and stressful. Supporting work processes that protect staff from unnecessary intrusions in their workday can relieve that stress.
Kat Morgan, a consultant who has worked in social service nonprofits, worked for one organization where staff members were encouraged to block out chunks of time in their calendars to focus on projects such as report writing, planning, follow-up, and curriculum development. “[We] had explicit support and permission to only answer e-mail during specific times each day. There was an expectation that appointments were the preferred way to discuss things with colleagues and interrupting each other by dropping by was discouraged.”
The way work tasks are assigned to staff can also create stress, but that, too, can be addressed. When Morgan worked for a shelter, the hotline—a program of a larger agency—was run by only a handful of shelter staff. Morgan expanded the hotline to make it a responsibility of all agency staff:
Once it became a shared responsibility, staff were then able to focus on the hotline when they covered it and didn’t have to simultaneously meet with clients, call case managers, and do other work. It also had the added benefit of breaking some of the existing silos. It fostered a sense of team and became a professional development opportunity for nonshelter staff.
Morgan says since more staff engaged in services delivery by covering the hotline, quality improvement occurred. Eventually, nearly all staff covered at least one hotline shift each week:
The hotline went from being perceived as a dreadful burden handled by only a few resentful staff—those at highest risk for burnout—to being treated as a core service by the whole agency. In addition, every staff member became a stronger ambassador for the organization and advocate for our clients. Finally, it made scheduling vacations and managing sick days much less challenging and less burdensome for the staff who served as backup—typically the management team.
Energy Management
In Chapter 5, we explained how experts say your brain focuses for 90 to 120 minutes before you need a break for 10 to 20 minutes due to ultradian rhythms. To manage everyone’s energy at your nonprofit, you need to identify peak production times for your entire staff. Then you need to organize workflow to capitalize on optimal times.
Timothy Fowler, STEM coordinator at AmeriCorps VISTA for AfterSchool Works! New York, described how his organization did just that. The organization’s deputy director, Alli Lidie, asked all six staff members to track their work and time across a week to help identify when they felt productive versus unproductive.
Says Fowler, “The goal was to identify those times of day when we get the most done, and capitalize on it, but also not interrupt each other during a productive time. So it had personal and team components to it.”
Senior leadership initiated the study and helped staff interpret and apply the results. The resulting data was used to show staff the best times to schedule group calls and other meetings such as later in the day when they might otherwise be unproductive.
Energy management techniques such as Peter Bregman’s “18 Minutes a Day” technique can be incorporated throughout your organization. Have staff think of and write down three important things they want to accomplish in the day for five minutes in the morning or do this in an e-mail or at a brief staff gathering. Set an alarm that everyone can hear that beeps or rings every hour. Each time it does, instruct staff to quickly review if they are on track. At the end of the day, prompt staff to ask themselves what they did and didn’t accomplish and contemplate why. Turning solo practices into group practices can promote better work habits and teamwork.
Walking as Work
Many workplaces consider walking a break activity instead of a part of the actual work. Walking provides many work-related benefits beyond fitness and energy boosting including creativity, leadership development, and relationship building. Karen Bloom, chief advancement officer for Project Kesher, an organization that trains women to become changemakers with leadership programs based on Jewish identity building and social activism, realized staff behavior needed to reflect the changes they were trying to make in the world.
At Project Kesher, Bloom uses the restorative qualities of a walk in the woods to be more productive. Project Kesher is located in a large, shared office building in New York’s Westchester County next to a county park with beautiful hiking trails. Bloom takes solitary hikes and walks as often as she can to refresh herself. She also leads regular “walk and talks” with staff, in small groups and one-on-ones.
Says Bloom, “If we are sitting in a staff meeting and trying to tackle a problem, I get them to stop, and I say, ‘let’s put this on our hiking meeting agenda.’ We will go in the woods with our list and brainstorm ideas for campaigns or programs. We have found that a one-hour walking brainstorm yields more creative ideas than if we sit in our chairs in a stuffy conference room.” 1
Bloom takes walking as work seriously and conducts one-on-one walking meetings with major donors, getting to the business at hand and building relationships walking shoulder-to-shoulder with them. She also leads a monthly walk for staff at other companies and organizations in their office building. She does this rain or shine, even in the snow. She has even used walking to help raise money for her organization by offering a walk and talk as a fund-raising auction item. Because Bloom is a senior leader who practices what her organization preaches in terms of self-care, she makes good behavior contagious.
