Latest / Transforming: Tales of Business Evolution / TfP 018. Burnout Prevention in Action

Transcript

TfP 018. Burnout Prevention in Action · Transforming: Tales of Business Evolution

0:00
[MUSIC]
0:04
FEMALE_1: Welcome to Transforming:
0:05
Tales of Business Evolution.
0:08
Where we delve into the dynamic world
0:10
of business transformation.
0:11
Each episode is designed
0:13
for firms of any size and scale,
0:15
exploring both innovative
0:16
long-term planning and day-to-day
0:18
operating practices that help
0:20
organizations adapt to a changing landscape.
0:23
Join us each month as we hear from leaders in
0:25
the public accounting profession
0:27
sharing their experiences
0:28
of reshaping their business models
0:30
and inspiring you to explore new ways
0:33
to evolve your own organization.
0:35
Let's dive into this month's conversation now.
0:38
Lexi Weber: Hello, I'm Lexi Weber, Senior Manager
0:41
of Emerging Professionals Initiatives here at AICPA.
0:45
And I'm happy to be here with Lauren Baptiste,
0:47
founder of Acheloa Wellness,
0:49
who is based out of the Northeast region,
0:51
but works with professionals across the country,
0:54
including those that are CPAs.
0:56
With our transforming the business model project,
0:59
one of the areas we focused on is talent,
1:01
and we really wanted to talk to
1:02
Lauren about how to help prevent burnout
1:05
across the profession and discuss
1:07
our new PCPS Burnout Prevention Toolkit.
1:11
Before we get into the conversation, Lauren,
1:13
please introduce yourself to
1:15
our audience and provide some insights about
1:17
your company and perhaps what drew you
1:20
into this work and to focus on Burnout and Coaching.
1:22
Lauren Baptiste: Absolutely. First of all,
1:24
thank you for having me, Lexi.
1:25
This has been such a fun project that you
1:27
and I have been able to work on with the team.
1:29
For those who don't know me, my name is
1:30
Lauren Baptiste as Lexi said,
1:32
my firm is Acheloa Wellness.
1:34
I'm a former Big Four professional,
1:36
turned a burnout prevention expert.
1:38
I'm a coach for high performers
1:40
in the accounting profession,
1:41
as well as a consultant and a speaker
1:43
for organizations in the accounting profession.
1:46
My focus is for employees to
1:47
advance without compromise and for
1:49
firms to improve margins as
1:51
they support their hardest working people.
1:53
Now, this [inaudible] is super
1:55
near and dear to me because
1:56
I lived through a professional burnout in 2013.
2:00
I spent many years working the long hours,
2:03
skipping meals, pushing through
2:05
exhaustion, and telling myself,
2:06
This is just how busy season is
2:08
or just get through one more deadline,
2:10
and eventually, my body and mind said no more,
2:13
and I landed in an ER.
2:14
More about that for another day,
2:16
but recovering from that burnout episode
2:18
truly changed my life.
2:19
In that moment, I decided that,
2:22
as much as I love what I do in the profession,
2:24
I love helping the people that work it even more,
2:27
and so for me, that's when I started my business.
2:29
I've been in business now for eight years,
2:31
and I partner with firms, organizations, companies.
2:35
I work even with individuals to help reduce burnout,
2:38
improve retention, and create
2:40
healthier cultures of work in the industry.
2:43
That's why I'm so excited to be pulled
2:44
into such an important toolkit.
2:46
Lexi Weber: Well, thanks, Lauren.
2:47
It's been such a pleasure
2:49
to get to work with you on this project,
2:51
and as I mentioned in our initial conversations,
2:54
you were the first person that came top of mind to me
2:57
because your company has been
2:59
so successful in helping others manage
3:01
their burnout and just recover from that.
3:04
But I think burnout prevention has really
3:06
become the main topic point that we need to get into,
3:10
especially as we lead into busier seasons,
3:13
such as busy season coming up those high hours and
3:16
just the pressure and demand of
3:17
clients and all the work that we're doing,
3:20
it definitely starts to add on
3:22
so I think this is
3:23
a great conversation to be having now.
3:26
Burnout has become such a widespread issue
3:29
across the accounting finance profession,
3:31
but just across every profession,
3:34
in my opinion especially in professional services.
3:39
From your take, why is burnout
3:41
such a critical issue for professionals today,
3:43
especially in accounting and finance and advisory roles?
3:46
Lauren Baptiste: It's interesting because I think one of
3:48
the words that come so strongly is today.
3:50
The truth is, it's been around for a while.
3:52
Burnout actually dates far
3:54
more than just like five years ago
3:55
when we've heard it or #Burnout
3:57
when we look on LinkedIn or Instagram.
3:59
But the truth is, we continue to see the long hours,
4:03
the heavy client deadlines,
4:05
the increase in regulatory changes,
4:08
and also a shrinking pipeline,
4:11
which means we're expected to do more with less,
4:14
and really navigating that,
4:15
firms are challenged to
4:17
solve that problem of how do we do it
4:19
in the best way where we don't burnout
4:21
our people because then it's
4:22
that self-fulfilling prophecy,
4:24
losing more good people and it's reducing margins.
4:28
It's creating such a change
4:30
on both sides for the employer and employee.
4:32
So even SHRM,
4:34
the Society of HR Management,
4:36
they talk about this cost of replacing
4:40
a staff can be from 50-200% of an employee's salary.
4:44
So if you multiply that by
4:46
however many people just left your firm this year,
4:48
you can see that it's pretty expensive.
4:50
I even coined this term billable hour
4:52
burnout for public accountants and consultants,
4:55
but I know many of us that are listening
4:57
aren't in public accounting,
4:58
but are still feeling the stress.
5:00
So it is continuing to be a risk,
5:02
an industry wide risk.
5:04
I think quality and reputation,
5:06
and also just a joy risk.
5:08
Like we want to make sure we're keeping
5:10
the best people in the profession.
