Managing Burnout in a Post-COVID World 

All right, let's go ahead and get started. So hi, everyone. My name is Chelsea Parsons, and I'm a consultant with Guidehouse, supporting CDC's OneLab initiative. I do have a couple of notes before we get started today. If you're having any technical issues throughout the session, you can email us at onelab@cdc.gov. We'll have someone monitoring that inbox the whole time. So, if you have any issues, please let us know. You'll see that in the chat, onelab@cdc.gov. If you have any questions throughout the session today, there is a Q&A function. So, you'll see in your bottom banner of your screen, there is a Q&A function.  

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So, if you'd like to access the live captions today, you can do so using that link. But just note to keep this Zoom webinar open, as well as the closed captions link. All right, so let's take a look at our agenda today. So, we'll just start out by going through some new and relevant OneLab resources. We'll introduce you to today's presenter, and she will take it away in our main presentation, Managing Burnout in a Post-COVID-19 world. We'll save that time for the Q&A session at the end, and then we'll talk about our upcoming OneLab events.  

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Thank you, Chelsea. Before the main presentation, we invite you to join OneLab REACH if you have not joined. OneLab REACH is a customized learning management system for laboratory professionals and the testing community. To create your free account, scan the QR code on the screen. Next slide, please. I will read two disclaimers followed by introducing today's speaker. Slide decks may contain presentation material from panelists who are not affiliated with the CDC. Presentation content from external panelists may not necessarily reflect CDC'S official position on the topics covered. Next slide, please. CDC, our planners, and our presenters wish to disclose that we have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services, or commercial supporters.  

Next slide. I'm excited to introduce our speaker today, Ms. Nancy J. Lewis, a leading transformational coach and speaker. She's the president of Progressive Techniques, Incorporated, where she conducts seminars and workshops on diversity and inclusion, emotion intelligence, leadership, and change management. She's a former medical technologist and blood bank specialist.  

Nancy has worked as an entrepreneur for 27 years, helping corporations and government agencies navigate the changing workplace. She has a human resource background, and certifications with many workplace assessments. Nancy brings real life conversation with solutions, energy, and education to assist you in working in a post-COVID world by equipping you with the tools to survive and thrive in a post-COVID world. Our speaker for today, Ms. Nancy J. Lewis.  

Good afternoon, or good morning, wherever you might be joining us from. So, I'm happy to be here with you this morning or afternoon to share with you some insights around managing burnout in a post-COVID-19 world. With that being said, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to share my screen with you. So again, managing burnout in a post-COVID-19 world. So then, what does that look like? Let's talk about it. So, here's a quote I found that I thought was applicable for this topic because we talk about when you're in burnout, when you're in stress, when all these things are going on, sometimes balance or boundaries are something that are not present.  

So, here's a quote by Betsy Jacobson that says, balance is not better time management, but better boundary management. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices. And so, as we go through the presentation today, you're going to hear more about boundaries, because that's one of the things you will have to employ if you want to learn how to navigate in a post-COVID world.  

That's going to be critical. So, the next slide is an icebreaker. And what I'd like for you to do for me for this one is on a scale of 1 to 5, in the chat box, rate your level of burnout and stress, one being that I'm really cool, I don't really have much stress. Five, I'm over the top. So right now, just put in the chat box where you are on a scale of 1 to 5. I see them coming in quickly. Wow. OK, they're coming in.  So, kind of like a recap of where the ratings are. I know someone's going to give that for me. We have a lot of 3s and 4s, and someone, I'm not sure if it's by accident, they hit 7.  

So, they're over the top. Wow that's really extreme. I mean, they have— they've gone beyond the meter. OK. OK, so certainly, there is a lot of stress. And having worked as a medical technologist before, there was a lot of challenges when I worked over 20 years ago. So, I am familiar with the stresses that go with working in a lab. I was a blood bank specialist, so I worked in the blood bank department at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. So, I understand the stress that goes along with it. So, it's a lot of how do you manage it? How do you navigate it? That's the challenge that in this post-COVID world, you have to figure out strategies of how to do that successfully.  