Gina Schmeling, director of individual giving at Hazon, says inspiring her colleagues to walk and stand was made easier by Hazon’s organizational culture.
“We strive to make ourselves happy and healthy as well as the communities we support,” Schmeling explains.
Each week, Schmeling e-mails staff to say the “weekly afternoon walk,” or WAW, is on and promotes it using social media and adding it as a Google calendar entry on the organization’s shared calendar. In the beginning, only one staffer joined her. A few weeks later, there were two and then three.
“All of a sudden we had 12 walkers,” says Schmeling. “Each week, we did the same walk: to the East River, down to South Ferry, back to the office. I kept strict time on my watch, making sure everyone was back at the office in 20 minutes. I wanted to earn the trust of managers and allow staff to plan their days.”
Schmeling takes a selfie of the group to document every walk and generate additional interest. “My ideas and strategies about movement took root easily, and already more of my coworkers are thinking up new ways to move at work.”
Erin Kelly, social media manager at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says the foundation gives employees the autonomy to take movement breaks and to find an activity that suits them, whether that means a walk on a trail or a class in the fitness center. The foundation employs a full-time wellness staff person who cultivates interest and engagement in staff to help them maintain healthy lifestyles.
Says Kelly, “From a 10-minute walk when the spring sun shines to helping a meeting planner incorporate activity breaks into a day-long agenda, these are just a few of the many ways we incorporate movement into work.”
Heidi Simon, communications and public affairs manager for America Walks, a national organization that works to provide every community with safe and accessible walking conditions, notes, “When we talk ‘walking meetings,’ we need to incorporate walkability, rollability, and all forms of mobility. This means planning and preparation to ensure routes that are enjoyable and accessible for all participants.”
Check out resources for walking meetings at www.americawalks.org.
Walking Meeting Tips
A big part of working for a nonprofit is attending meetings. There are many different types of meetings for nonprofit professionals including one-on-one check-ins, small team meetings, large team meetings, department meetings, and all-staff meetings. There are also virtual meetings, conference calls, online chats, and webinars.
The following are tasks and activities perfect for walking meetings:
- Educate and inform
- Problem solve
- Enhance creativity
- Socialize and build team spirit
- Make decisions
- Resolve conflict
Walking removes the barriers of a desk and chair, and lets people communicate more equally. Start with the one-on-one check-in meeting with a direct report or your boss. Meeting and walking as a pair tends to be easier. Walk for the bulk of the meeting, then return to the office for the last five minutes to document any notes or to-dos. Suggest replacing weekly status updates with supervisors with a walking meeting and build up to more frequent strolls.
If it isn’t feasible to walk outside due to weather, map out walking trails in your building, and do the meeting inside. You can also move chairs away and lead a standing meeting where everyone stands for 15 to 30 minutes. Standing meetings are suitable for check-ins on projects. If your staff spends a lot of time on conference calls, suggest that employees forward calls to their mobile phone and pace or walk around instead of sitting at their desks. If you’re having a brainstorming meeting, make it even more productive by making it a walking meeting. Walk to change up the dynamics of a small group meeting. Strive to hold a few walking meetings each week.
Always give enough warning for a walking meeting so people can dress accordingly—bring a coat or sweater and wear comfortable shoes. Walking meetings in high heels are not much fun. Suggest that workers wear comfortable shoes to work or keep a pair at their desk for impromptu walking meetings. Also remind participants to bring their water bottles, phones, or pens and notebooks for note taking.
As with any meeting, facilitators should still send out a formal agenda to keep everyone on track, but there are also some other things you need to think about. You need to allow time for stretching and breaks. Also, allow time to capture notes after the meeting. Some nonprofit professionals recommend using a pen and small pad to jot down notes as you go or use your phone to take audio notes. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how you’ll retain information better from walking meetings and need only a few quiet minutes when you get back to write and capture ideas. Meetings that require technology and an Internet connection can easily be transferred to a mobile phone while you walk.