5:12
Otherwise, they're going to start going to competitors,
5:15
and so as we've been thinking,
5:16
even putting this toolkit together,
5:17
how do we continue to keep ourselves
5:19
competitive in a place where people are happy working?
5:22
Lexi Weber: The big emphasis that
5:24
a lot of younger professionals,
5:26
especially have been placing on the profession
5:28
is to create a place that people want to work,
5:30
and to create
5:31
those healthy cultures within organizations to
5:35
make sure that we are thinking top of
5:37
mind about burnout because it is so prevalent.
5:39
What are some subtle signs of
5:41
burnout that professionals often miss?
5:44
What are those signs that we
5:45
really need to be looking out for?
5:46
Lauren Baptiste: I love these keywords
5:48
that you're adding in here,
5:49
these questions are subtle.
5:51
We see a burnt out person when they're about to lose it,
5:54
when they have this big meltdown,
5:56
they throw their computer.
5:57
If anyone's seen office space,
5:58
they throw the computer out the window.
6:01
But it's about these subtle cues
6:04
that show up quietly and build momentum,
6:07
and many will attribute burnout to
6:08
a tough boss or
6:10
maybe turnover or even sometimes people say,
6:13
well, I'm 20 years
6:15
older than when I started in this profession,
6:17
and that just must be what it is.
6:19
It must be I'm aging.
6:20
But it's actually there are three signs that we
6:23
can look at when we're thinking in the subtle;
6:24
there the physical, which is more gross, more tangible,
6:28
and then you have the cognitive and emotional,
6:30
which are the more subtle so you can say, yes,
6:33
skipping lunch or drinking so much coffee
6:36
or feeling exhausted even
6:38
after sleep or sleep deprivation.
6:40
But if we're thinking subtle,
6:41
you want to be thinking of the more cognitive signs
6:44
of rereading emails multiple times,
6:47
or feeling mentally foggy,
6:49
even if you had a lot of sleep the night before
6:52
or noticing you're procrastinating on tough tasks,
6:55
and then emotionally, maybe you're
6:57
feeling a little disconnected from your work.
6:59
You used to be really passionate
7:00
and now you're feeling flat,
7:02
or you notice this growing cynicism or irritability.
7:05
When people say good morning,
7:06
you just don't want to say it back,
7:09
or there could even just be like dreading work,
7:12
or sometimes I feel like you have on one side,
7:15
I'm dreading work, and then on the other side,
7:17
you feel guilty that you're not doing more.
7:19
Those are the subtle signs
7:21
that are often dismissed in ourselves,
7:24
and then you have to think on a bigger scale because
7:27
those subtle signs aren't
7:28
always so obvious in our colleagues.
7:30
But the more we can be aware of what they are,
7:33
then they are the first indicators
7:34
of understanding how stress can turn to
7:36
burnout and how we can help ourselves
7:39
and help one another prevent that burnout.
7:41
Lexi Weber: It's such an important piece
7:43
of the fact that sometimes
7:45
burnout is not always like
7:47
visibly recognizable for certain people,
7:50
or everyone has it in a different way, shape or form.
7:54
I was definitely somebody
7:56
who was always in a positive attitude.
7:58
But when I'm burnout,
8:00
sometimes I start to snap,
8:02
so it's a little bit easier
8:03
for people to notice when I'm burnout.
8:05
But I have other people that I worked with
8:08
that just shut down completely or get really quiet,
8:10
and they'll just say, Oh, I'm just really busy.
8:12
Like, I'm just trying to focus on this.
8:14
But internally, they were really struggling
8:16
with all those aspects that you just mentioned
8:19
about the rereading the emails
8:21
and staying focused and pushing down
8:22
other priorities for those tough work tasks.
8:26
I think it's so important to
8:29
recognize not only our own burnout signs,
8:32
but also early warning signs and others, too.
8:35
I think that's why we really wanted to focus on
8:37
this new PCPS burnout
8:39
prevention toolkit because we wanted
8:42
to give professionals resources to help manage this,
8:47
and to one, create burnout awareness, but two,
8:51
help them prevent burnout
8:53
in the future for themselves and for their colleagues,
8:55
writing and creating that safe environment
8:57
to work in from a workplace culture standpoint.
9:00
I would love, if you could tell us
9:02
a little bit more background behind
9:04
the PCPS burnout prevention toolkit,
9:07
if you could maybe share the components
9:09
and what inspired you as you were
9:12
creating the toolkit to add all these components in
9:15
both from an individual
9:16
and from an organizational level.
9:19
Lauren Baptiste: I am so happy when I was
9:21
initially asked to put this together of
9:24
I had some creative reign here
9:25
because there's a lot of ways
9:27
when we think of burnout prevention.
9:28
Most of us think of pizza parties or happy hours or
9:33
these one off maybe you have
9:35
a yoga instructor come one Tuesday evening.
9:38
But the truth is those are
9:40
transactional one offs that don't create transformation.
9:43
So when we're thinking of burnout prevention,
9:46
it was intentionally designed because,
9:47
one, as I mentioned earlier,
9:49
I was the burned out professional
9:50
that ended up in an emergency room.
9:52
But now I'm the consultant that
9:54
sits at the table with the partners
9:55
to discuss how are we going to
9:56
improve our cultures of work.
9:58
Now that I've seen it at all the angles,
10:00
what I know for sure is that burnout
10:02
can't be solved by the employer alone,
10:05
and it cannot be solved by the employee alone.
10:09
So if you're ever watching me on this,
10:11
or you can at least hear me,
10:12
I have this hand reaching down and a hand reaching up,
10:16
and the ideas we have to meet in the middle.
10:18
Both hands have to grab one another,
10:19
because otherwise, it just will never take place.
10:22
I've done this for a very long time
10:24
and to know that that's what actually works.
10:27
So when we built out the PCPS
10:29
burnout prevention toolkit,
10:31
the idea is to bridge that gap.
10:33
Give employers the resources to help their people,
10:37
give employees the tools to take action,
10:41
and that's where we make progress.