So, I'm going to give you some tools today, and then you can take what works for you, what doesn't work for you. But you have to make some decisions about what are you willing to do differently to navigate, and to basically move through burnout and stress in a post-COVID world. So, our learning objectives for this afternoon are identifying signs of burnout in your life. You need to know what they are. And some of you probably already know what they are. Develop coping strategies for burnout. What are some things you can do to cope and navigate to get through the day to day? Recognize the importance of work life balance. Harmony. We talk about balance, but I like to say work-life harmony because it's really kind of like, when can I really do my best work when it's possible? Work-life balance, sometimes people use it, and it still has relevance here.  

But I like work-life harmony better. Learn stress management techniques and create a strategy for self-care. That's important. You have to create a strategy for yourself for self-care. And you'll hear me talk about self-care is not selfish. It's not selfish. I'm going to say that again. Self-care is not selfish. It is something that's necessary because you cannot pour from an empty cup. If you don't take care of you, you can't take care of anyone else. So, it's important that you have to create a strategy around how are you going to navigate and create a strategy for you for self-care? That's going to be important. That's going to be like some of your homework that you can do after the class.  

What are you going to do? So, we talk about burnout, it's clearly, it's a state of emotional, mental, physical exhaustion. The key thing is you're exhausted by excessive and prolonged stress. You are exhausted. You really are overwhelmed. You just feel you can't handle anything else. Anything else happens to your plate, it's just going to all fall apart. The World Health Organization says burnout is defined as syndrome conceptualized as a resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.  

And so, the question I would pose to you in terms of your day to day, how many of you on a regular basis actually take a lunch where you actually go, and you basically leave your work area and go do something? Because that's important. You sometimes have to leave your work area, even if it's just going to the cafeteria, or if it's going outside and just get away from everything, so you can kind of clear your head, and come back and be refreshed. You have to fight to do that.  

You have to fight, because it's not always something you want to do. And then you have to almost kind of have a rule that if someone is going to eat with you from your workplace, that you have to say, when we go to lunch together, we cannot talk about work. You have to basically create a standard like, we're not going to go to lunch together and talk about the job. That's not going to happen, because there is no relief for you.  

The challenge is if you're go into lunch and you really want to work on your emotional, your mental, and your physical exhaustion where you can refresh, you need to go to lunch and not talk about work. Period. If people can't comply with that, then you need to eat by yourself. So, it's basically setting some boundaries around what you're going to allow to come into your world, and what you're not going to be willing to accept. So here are some causes... oops... of burnouts. Lack of control.  

You feel that you have no control over anything. And sometimes, you may be in that spot because sometimes in the lab, I know when I worked in the lab working as a blood banker, many times when you have patients who have multiple anomalies and you're trying to find the proper product for them, in terms of whether it's furnishable from plasma, whether it's whole blood, whether it's packed cells, cryoprecipitate, whatever it is, you're trying to figure out, what's going to be the best for this situation?  

Sometimes you feel like you have no control because the patients continue to come in. The counter continues to get full of patients. They get full of patients, and everyone is a stat or ASAP, it needs to be done. So, there's a lack of control. How do we navigate this? How do we handle all this? Unclear, unrealistic job expectations. Sometimes there's unclear... you don't even know what the job expectations are, or they're unrealistic from your perspective. If that happens, then you need to have some conversations around, OK, how do we make sure that we're all on the same page, in the same book? Lack of support all around.  

Do you have the support you need? Are people checking in? And I tell people, one of the critical pieces that people have to be willing to do now is to learn how to apply emotional intelligence. EQ, emotional intelligence is really critical for navigating relationships, working successfully, and really basically, checking in to see if people are OK, sincerely. So, I tell people, EQ is the secret sauce. Learning how to apply that sincerely— it cannot be something you're doing as a... that's not sincere.  

That's just something that's hypocrisy. It has to be sincere. But lack of support, are you checking in with colleagues? Are you checking in with staff to see, how are you doing today? I encourage a lot of people that I work with as a coach and as a leader, that they need to do wellness check-ins with their staff. How are you doing? What's going on with you? How are you handling things? And they may choose to tell you nothing. And they don't have to. But if you take the time to at least ask the question, how are you doing? Many times, that will gain you a lot of credibility with them because you care enough about them to ask them how they're doing.  