If possible, plan your route in advance so you know how far you can walk in your allotted time and avoid noisy spots or too-narrow walkways. Plot out a few walking routes that work out to the typical length of staff meetings. Consider paths that take 15, 30, and 60 minutes to complete. Use a park or pleasant outdoor setting whenever possible. Keep in mind the walkability issues if your walking meeting includes staff with walking challenges or in wheelchairs. Try scheduling walking meetings in the afternoon when employees’ energy levels are lowest—the fresh air will revive them.
Encourage everyone to track steps with a Fitbit or other wearable device. You’ll be amazed to see how much additional physical activity everyone gets by having a few walking meetings a week. You can simultaneously run a step challenge using Fitbit or other tracking apps to encourage healthy competition.
Walking the Actual Walk
If you have more than one other person with you, you will have to use a little choreography to have a productive walking meeting. Remember to be inclusive when you have staff with walking limitations. The rule for walking meetings is: slowest walker sets the pace. Here are things to consider depending on the size of your group.
- Group meetings of 3–5: Consider the width of the sidewalk or path, variations in terrain, and possible physical barriers. This group size is flexible, and discussion can occur while walking, or if desired, the group can stop along the walk.
- Groups of 6–15: With larger groups, participants will likely need to deal with multiple side conversations that are fine for brainstorming or problem solving, but they need to stop and regroup to keep the meeting productive. America Walks plans larger team walking meetings so there is a stop in a coffee shop and arranges for an intern to meet them with a laptop in case they need to reference some information. Plan a route with some good stopping points.
- Groups larger than 15: Big groups tend to require more planning with a strong leader and potentially a few assistants, as needed. There will be conversations while walking, then planned stops for presentations. When you start out, tell people that you are walking for work and community, not fitness—so remind them that the slowest walker sets the pace.
Establish ground rules such as “stay with the group” before you head out. If you have a larger group, you might want to designate someone as the note taker or break people up into smaller groups with designated discussion leaders. You can also break the group up by their walking pace. Include group stops in your meeting to summarize agenda points and shift into next topic.
Getting more movement into the workday and looking at movement as an integral part of work can give your staff more energy and vitality. But sometimes what everyone needs is more flexibility to deal with their multifaceted lives and be better able to focus on their work. Energy management is great for staff well-being, but flexibility can be even better.
Flexible Work
According to the website When Work Works,2 a joint project of the Families and Work Institute (FWI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), flexible work is about improving business results by giving people more control over their work time and schedules. Nonprofits have experimented with a variety of approaches to flexible work that include flexible hours and flexible locations such as working from home, virtual offices, self-scheduling, shift trading, and telecommuting. To be successful, flexible work requires supportive managers and the assurance of no job jeopardy if an individual chooses the option to work flexibly.
In Chapter 9, we’ll discuss the policies around flexible work, but here are some examples of flexible work models:
Results-Only Work Environment
A Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)3 is considered the ultimate flexible work model “where employees can do whatever they want whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.” This means that the organization sets no standard hours and no mandatory (and time wasting) meetings and doesn’t require staff to get permission to take personal time to attend a family event. While this process may sound surreal, it is a workplace method based on the popular book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. Advocates claim that ROWE not only makes employees happier but also delivers better results.
The Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF) began its evolution to ROWE in late 2013. A catalyst for the change was the arrival of a new president, Trista Harris. Harris says the organization decided it made more sense to “treat staff like adults and reward them for what they accomplished, rather than for the time they spent sitting at their desks.”
The staff formed three-person book clubs to discuss Ressler and Thompson’s book, how best to implement ROWE at their organization, questions about ROWE ideas, and what parts of their current culture would be problematic in a ROWE workplace.
Says Harris, “Ideas that came out of the book clubs included that MCF and each staff person needed clear and measureable goals. Staff needed to be better communicators and have more trust that coworkers would do as they had promised. In addition, we determined that our work groups had to function better as true teams.”
Everyone in the organization shifted focus away from what it looked like someone was doing to what someone was actually accomplishing. In the organization’s annual 360-degree review where all staff and board members weigh in, ROWE comes up every year with positive comments.
Four-Day Workweek
The four-day workweek is exactly that: staff work four days each week but for longer hours. In return, they get three-day weekends.
Rockwood Leadership Institute teaches nonprofit and social justice leaders something called “personal ecology,” a concept developed at Oxford University in the 1920s. On its website, Rockwood Leadership refers to personal ecology as “maintaining balance, pacing, and efficiency to sustain your energy over a lifetime of activism.” Since 2008, Rockwood supports its staff’s personal ecology by instituting a four-day, 32-hour workweek. Staff gets time to explore outside interests and run personal errands while still completing their work.