10:44
So in the toolkit,
10:46
we created tools that are for the individual.
10:49
For the manager/firm, and I say,
10:51
because sometimes you only have control over
10:53
your engagement team
10:55
or the team that you're working with,
10:57
and you can still benefit by looking at
10:59
those firm resources,
11:01
and then I created something that's for the profession.
11:04
So we're talking about assessments, guides,
11:08
weekly check-ins, tools,
11:10
scripts, real world scenarios,
11:12
and it's really to help with
11:14
the real life scenarios
11:16
that we're dealing with every day,
11:18
like boundary setting, capacity,
11:20
and creating teams that can sustain year over year.
11:24
Lexi Weber: Honestly, that was the part that I was
11:26
really excited about it when you started
11:28
to pitch the vision for it because
11:31
I think it is so important that
11:32
we have to meet at the middle.
11:34
There has to be compromise on either side,
11:36
and it can't always be,
11:38
well, we just want less hours.
11:40
We still have the client demands,
11:42
we still have to get the work done.
11:43
We have to get the internal projects done.
11:45
I think there's ways that we can go about it,
11:47
and I thought one,
11:49
the individual assessment that you can
11:52
take through the Acheloa Wellness platform.
11:55
So maybe we can talk a little bit about
11:56
that because I really love that piece of it,
11:58
and I thought it was a really fun,
12:00
interactive, quick
12:02
assessment that you could take just to get
12:04
an overarching view of where
12:06
you are at on the burnout scale.
12:08
So, Lauren, maybe, if you want to touch base on that
12:10
a little bit more from an individual assessment,
12:12
what our audience can look forward to.
12:15
Lauren Baptiste: Absolutely.
12:16
So if you remember those old,
12:17
Cosmo quizzes where you start with
12:20
one question and it takes you on a journey,
12:22
and this was the idea of creating this assessment.
12:24
It's an adaptive scenario based quiz that walks you
12:27
through the real situations
12:29
that we are all dealing with workload,
12:32
vacation, sleep, how we handle
12:35
different scenarios and our stressors
12:38
during each of those actions.
12:40
So if you thinking about,
12:43
Well, where am I?
12:44
Lexi mentioned earlier that awareness is part of this,
12:48
because if we just continue
12:49
the rhetoric of it is what it is,
12:51
or this is just how busy season is
12:53
I'm told or stress is just part of the job.
12:57
You hear these things. But the truth is,
12:59
you actually might be burned out,
13:01
and that might not be how it's supposed to be.
13:03
That's just how you're experiencing it.
13:06
The point of the quiz is to help
13:08
you understand what's the baseline,
13:10
because then from there, you know what to do about it.
13:14
The quiz itself has five stages of
13:17
burnout from productive stress
13:19
all the way to chronic burnout,
13:20
and the assessment helps you pinpoint
13:22
exactly where you are, and from there,
13:24
now you can take this understanding
13:27
and start to do something about it.
13:30
But I'm not just going to say you
13:31
have chronic burnout, good luck.
13:33
It's, Hey, if you're experiencing chronic burnout,
13:36
First of all, know that a lot of us are experiencing it,
13:39
and here's what you can do about it.
13:41
So you get immediate results
13:43
right away, and in the results,
13:44
you also get helpful tools
13:46
that are going to help you navigate it,
13:48
which also tie back to
13:49
what we've created in this toolkit.
13:51
So the good news is that
13:52
even if you find out that you're burned out,
13:54
you have ways to work through it.
13:56
Lexi Weber: I love that you can
13:58
retake the quiz at any point.
13:59
So at that point, if you maybe take it in February,
14:03
you might have a different response in July.
14:05
But I think it's a nice assessment just to see
14:08
where you are at on the burnout, like scale.
14:11
I took the quiz,
14:13
and I was on the onset of stress.
14:14
But as I was reading it, I was like,
14:16
This actually makes a lot of sense.
14:18
Like, I agree with this completely,
14:20
and then I thought back to when I was in
14:23
busy season public accounting life
14:26
a couple of years ago, and I was like,
14:28
Oh, I was definitely in chronic burnout,
14:30
but I think sometimes it's that awareness piece of
14:32
really understanding where you're at
14:35
today is always a great starting point,
14:37
and I love that they have
14:39
the next steps within the assessment to then say,
14:42
Okay, it's not like your chronic burnout.
14:45
There's no coming back from this.
14:48
But it gives you the useful steps to start to take,
14:51
and they're baby steps.
14:52
They're not unpractical steps that
14:54
you have to transform within 24 hours,
14:57
but little pieces that I really enjoyed.
15:00
Lauren Baptiste: I would say, even in this toolkit,
15:03
do that for yourself.
15:05
It's easy to Google,
15:07
like, burnout stress quiz.
15:08
There's a million of them online,
15:09
but there aren't that many.
15:11
I haven't seen any that actually correlate to you.
15:14
This was done based on the work
15:16
that I see professionals experiencing,
15:19
the work that I did when I was
15:20
working in public accounting.
15:22
This is very catered to you.
15:25
If you're ever going to take a stress quiz,
15:27
you want to take this one because
15:28
it's so made for the life
15:30
that we're working and living in.
15:32
Because my guess is if you took one on another scale,
15:34
they'd be like, you work 55 hours a week.
15:36
You must be chronically burned out.
15:38
That's actually not true at all.
15:40
We know that there's ways to manage
15:42
how we feel with our workload.
15:45
I'm plugging that so hard because it really is
15:49
great awareness is to know where you are
15:51
before you begin to heal.
15:53
Lexi Weber: No, definitely. I think, again,
15:54
that awareness piece is just so important
15:57
in furthering the prevention and the recovery.
16:01
I think sometimes it is a sliding scale,
16:03
depending on where you're at.
16:05
But I think just being aware of the signs,
16:07
being aware of where you're at today
16:09
is really a great starting point for a lot of
16:11
professionals because I think a lot of
16:13
professionals understand that they are burnt out,
16:16
but they don't know what to do with it.