Their personal life is their personal life. They don't have to share that with you. But if you keep coming back asking them, how are you doing? This is a wellness check in. I'm not talking about work, projects. How are you doing? That will gain you volumes when it's done sincerely. So, support, beginning to have that support. When you don't have it, sometimes you feel like you're on an island all by yourself.  

The extremes of activity. Sometimes the work is coming in such a large volume, you just don't know where to begin. Where do I start? There's so much to do, so little time, and we don't have enough people to do the work because there's been a shortage for a long time with laboratory professionals. But COVID just kind of took it over the top. So, you don't sometimes have enough people in place to do the work that needs to be done, so you feel stretched like a rubber band that's about to snap. So that's why it's important sometimes to take a break, if it's just a 10-minute break to step away and get away and kind of clear your head, to take a lunch. If it's just 20 minutes ago eat a sandwich, but getting away from where you are, getting away from your surroundings is critical to helping you navigate— and manage effectively— burnout. Dysfunctional workplace dynamics. Sometimes you're in a dysfunctional workplace. Sometimes it's a toxic environment. That's real. I work with a lot of clients all over the world. And sometimes, people have toxic workplaces.  

Yes. Toxic workplaces with toxic employees, with sometimes toxic leaders who are working. And it creates all kinds of issues for people because when that takes place, that adds to additional stress for people, additional burnout because the dynamics of the culture are not supporting you in any way. So that's important to think about. What's your workplace like? What's the culture of where you work? Is it a good place? Is it toxic on a scale? You can just ask this question to yourself and answer it in your own mind. I'm not asking you to put it in the chat box. But think about if you had to rate your workplace, the culture where you work right now on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the culture is... it's OK. Five is...1 is like, it's bad; 5 is like, it's really over the top.  

We're really working together well. Where would you rate? What would your team, where would they fall? Do you have a good workplace dynamic? What energy do you bring to the workplace? What are you bringing? Are you a positive person? Or I tell people, are you are a negative Nelly, toxic Tom, or whining Wendy? Because sometimes you get people who come to the workplace who are just not happy. Has nothing to do with the job, they're just not happy personally, and they bring that into the workplace. And sometimes, they try to make sure that they make sure other people around them also get to experience that. And then work-life imbalance, sometimes our work life is just totally out of balance.  

We're working long hours. We're not resting enough. We're not doing the things we need to do. We're not having any fun. When was the last time you actually had fun? When was last time you actually had fun? Well, maybe you just really did something that made you laugh out loud. And I encourage people— and this is an exercise you can do on your own— I encourage people that I work with as a coach to basically create a laughter journal. What makes you laugh out loud? When was the last time you laughed out loud? We know when we laugh out loud, we secrete endorphins, which are healing properties to the body. What was the last time you laughed out loud? What makes you laugh out loud? You need to find that out for yourself, what does it make you... you can sit around, you can just sit and laugh. And I tell people if you don't know what that is, you need to stop and really think about, OK, what is it that makes you laugh out loud?  

If you're around little people, like under five, they can say some stuff that will make you laugh out loud. Because they'll tell you that your hair is a mess. You don't look good. And they don't mean any harm. They just tell you what's honest, what's honestly their feeling. They don't have any filter. They just say, I don't like your hair. I don't like that hat. That's an ugly hat. And you can't get mad at them because they're just speaking the truth. So, its important, finding happy places, having fun, having that laughter journal. Like I tell people, if you watch an episode of Family Feud with Steve Harvey, you're going to laugh because he's going to say something that's going to make you laugh.  

So, you have to find out for you, what is it that makes you laugh out loud? And that's something that can help you in terms of navigating when life is coming at you in full force, and you feel that things out of control. If you have something you can go to that's a laughter journal, or something that makes you laugh out loud, maybe a meme you saw, and you go to that, that might help you in that moment. You've got to fight for that. You've got to fight for work-life balance. You've got to fight to make sure you're taking care of you. That you're doing what you need to do to make sure that you're getting what you need to continue to be able to do what you need to do for the workplace, and more importantly, for your family. This is just to name a few.  

Now, I'm sure you have others you can think of. When you... common causes of it is... sometimes, work with people who don't do a good job. You have workers in the workplace —having been working in a lab, and having worked with lots of clients now, you have some employees who do a great job. They are your worker bees. They get things done. Those are the ones who get more assignments, more projects. Because what happens is that people who do a good work, who do good work in the workplace, they get more assignments when there is an opportunity for more work, or special project, or special assignment.  