Not only does a shorter workweek give staff the chance to replenish their energy, it also strengthens the organization. Staff say they feel fully rested and energized on Mondays so they are more efficient when they are at work. They experience improved ability to prioritize, schedule, and manage their time as well as better team interpersonal dynamics. Staff reported feeling more joy in their work and less burnout.
To be fair, they did experience some downsides. Staff reported challenges with answering the e-mail that builds up over the three-day weekend and with creating efficient systems to get work done in a timely manner. Some staff also felt guilt about “not doing enough.”4 There is no magic bullet solution to all work and workplace dynamics. Always weigh benefits against any possible downsides.
Flextime can have a positive effect on staff, but so can flex space, working virtually, and leveraging virtual workplaces because of the Internet. MomsRising is run by a small staff working virtually from their home offices around the country. The virtual nature of their organization offers flexibility without compromising staff productivity.
“Having a flexible workplace arrangement is so useful in both my work and personal life,” says Anita Jackson, director of social media strategy at MomsRising. “It means that when the school calls me because my kid is sick, I can go pick her up without worrying about ‘leaving the office.’ Put another way, it means there’s no judgment in the workplace when the inevitable overlap with the rest of life happens. Eliminating that source of worry in the workplace also eliminates resentment about the workplace. And avoiding resentment about one’s place of work really helps avoid burnout.”
At MomsRising, a virtual workplace doesn’t mean zero accountability. Staff is expected to be available during normal business working hours and deliver on their work tasks. But as Jackson points out, “A results-oriented workplace means that there’s little to no time spent in the workplace just to appear busy. We do have an expectation of a 40-hour workweek for full-time employees, but if you work late one evening and then go to a yoga class during the next day, that’s respected as your choice. And that in itself is revitalizing—to have the freedom to make choices that best serve the work and your humanity.”
Play at Work
Organizations with flexible work don’t see it as goofing off or shirking work responsibilities. We’re now going to tell you that everyone should play at work. Yes, play. According to Boston College developmental psychologist Peter Gray, play helped early humans cooperate, share, and exist in relative peace. Today, social play—even with adults—“counteracts tendencies toward greed and arrogance and promotes concern for the feelings and well-being of others.”5
In an interview in Pacific Standard, psychologist Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, author of Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less, says there are three main attributes of play:6
- Voluntary—you aren’t obligated to do it.
- Flexible—it’s changeable.
- Enjoyable and fun—and it builds imagination.
Play has a positive impact on humans no matter their age; however, play has also gotten the short end of the stick, treated as childish or frivolous and abandoned after people grow up. According to research compiled by business software consulting firm TechnologyAdvice, playing games—or gamification—affects the brain positively by increasing motivation, improving memory, increasing efficiency, and even enhancing feelings of empathy. Play not only reduces stress in the workplace, but also enhances the work environment, and improves the quality of work.
James Siegal, CEO of KaBOOM!, an organization with a mission to bring play to children, agrees that play is very important for adults in the workplace:
We’ve found that by encouraging routinely scheduled play breaks, as well as impromptu breaks, KaBOOM! staff—aka Boomers—are able to recharge, refocus, and deliver higher quality work.
KaBOOM! employees engage in many types of play activities, from playing Bananagrams to an outdoor game like kickball. Says Siegal, “Just one hour away from typical workday business results in reenergized staff and more creative problem solving.”
For Susan Edwards, associate director for digital content at Hammer Museum, the act of making games is a form of play for her. She then brings some of those games to her workplace. Edwards says there are many benefits to game-playing at work, including improved camaraderie and collaboration because personal connections are made and collaboration is practiced in a nonthreatening low-stakes environment.
Says Edwards, “For me, it’s also about just having fun and providing some stress relief from the workday.”
Edwards points out that sometimes it is a challenge to get work colleagues to view playing games as doing work. “I find that you have to get people to just try it the first time. Once they see the benefits to having a lot of fun, they are hooked.”
Edwards offers some simple advice to getting started: If you want to integrate playful techniques into actual work, start with projects that aren’t high-stakes. Start with simple games with only one or two rules or games everyone already knows how to play. Try to match the games to specific challenges your team is facing.