16:17
They don't know where to come back from it.
16:19
It seems like they're digging
16:21
themselves deeper into the hole,
16:23
where I think this toolkit is nice because it really
16:26
relates regardless of where you're at on that scale.
16:29
Lauren, I know we talked about
16:31
the individual piece as far as the assessment so far,
16:34
but there's a couple other components
16:35
within the toolkit,
16:36
both on the individual level and then
16:38
on the firm and organizational level.
16:40
Maybe if you want to walk us through
16:44
those levels as well as how
16:46
it requires a multilevel approach.
16:48
Lauren Baptiste: Sure. As I had mentioned
16:51
when I designed this,
16:52
I wanted it to apply to everyone
16:55
because even leaders are still employees.
16:58
We're all individuals.
17:00
Most of us, well,
17:01
we might not be the managing director at our firm.
17:05
We are managing our team.
17:07
There's that individual level,
17:09
then there's the organizational level,
17:10
and then there's the professional level.
17:12
I really want you to be thinking and really
17:15
understanding that burnout happens at all of the levels,
17:18
and we have to approach each of
17:20
them similarly in terms of awareness,action, evaluation,
17:25
but how we do that on each level can vary.
17:29
That multilevel approach is to really do that top,
17:31
down and bottom up meeting you exactly where you're at.
17:35
Some of the tools even that we haven't really
17:37
called out explicitly is for the individual,
17:40
you can take that self-assessment.
17:42
There's an early warning signs reference guide.
17:45
There's even a weekly check-in to help you evaluate.
17:49
We said, assess, take action and evaluate.
17:53
Now for the firms and the organizations,
17:55
there's a framework that will
17:57
probably walk through here,
17:58
my PACE framework, and that helps
18:00
managers pinpoint what's happening for their teams.
18:04
Then there's the implementation guide,
18:07
which is a step by step playbook to
18:10
actually have a roadmap
18:12
to start solving this at your own firm.
18:14
Then for the profession,
18:15
then we have that overview of
18:18
how it is in the profession and what we can do about it.
18:21
Really, it's continuing to look at
18:22
every layer with that assessment, act, and evaluate,
18:27
and then that will move everyone
18:29
forward with whatever, let's say,
18:31
power they have, even if it's just on themselves,
18:33
there's a ton of power just
18:35
for me to control my own well-being.
18:37
Lexi Weber: That is the nice thing about it,
18:38
is it really impacts at every level.
18:41
Because I think sometimes as leaders,
18:43
we often forget that we can get burnout.
18:45
I think sometimes we focus
18:46
so much on the burnout of others and
18:48
our team members that we put
18:51
a lot of that burden and that pressure on ourselves.
18:54
That's one thing that I really enjoyed
18:56
about the toolkit is it really relates
18:58
to regardless of what level
19:00
in the organization you're at,
19:01
it's relevant to you.
19:03
I really enjoyed the PACE framework.
19:05
Maybe, Lauren, if you could spell
19:07
out for us what PACE stands for,
19:09
and just what was the idea
19:11
behind creating that framework?
19:13
Because your company created it, correct?
19:16
Lauren Baptiste: Yeah. All of us have maybe heard PACE.
19:18
I liked it to how good ring
19:20
as I put the pieces together.
19:22
To be clear, the two pieces for the organization,
19:26
the PACE framework is to identify the burnout.
19:29
P is for pinpoint,
19:31
A is for analyze,
19:33
C is for calculate, E is engaged.
19:36
The idea here is we really want to understand
19:39
the impact burnout is having at your organization.
19:43
You might be thinking, well,
19:45
this is for burnout prevention.
19:48
Great. Then use this for burnout prevention.
19:51
If your company is like, well,
19:53
we already have burned out professionals,
19:54
then this can also be used.
19:56
We're thinking about burnout prevention,
19:58
and you have this framework because I would love you to
20:00
get in front of it before it becomes a problem,
20:02
but it's useful either way.
20:04
But as you're thinking pinpoint,
20:06
you're identifying where people
20:07
are maybe pulling all-nighters consistently or
20:11
having behavioral patterns of disengagement.
20:14
You're noticing, well,
20:16
in the analyzed step,
20:17
maybe you're seeing, how does that have
20:19
an impact across teams?
20:20
Is it maybe at a certain level
20:22
that all of our managers are experiencing this or
20:25
maybe you're seeing on certain engagement teams or
20:27
certain industries that you
20:29
are supporting that you see it?
20:30
Then you can start to calculate.
20:32
You heard me mention that statistic earlier about
20:35
that 50-200% of an employee's salary to replace them.
20:39
But notice the cost of time
20:42
that's going to maybe recruiting or training,
20:44
maybe time that's spent in
20:46
write-offs or reworking deliverables.
20:49
There's so much that we can calculate in terms of cost.
20:52
I know we are numbers people,
20:53
so a lot of the firms that I work with love the C.
20:56
But it's really then noting the pinpoint,
20:59
the analyze, the calculate and then E, engage.
21:02
Let's do something about it.
21:03
Now that we start to see that the numbers are so strong,
21:07
or so big or however are impacting our firm,
21:10
then we start to think, what can we
21:11
do to alleviate some of the pressure?
21:13
How can we help our people
21:14
have a more balanced schedule?
21:16
What can we do in the small steps?
21:18
That's where then you have the PACE framework,
21:21
and it can take you right into the playbook,
21:23
into that second deliverable in the toolkit to say,
21:27
now how do I build something?
21:29
That will reduce the burnout if it's happening
21:32
or keep that prevention at a minimum
21:36
so that people aren't really struggling.
21:38
Lexi Weber: I think it's so important,
21:40
as we talk about burnout to really understand,
21:43
again, we're numbers people on the CPA.