Rachel Piontak, program administrator at American Indian College Fund, says her organization uses a variety of fun activities at its retreats that tend to center around food and shared experiences.
“Like many small teams, we initially tried traditional icebreakers but found many of them unsuited for our team’s sharing and warm-up style,” explains Piontak. “We realized that we enjoy time together eating, specifically a potluck style with homemade dishes, and reflecting on our initiatives, obstacles, and life in general through shared experiences. Our fun is found in storytelling and creating memories together at our retreats. When we’re not enjoying a good meal, our team explores museums or other activities that allow us a space to reflect and explore.”
Another nonprofit professional, Teresa Crawford, executive director of the Social Sector Accelerator at Counterpart International, recalls, “When I worked for Partners Global, we used play in our conferences, meetings, and retreats. We’ve used Legos, Play-Doh, sing-alongs, cookie decorating, and more.”
Surfrider Foundation, a network of surfers who want to protect the ocean, has a ping-pong table and dartboards in their break room. They also host daily “board meetings,” literally lunchtime surf sessions. Get it? As with any play activities and cues for well-being, we encourage you to look at a diverse selection of play options and incorporate both scheduled and random play into everyone’s workdays and workweeks.
Breaking from Work
We’ve talked about the importance of flextime and playtime at work, but sometimes staff just needs a break to be more productive. Closing the office early, encouraging people to leave right at closing time, or designating specific times of day for group breaks can reduce stress and contribute to employee well-being. Encouraging employees to take minibreaks during the workday, even just to get up to stretch or walk around the office, can be like rebooting a computer.
“Our team regularly breaks around 2:00 in the afternoon to do a 10-minute workout,” says Bridgett Colling from the marketing agency See3. “We find workouts on YouTube or Pinterest and do them as a group using yoga mats we keep in the office. Taking some time to step away from my desk and get my blood pumping usually gives me a much greater energy boost than another cup of coffee or something filled with sugar.”
Here are some more ideas for breaks from nonprofits:
- Mervyn Humphreys, a manager at the Child Migrants Trust, a charity that helps families separated by forced migration, says their HR strategy tries to build in work-life balance. Staff finishes at 3:30 P.M. on Fridays and everyone has the day off on their birthdays.7
- The World Wildlife Fund gives its entire team a day off every other Friday. Dubbed “Panda Fridays,” this biweekly break furnishes staff with downtime so they can spend more quality time with their families or pursue outside interests.8
- Remember Do Something’s Toto Tuesdays where employees were forced out of the office on time on Tuesdays by playing Toto’s song “Africa” loudly until they left? That’s a fun and creative way to encourage breaking from work.9
Providing even small organized and accepted breaks in the day and workweek can give employees the space they need to replenish their energy and better manage work and life responsibilities.
Real Vacations
There is another way that your organization can encourage people to break from work. It’s called a vacation. A real vacation. Your organization should encourage employees to take time off, and this should come from the top. When vacations are not mandated, there is often a disconnection between what is written in an organization’s employee handbook about vacation time and what actually happens. Vacations supported by policies and organization leaders help individuals set and keep boundaries.
Dennis McMillan, former executive director of the Foraker Group, admits that the staff there worked long hours, but management tried to offset that, urging—even demanding—employees take time off.
“A few years ago, we had a problem, even with our Gen X and younger staff, with people working too many hours,” McMillan recalls. “We put them on a ‘diet plan.’ We made everyone count hours, like calories, and start reducing their excess time.”
Vacations should become cultural norms within your organization and not be frowned upon as shirking work or be subliminally discouraged. Being supportive of vacation time means not imposing work deliverables during employees’ vacations and not contacting them or expecting them to respond or contact the office.
Says consultant Kat Morgan, “As a supervisor, I always see a core part of my supervisory role is to encourage staff to keep healthy boundaries with their jobs. This means not calling them when they are on vacation.”
Organizations can monitor and be aware of when employees are not taking their vacation time and provide positive feedback to encourage them to do so. Ignoring vacation benefits should not be a badge of honor, just like lack of sleep shouldn’t.