21:46
We've been in the profession for a long time
21:48
that calculate is so important to me because
21:50
that was the one thing I always talked with
21:52
my firm leaders when I was in public accounting,
21:55
and something that we often talked about in
21:56
our management meetings
21:57
is it's not just even the body of
22:00
the individual that we're replacing,
22:02
but it's all the extra steps
22:04
that it takes to replace somebody,
22:06
especially somebody who is
22:07
a key professional in your organization.
22:11
It's not just their salary and their benefits,
22:13
but it's the training.
22:15
It's reworking the schedule,
22:17
especially if you're in public, like,
22:18
trying to take 35 clients from
22:21
one person and spread it out across seven other people.
22:24
What are the burnout impacts of
22:25
that on those individuals?
22:27
Really understanding all the components
22:31
that you have to consider when wondering if
22:34
you're going to have to replace somebody
22:36
that's beyond so much
22:37
more than just those typical numbers
22:40
that are salary and benefits and hours.
22:41
Lauren Baptiste: Absolutely. Rewind and
22:43
hear that again because it's so true.
22:45
What Lexi is saying is very accurate,
22:48
from someone who's been
22:49
in the profession and then you're even
22:51
planning from a micro perspective
22:53
of on your engagement teams and margin,
22:55
if you had the same manager
22:57
on the same account for years,
22:58
of course, you usually have a larger margin.
23:02
Every year you're training
23:03
new senior managers to run the engagement,
23:06
it gets really expensive
23:08
because there's a steep learning curve.
23:10
I always like to say,
23:12
notice the cost because
23:14
then when you think of the investment of,
23:16
we want to create a firm that has less burnout,
23:19
we want to really get ahead of it
23:21
and create prevention protocols.
23:23
What is that worth?
23:24
We think of losing one person, if that's $150,000,
23:29
compare that to an investment
23:31
in creating a process
23:33
where you don't lose those people in the future.
23:35
Of course, $150,000 would be a lot,
23:37
but if we hake our hiring budget
23:39
and putting it into retention,
23:40
you can actually see a huge difference
23:42
in how your firm will do in the long run.
23:45
I just have studies that back that
23:46
we've done that over and over,
23:48
and it's been really successful.
23:50
Lexi Weber: That's one of the main pieces
23:52
that you work with firms on,
23:53
is to help create those retention budgets
23:56
and really move around the puzzle pieces
23:58
to help them fit together a little bit better.
24:00
I think that's something that
24:02
I've seen firms and organizations,
24:05
any company really that struggles with is,
24:07
how do you really allocate your budget to something
24:12
that doesn't necessarily have a results-based output
24:15
that you can see tangibly right away?
24:17
It's not something that is going to create revenue
24:20
right away or a new product or anything like that,
24:22
but it's something that's going to build
24:24
a lasting and better workplace culture for you.
24:28
Lauren Baptiste: Yeah. Just to add to that,
24:30
because it is easy to say,
24:32
well, spending on
24:34
wellness is just a nice to have for our people,
24:36
and we think of as an expense.
24:38
It is not an expense.
24:39
This is an investment.
24:41
This is like an investment in your technology,
24:43
your software, your AI,
24:45
all those types of things.
24:46
I want you to be thinking about retention as
24:49
also an investment in your greatest asset, your people.
24:53
That is why as Lexi sharing,
24:56
it's so important that you're thinking
24:58
about ways to make this work.
25:02
It doesn't have to be major budgets,
25:04
but I do want you thinking,
25:05
what is the ROI? Because there is.
25:08
Again, for an engagement team,
25:10
on a macro scale,
25:11
for your entire firm,
25:13
there is an ROI,
25:14
and it might not be on Day 1,
25:16
I earn more money when I make this investment,
25:19
but I can guarantee you
25:22
that you will start saving money,
25:24
and that will widen your margin gap.
25:27
Don't think about, well, how can I get
25:29
from one million to two million in my business,
25:31
but think about how can I reduce my expenses from, like,
25:34
500k to 400k and start to see,
25:38
then your profitability expand.
25:40
That is absolutely something you can see.
25:42
I just want to harp on that
25:44
because it really is so valuable that
25:45
we think about wellness as
25:47
more than just a nice to have expense.
25:50
Lexi Weber: Well, we're CPAs.
25:51
We like to see the number side of things,
25:53
but I always like to call that out
25:55
because I think it's so true, as you mentioned,
25:57
Lauren, your people are your biggest asset,
25:59
but they don't fit on a balance sheet.
26:01
We put our company's benefits and
26:04
compensation expenses on the profit and loss.
26:07
Sometimes I think we forget that
26:09
it should go on the balance sheet,
26:11
maybe, obviously not as an actual number,
26:14
but it's the backing of the balance sheet,
26:16
in my opinion,
26:17
is all the hours and input and work that
26:20
those professionals are doing to keep
26:22
the business going.
26:23
Just like you would put your
26:25
software and your equipment and
26:27
everything else that you use
26:29
that are essential on a balance sheet,
26:31
your people are right there with it.
26:32
They're just the invisible hand guiding it along.
26:35
Lauren Baptiste: Absolutely.
26:36
Lexi Weber: For the leaders that are
26:37
listening to the podcast today,
26:40
what are the first steps that they can take to implement
26:43
some tools from the burnout prevention playbook
26:46
in their firms and organizations?
26:48
Lauren Baptiste: Well, that's great that we have
26:49
the whole second tool that they can
26:51
use the burnout prevention playbook,
26:53
and it gives them a step by step.
26:55
I think there's this expectation for
26:57
leaders to be all of the things.
26:59
You're an armchair therapist,
27:00
you're a leader in sales,
27:02
you're a tax technical expert,
27:05
and you're just trying to get
27:06
through a Tuesday afternoon.
27:08
That's why we wanted to put together
27:10
this playbook that gives you the steps.
27:13
It gives you flexibility because
27:15
the truth is not every firm is the same.
27:17
The truth is every firm is very different.
27:19
But there are a lot of
27:20
overarching themes that can help you start
27:23
this path to reduced number
27:26
of sick days for your employees,
27:28
getting on that path to improving
27:30
your retention numbers and
27:32
also even your margin and your profitability.
27:35
In our playbook, we have a four-step process,
27:39
and the first step is awareness.
27:41
You'll notice we mentioned this A word several times,
27:44
awareness, but we want to do it a firm level now.
27:47
What that looks like is understanding
27:49
what's happening inside of your firm,
27:51
connecting the dots that maybe
27:53
you likely have all the data in your head,
27:55
but you just haven't seen how it all comes together.
27:58
The playbook will help you do that,
27:59
understanding where you're actually having
28:01
the pinpoints and where you can understand what's next.
28:06
The second is making a decision.
28:09
When we make a decision about how we want to
28:12
implement a culture of well-being,
28:14
we want to have a starting point.
28:16
Are we thinking company wide or
28:18
are we starting with a pilot team?
28:20
Are we thinking maybe just our managers
28:23
or those I've just promoted to partner?
28:25
Where is there that sticky point?
28:27
Notice work where it is for you,
28:29
and then you have to take a different angle
28:31
thinking about culture, policy support.
28:34
The reality is there's no wrong place to begin.
28:37
It's just making sure that
28:39
it's something that's realistic for you,
28:41
your firm, your budget, your people.
28:44
The third step is action,
28:47
and this is where we're implementing.
28:49
I always recommend start with
28:51
the small things that have the quickest hits.
28:54
Maybe there's a 30-day implementation
28:57
where you shift to 25-minute meetings
28:59
versus 30 minutes or should we say
29:02
24 if we're thinking in increments of 0.1?
29:05
Every six minutes counts.
29:07
I want you to be thinking of how can we save time?
29:11
Maybe how can we be more efficient?
29:12
Instead of everybody joining three or four minutes late,
29:15
how do we create a culture where everyone
29:16
starts the meeting on time?
29:18
Little things can actually have a very big impact.
29:21
It's something even as simple as
29:23
an availability matrix to show who's around and
29:25
who's not when it's
29:26
the holiday season and
29:28
everybody's trying to delegate work.
29:30
We just have to be really intentional about it.
29:32
Then the final step is evaluation.
29:36
Now that we have already become aware,
29:39
we've made the decision of
29:40
how we're going to go about it.
29:41
We've taken action, we evaluate.
29:44
It's three simple questions; what worked,
29:46
what didn't work, and what will you try next?
29:49
This becomes a continuous,
29:51
scalable process instead of a one-time initiative.
29:55
Evaluation is the difference
29:57
of waiting years
29:58
and years before changing or tweaking along the way.
30:01
I promise you'll spend a lot less if you evaluate more.
30:06
When leaders follow these four steps,
30:08
change becomes a lot more doable
30:10
and you have a far higher return
30:12
on your investment.
30:13
Lexi Weber: Yeah, thanks, Lauren.
30:15
Those are all really great points.
30:16
I can personally say
30:18
I've become more accustomed
30:20
to the back to back meetings,
30:21
and because of the toolkit,
30:25
just changed my booking links,
30:27
so I always have a 15 minute segment
30:30
after each meeting if I need to.
30:32
Where it just gives me the space
30:34
where I can grab a snack
30:35
or run to the bathroom or,
30:37
not constantly feel like I'm just go for hours.
30:41
I will say that is a great actionable item that's really
30:45
easy to implement and doesn't have
30:47
any impact on productivity,
30:48
but just gets everybody into
30:50
the right head space to go into
30:52
a meeting feeling prepared and refreshed.
30:55
Not feeling like you're just jumping from
30:57
meeting to meeting or worrying about being
30:58
late to the point where you're rushing
31:00
the previous meeting to try to get
31:02
to the next meeting on time.
31:04
We talk about burnout awareness and prevention and
31:07
really just understanding where we're at today.
31:10
What would be your advice if somebody
31:12
is feeling overwhelmed right now?
31:15
What's one small step they can take
31:16
today to start feeling better?
31:19
Lauren Baptiste: When things are overwhelming,
31:22
the answer is to create simplicity.
31:25
If things are already a lot going on,
31:29
you're already behind on task,
31:30
you already don't have enough time in the day,
31:32
the answer isn't a one hour high intensity cardio class
31:36
or a weekend retreat or something like that.
31:40
Because often we don't have time for that.
31:42
But the idea is,
31:43
if we want to create sustainable change,
31:44
we start with small steps.
31:46
I'm a huge fan.
31:48
Lexi's actually mentioned it twice.
31:49
I heard her say, and I was like,
31:51
this is really there is a lot power in that answer.
31:55
Can you pick one thing?
31:57
Not five, not 10,
31:59
one thing, and do it consistently.
32:02
The truth is, I love the 15 minute increments.
32:05
I actually often talk to my clients and say, okay,
32:08
if you don't have 15 minutes to give to this one thing,
32:11
the truth is it's not important enough to you.
32:13
You're valuing your stress
32:15
or you're overwhelmed over your well-being.
32:18
Think of something small,
32:19
taking a real lunch break.
32:21
Blocking that 15 minutes, let's say,
32:24
for a bio break or you might need longer for focus work.
32:28
But even just the idea of let me get this one email out.
32:31
Fifteen minutes could be the difference of
32:33
sending it out right after the meeting
32:35
or having to do it after
32:36
dinner after your kids are asleep.
32:38
You can feel that difference.
32:40
You could think about even putting together
32:43
a to do list and having clear priorities
32:45
or even the idea of just shutting down your laptop
32:48
at the end of the day and
32:49
deciding when you're going to log out tonight.
32:51
There's a little intentions that you can take
32:53
start with one. See what happens.
32:57
Lexi Weber: That's great advice,
32:58
and I will definitely take that away as well.
33:01
What gives you the hope that we can
33:03
make meaningful progress on this issue?
33:05
Because I think sometimes
33:06
when people think about burnout,
33:08
sometimes they think there is
33:10
no progress that can be made
33:12
because it just feels like
33:14
this overwhelming daunting issue in their life.