Melanie Duppins, of DonorsChoose, says, “We offer 25 days a year of paid vacation and track vacation usage. We work with managers to encourage their staff to take their vacation time. We let the manager customize the message to the specific situation. For example, we might have a workaholic type where the manager needs to insist that they take vacation, or maybe it is about us problem-solving with the manager to adjust the workload so the employee can take off. Or sometimes we might have people burning the midnight oil for days in row, and we talk to the manager about offering comp time.”
Many nonprofits are starting to offer additional time off for self-care. Mind, a nonprofit in the United Kingdom that provides mental health services, encourages employees to work with their managers to identify specific self-care needs. That led to what the organization calls “mind days,” an extra six days of holiday per year for employees.10
When possible, close your organization’s offices during holidays to make it impossible for people to come into work. Foster a culture of respecting work-life boundaries and allowing staff downtime during symbolically important events.
Sabbaticals
Sometimes, people need a more extended break beyond a mental health day or real vacation. That’s where sabbaticals come in. A sabbatical is a period of time during which someone does not work at his or her regular job and is able to rest, travel, or do research. Sabbaticals are being adopted more widely by nonprofits as an integral way to support leaders and staff to prevent burnout.
In 2009, Alaska’s largest family foundation, the Rasmuson Foundation, conducted a collective study of the results of sabbatical programs called Creative Disruption: Sabbaticals for Capacity Building & Leadership Development in the Nonprofit Sector along with the Barr Foundation (Boston), The Durfee Foundation (Los Angeles), the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust (Phoenix), and Alston/Bannerman Fellowship Program (national). The authors of the study, Deborah S. Linnell of Third Sector New England and Tim Wolfred, PsyD, of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, discovered that the majority of nonprofit leaders who took sabbaticals experienced improved work-life balance, improved family connections, and better physical health. They also experienced dramatic organizational effectiveness upon returning to their jobs.11
Since 2009, the Rasmuson Foundation has been providing funding and planning assistance for sabbaticals for nonprofit leaders from two to six months in duration. Dennis McMillan was involved in the study and reported that many nonprofit leaders in Alaska who took sabbaticals found the time away helped them and their boards and staff gain a new perspective about their work. McMillan’s organization later received the sabbatical grant allowing him to take a sabbatical of his own.
“The board and staff functioned at full capacity during my absence. No one needed to contact me. Everything stayed on track, including preparing for our annual meeting the week I returned. No surprise, everything was expected to be okay and it was,” McMillan wrote in a post online. He said he provided a “cardboard Dennis” to display at the office “to help with visual separation.”
McMillan continued, “Since the board’s objectives were to get away, stay out of touch and relax, I feel that I was able to accomplish what they expected. I did not call work. Work did not call me. I spent quality time with relatives—many of whom I have rarely seen while living in Alaska. I also reinforced an insight I had prior to the sabbatical that I needed to be more disciplined about taking time for me. After the sabbatical, I committed that discipline would be continued.”12
Mari Kuraishi, cofounder and president of GlobalGiving, who took a sabbatical from her organization, says that the sabbatical served several purposes:
First, it proved to the team here, as well as our board, that we have an awesome team that delivers amazing results with or without me. That’s probably the most important thing—it’s proof of organizational health. Second, it gave me an opportunity to recharge and to see things in a different perspective. It was the first time in decades I’d not had a long to-do list and a packed schedule.
Kuraishi says the sabbatical was like a reboot, and she learned some key life lessons and came back to the workplace with a fundamentally different perspective.
Nina Stack, president of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, took a sabbatical and shares her take on them:
Many years ago I made the choice to spend my career working for and in organizations that were about improving the lives of others. This is incredibly rewarding work emotionally. But nonprofit work can take a toll mentally and physically, often because the organizations are scrambling for money. As the tasks mount and responsibilities build, there is less and less time for self-care let alone “blue sky” or “outside the box imagining’ that could benefit the organization and the people and communities it serves. I’m enormously grateful to have had this time for reflection, creativity, and dreaming.13
Nancy Schwartz, a well-respected nonprofit marketing problem solver and coach at GettingAttention.org, took a sabbatical for two months. Beyond the physical, emotional, and intellectual recharge, she says, “As a driven person, jumping fully off the treadmill via my sabbatical was the only way to gain the perspective I needed to see what was next for my professional life. I had been trying to see that for years but was as overwhelmed by the day-to-day as everyone else. When I did return to work after a two-month break, I focused on bringing my new professional vision to life.”