33:16
What gives you the hope and gives you
33:19
drive every day to continue with the business
33:21
and the work that you're doing to continue to strive
33:23
for that burnout awareness and prevention?
33:27
Lauren Baptiste: Hope is an interesting word because
33:30
a lot of professionals will come to me feeling hopeless.
33:34
If you're feeling overwhelmed,
33:36
there's not a lot of hope.
33:37
I'll tell you, in 2013,
33:39
when I burned out and ended up in an emergency room,
33:41
I did not feel very hopeful.
33:44
But I know things have
33:46
changed in almost 13 years since my burnout.
33:50
In 2013, the B word wasn't a word.
33:52
We weren't using that.
33:54
What also is true is that there
33:56
were no employee resources that
33:58
supported the mental health side
33:59
or the cognitive behavioral side,
34:01
so I felt, especially at that time, I was on my own.
34:05
But over time, once I started to dive into
34:07
this business more, then all of a sudden,
34:10
the World Health Organization classified
34:12
burnout as an occupational phenomenon,
34:14
and the conversation started to shift from there.
34:17
Then 2020, it went fully mainstream.
34:20
Everybody was talking about burnout,
34:22
celebrities, Olympians, everyone.
34:24
Of course, us in the profession,
34:26
we were like, we've been there.
34:28
We know this word.
34:30
But since then, it's not
34:32
that COVID's gone and that it's over,
34:33
but we know that it's continuing to stay front
34:36
and center as we're having this conversation.
34:39
We see leaders are talking about it more
34:41
openly in their experiences of burnout.
34:43
We hear staff asking for support earlier on,
34:46
really leaning into that prevention mode.
34:49
Firms are realizing that
34:51
organizational resilience isn't just a nice
34:53
to have it's a differentiator
34:55
to having top quality talent.
34:57
Now even conferences are having well-being events,
35:00
and they will have yoga in the morning, which is great,
35:03
but then they'll also have me keynoting
35:04
at a speaking event as well.
35:06
I was just a one last week,
35:08
and I love that you're seeing how we operate isn't
35:11
just about punching numbers into
35:13
a calculator and to Excel anymore.
35:15
It's about doing it in
35:16
a sustainable way that's long-term for the profession.
35:19
I am very hopeful, if you can tell,
35:22
because we've made so much progress
35:23
in such a short period of time,
35:25
that it's only going to get better from here.
35:27
Lexi Weber: What makes me hopeful about it, too,
35:29
is that we've placed more emphasis over
35:32
the years that the profession isn't
35:34
about just crunching numbers,
35:35
and it's really about building relationships,
35:38
and I think the effort
35:40
that you put into any relationship,
35:42
you have to be in a good place to then be able
35:44
to exert that effort into a relationship.
35:47
Whether it's with your family or
35:48
with a client or a friend.
35:50
I think the pieces that are
35:54
cognitive that you really need to be in a good space,
35:57
translates over to your ability
35:59
to manage that client relationship.
36:01
That's a lot of what we do on a day-to-day basis.
36:05
I think the other piece of it, too,
36:07
is just the evolution of technology.
36:09
To your point, since 2013,
36:11
a lot has changed.
36:12
I think that we're in a really great time right now
36:15
to be able to leverage some technology tools such as
36:18
AI to help manage
36:20
some of our mundane tasks that we might be
36:22
doing that are creating some burnout
36:25
and/or even to put into your copilot,
36:27
hey, can you draft me an email on this?
36:29
I am somebody who used to stress over emails constantly,
36:33
where I'd spend maybe an hour
36:35
picking a client email before I spent it out,
36:37
where now I utilize technology,
36:40
and it saves me a ton of time,
36:41
but it also saves me a ton of stress.
36:44
Not having to worry about
36:45
constantly analyzing and perfecting it,
36:48
because I realize,
36:49
that's not something I need to worry about.
36:51
But I think using technology helped me get there.
36:54
Lauren Baptiste: Absolutely.
36:55
Lexi Weber: I'm excited for that and
36:56
I am hopeful, as well.
36:57
I think this toolkit is
36:58
perfect timing just ahead of busy season,
37:01
but also just in the era that we're in,
37:03
I think, to your point,
37:05
Lauren, there has been a lot of talk about burnout,
37:08
especially during COVID and
37:10
just everything that was happening there.
37:12
But I think sometimes it's something
37:14
that we don't often talk about enough still.
37:17
I'm hoping this gives
37:18
a great segue for firms and individuals within
37:22
those firms and organizations to really
37:24
start to connect and make some headway in this area.
37:28
If you could give one piece of advice to
37:31
professionals heading into a high pressure season,
37:33
such as busy season coming up, what would it be?
37:37
What do we need to collectively do together
37:40
to give our profession a competitive edge in this area?
37:44
Lauren Baptiste: Well, I'm going to
37:45
be very direct with this.
37:47
Don't wait until you're
37:49
burned out to do something about it.
37:50
This is why it's called the burnout prevention toolkit.
37:54
The idea here is that you anticipate it.
37:57
You know you're going to be working later hours.
38:01
You know that you might not get
38:02
as much sleep as you normally do.
38:04
You know that you might be eating
38:05
more takeup than you'd like to admit.
38:07
Because you know,
38:09
we have this toolkit that's going to be really
38:12
helpful for you and your team.
38:14
This is where we spent time
38:17
talking about the assessment.
38:18
Take it today, see where you are
38:20
and then when you're
38:22
in the middle of your busy period,
38:24
take it again and see if there's a difference.
38:27
Notice. Then, use the weekly check
38:30
in guide to keep an eye.
38:31
Then also share the tools with others,
38:34
make it part of a lunch thing
38:35
that you-all do together as
38:37
your weekly check-in or tell each
38:39
other what you're going to be accountable to.