Both Do Something and Crisis Text Line offer sabbaticals to staff members who have been at their respective organizations for two years. Staff is encouraged to take a month off to volunteer anywhere in the world with a commitment to return for a third year with the organization. Says Aria Finger, Do Something CEO, “Sabbaticals are a really excellent way to prevent or recover from burnout. A sabbatical program is also a retention piece.”
Sarah Durham, president of Big Duck, a communications firm that works with nonprofits, took a sabbatical after 20 years on the job:
Stepping away from your job gives everyone perspective. For me, it was a reset moment. I came back with a clear sense of the work I was eager to pick up again and what I hoped I could let go of permanently. My job description was completely rewritten because I realized what I should and shouldn’t be doing at work and what others could do more effectively. Even today, over a year later, my job is still the “new” job, not the old job.
Durham goes on to say that for her colleagues, her sabbatical was a chance to try new things, experiment, and take on new responsibilities. Several people stepped up and became leaders, and that positive outcome has endured.
Says Durham, “Best of all, everyone felt good about the ability of the ‘machine’ to run without any one person being totally indispensable, which seems very healthy, too. It took pressure off me and redistributed it with more balance than we’d had before.”
Define the parameters of a sabbatical program at your organization and how it will benefit your organization as a whole. Sabbaticals require planning so they aren’t unduly disruptive to the organization, and they might require policy changes. Clearly from the stories we’ve heard, sabbaticals are beneficial for both individuals and the organizations where they work.
Digital Detoxes
Tech breaks—or digital detoxes—can be organization-wide activities to reduce staff stress and pressure. Going off-line for a couple of hours or days and setting limits on tech use, both at and away from work, can support tech wellness. Unhealthy attitudes toward digital communications at your nonprofit can be managed by carefully crafted and communicated e-mail etiquette guidelines.
Annelisa Stephan, manager for digital engagement at J. Paul Getty Trust, is interested in the importance of an organization’s “rhythm” that can perpetuate inefficiencies. “E-mail can be a venue for the martyr complex to be played out: whoever sends the most e-mails late at night or on a Sunday, is the most dedicated worker,” says Stephan. Not the kind of relationship to tech you want to perpetuate.
At the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Organizational Effectiveness and Philanthropy team has articulated that they don’t expect responses to e-mails over the weekend and that if someone is included in the cc: line, they don’t have to respond at all. Kathy Reich, director of the program, says they have an actual rule about not sending any e-mails in the evenings or on weekends.
“The bottom line is that, even in the busiest workplace, we need to schedule quiet time. It is as important as that urgent e-mail we think we must answer now,” wrote Dennis McMillan in a blog post.14 Those quiet times can be designated technology-free times or involve activities that cultivate technology wellness.
Digital detoxes have been popularized in recent years by events such as the National Day of Unplugging that we mentioned in Chapter 5. The nationwide event begins at sundown on the first Friday in March and ends at sundown on Saturday. Turn this day into an organization-wide event by encouraging staff to take the National Day of Unplugging pledge and to completely disconnect for the 24-hour period. Make it an annual tradition or, better yet, build on it and make it a monthly ritual or even weekly for staff to participate together and reap the benefits of disconnecting with intention.
Getting off digital technology for a while doesn’t mean ripping out the Internet cables, shutting down Wi-Fi, and having staff use smoke signals to communicate. Kopernik, a nonprofit organization that brings technology to the developing world, practices digital detoxes in its workplace. Sally Bolton, the organization’s communications manager, shared some ways they cut down on employee’s digital stress:
- Encourage good e-mail communications guidelines such as brevity, clear asks, and clear subject lines.
- Set up internal chat lines for sharing photos or brief social updates.
- Encourage staff to stay off of e-mail during the weekends or after hours.
- Use retreats as a time for digital detox—stay off e-mail and devices during the retreat meeting.
In the last two chapters, we’ve presented you with a buffet of effective happy, healthy activities and cues. If implemented haphazardly, your efforts are not going to be effective. Getting input from employees is essential. Securing leadership buy-in is important as well. Design workplace well-being activities that support the individuals working hard on your organization’s mission while serving others. Now it’s time to pull together your organization-wide programs and well-being efforts into a Happy, Healthy Strategy.