38:41
Notice that it can be something
38:44
that you hide and suppress and
38:48
just power through during your busy period,
38:52
or you can use
38:53
these tools as a collective opportunity to say,
38:56
it can be better.
38:58
I'm going to come through it
38:59
because I still coach professionals
39:01
in their busy period,
39:02
and the difference is how they go through it.
39:05
You can either drag through it
39:07
like I did when I fully burned out,
39:09
or you can actually come out with
39:12
just as much or more energy than how you started it.
39:16
That is powerful when most of us come out
39:18
feeling like we need all summer to recover.
39:21
Use the tool. That's fine.
39:23
That's my advice.
39:25
Lexi Weber: I love two pieces
39:27
that you talked about there.
39:29
I think there's a lot of
39:30
value in understanding time versus
39:32
energy management and really being able to
39:35
focus your energy when it's available to you.
39:38
I think that was something
39:39
I always tried to do
39:40
when I was in public, especially,
39:42
and what I still do today is I really focus on
39:44
what are those time frames where I have
39:46
the energy where I'm most focused and
39:49
can really be more productive than
39:51
trying to push myself to work in
39:53
a time that I'm not the most energetic.
39:57
I'll be the first to admit I'm not a morning person.
39:59
I never have been,
40:00
but I am a night owl and
40:02
I love to work at night sometimes,
40:03
but sometimes that was hard
40:05
because from a burnout perspective,
40:07
working at night usually for me meant less sleep.
40:10
I always thought, well,
40:11
I only need four or five hours.
40:13
It's not a big deal.
40:14
But it added up over time, where I was like,
40:18
I really need to step back and focus on my mental health
40:21
and sleep and how all that ties in together.
40:24
I think it's understanding your energy management,
40:27
but maybe not sacrificing the other piece of it,
40:31
which is really your sleep and
40:33
those physical things that
40:35
you need to help support yourself as well.
40:37
Then, I really enjoyed what you
40:39
said about being anticipatory.
40:42
This is a great tie in to our RISE 2040 project,
40:46
which is Finance and Accounting 2040:
40:49
Rising to the Future Together.
40:50
It's a strategic visioning project
40:53
that we're doing here at the Association.
40:55
It's really asking our members
40:58
and any member of the profession
41:00
to provide input on what you want
41:02
for the future of the profession.
41:04
What do you want 2040 to look like?
41:06
What work will we be doing?
41:08
What will our day-to-day look like?
41:10
What hours will we be working?
41:12
What will our workforce look like?
41:13
All these things and it's like,
41:15
go big or go home, in my opinion.
41:17
Let's shape the future the way we want to.
41:20
I would love to know being anticipatory,
41:23
what do you envision for
41:25
the profession as we rise together?
41:27
Lauren Baptiste: I was thinking about this,
41:29
and I really think there's going to
41:30
be an emphasis on skills.
41:32
Because we already have the technology.
41:34
The technology is already smarter
41:36
than most of us out there,
41:38
probably all of us, to be honest.
41:40
It's not about having the technology replace us,
41:43
but how do we complement it?
41:44
How do we build relationships?
41:45
How do we be better versions of ourselves?
41:48
How do we have better work life
41:49
balance between our people?
41:51
Lexi, earlier you mentioned the power
41:52
of the technology is already here.
41:54
But instead of, let's say,
41:57
Lexi used to spend an hour writing an email,
42:00
instead, what if you got
42:01
that hour to then go for a walk?
42:03
How can we have technology help us
42:06
create more time and balance for our real lives?
42:08
I see that as technology continues to increase.
42:12
An increase in the need
42:14
to do the other things to have the balance.
42:18
Then the other part I really think about,
42:19
when we're thinking of Rise 2040 is the demographic.
42:24
We know a lot of people are going
42:25
to retire at that point,
42:27
but we also know we're the future.
42:29
We're going to be the leaders that are there,
42:31
or we're going to be on the custom of retiring.
42:33
Then you're going to have everyone who's just entering
42:35
now is going to be in the middle of their careers.
42:38
Really thinking about fostering the right ethos,
42:42
the right culture, the right way we want to work,
42:46
it's going to be us leading the charge.
42:48
Make sure that you're doing it the way that really
42:52
works for you because that's where we're going.
42:55
I really envision just,
42:56
like, relationships, better balance,
42:58
and having technology help us not take our roles away.
43:02
I don't see that by any means, actually.
43:04
Lexi Weber: Well, I couldn't agree more,
43:05
and I think that's a great note to end on.
43:07
Lauren, I can't thank you
43:08
enough for being here with us today and
43:11
really sharing your insights and
43:13
your personal journey to the profession,
43:15
as well as how we can all play a part in
43:18
preventing burnout within the profession together.
43:20
Lauren Baptiste: Thank you so much.
43:24
FEMALE_1: Thank you for tuning in to
43:26
Transforming: Tales of Business Evolution.
43:29
We hope you found today's insights valuable.
43:31
For more details on this episode, check the description,
43:34
and don't forget to subscribe to stay
43:36
updated with our new episodes each month.
43:39
Visit our PCPS Transforming
43:41
your Business Model page for all of
43:43
our resources at www.aicpa.cima.com/TYBM.
43:52
Keep pushing the boundaries of transformation,
43:55
and we'll see you next time.
43:56
[MUSIC]
44:03
MALE_1: This content is designed to
44:04
provide illustrative information with respect to
44:07
the subject matter covered and does not represent
44:09
an official opinion or position of the AICPA,
44:12
the Association, or CIMA.
44:14
It is provided with the understanding that they are not
44:16
engaged in offering legal accounting
44:18
or other professional services.
44:19
If such advice or expert assistance is required,
44:23
the services of a competent,
44:24
professional person should be sought.
44:26
The AICPA, the Association,
44:28
and CIMA make no representations, warranties,
44:31
or guarantees as to and assume
44:32
no responsibility for the content or application
44:36
of the material contained herein and
44:37
especially disclaim all liability for
44:39
any damages arising out of the use of
44:41
reference to or reliance on such material.