What happens is that they give that to you, because you get things done. But what we wind up doing is that we are penalizing the performer and rewarding the non-performer. And what gets rewarded gets repeated.  

So, we have to work to develop that person who sometimes doesn't feel they want to do it because they know that you'll do it. Because sometimes people don't do things because they know you will do it. If you keep doing it, there's never going to be a change.  

So, we have to look at what are some causes that you are experiencing in your own workplace that are contributing to your burnout and your stress level? You have to ask that for yourself and then say, I’m not willing to continue on this path. What’s going to be different for me in 2024? Because this is a new year. This is February. This is a new year. What’s going to be different for you in terms of how you handle burnout and stress, going into this new year? So, some things, some hard questions you have to ask yourself and then say, OK, what am I willing to do to have more work-life balance?  

What am I willing to do to have work-life harmony? What am I willing to do to create a bubble where I can basically refresh, replenish, and renew me? At the end of the day? Maybe even on your job during the day, how can I do that in the day-to-day practicum? Because you need that in the day-to-day practicum when you're at work. You may be on the path to burnout when some of these things take place.  

Every day is a bad day. Sometimes we say we have a bad hair day. No. Every day is a bad day. You find yourself complaining about everything, caring about your work. Your home life seems to be a total waste of time. It doesn't matter. Nothing's going to change. You're exhausted all the time. You feel like you're not making a difference, nothing, no one appreciates you. You work hard.  

You stay late. You work through lunch. You do all these things, and no one even tells you thank you. That real. Sometimes you work hard, you're the hardest working person on the team in the lab, and no one ever tells you thank you. You're like, what's the purpose? Why am I doing this? Everything gets on your nerves. You're driving to work, if you have to drive to work or drive someplace, everything gets on your nerves.  

You find yourself on the edge with just about everything. You find yourself angry most of the time. You have neglected your self-care. These are all things that impact you and let you know, I'm on the road to burnout when you find yourself not being able to rest at night. Sometimes you lay down, but you can't even rest because your mind is so wired. It's basically learning how to sometimes stop and exhale. Sometimes you have to get off of social media, too. Because sometimes, we're reading stuff.  

You know, you're at home at night, you're trying to unwind, and you're reading social media, reading about other stuff, reading articles, looking at the news, all this stuff that sometimes might be depressing. That might be something you might need to change. But these are some things, when you realize every day that you find yourself being on the edge, and you find yourself being antsy, people say something, you feel like, why did they say that? You just want to just snap. You really need to say, I might need to take me a staycation day. Because I tell people, you have to sometimes take days off where it's not, you're not going anywhere. It's a staycation.  

Just you at home. If you have children, you don't have to tell your children. Because if they're small and they're in school, they know you're going to be home, sometimes they will have a tummy ache and they'll be there with you. So, you don't tell anybody. You get dressed like you're going to work, you put them out the door, get them on the bus, you go back and put your pajamas on. Because if they know that you're going to be there, many times, they will not feel well and be there with you. It's really choosing to say, you know, today, this is a day for me. I'm not going to tell anybody I'm off, I'll act like I'm going to work, and then I'm going to, when everybody's gone, I'm going to get here, get on the sofa.  

Whatever it is you want to do. It's a staycation. It's OK to have a day for yourself to replenish and renew you. You have to do that because if you find yourself doing so many things for everybody else, but what about you? What are you doing for you? In this picture, when you see this, she's stressed. Her picture, so she's stressed. You get stressed because you're doing for everybody else. No one thinks about you. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. No one's caring about me. That's real. But you have to decide, you know what?  

Today is my day. I'm off Wednesday. I'm going to be off Wednesday. I'm not going to tell anybody. Put everybody on the bus, my husband goes to work, whatever. When they leave, I'm going to go put my pajamas on. I'm going to watch whatever I want to watch. I'm having a Lifetime movie day. Whatever it is you need to do, that is your time. Take staycations. The ideal thing is to take a day off before you are burnt out. Because when you're burnt out and you take a day off, you need three or four days to get to a place where you are making some progress to where you're not as burnt out. What happens? We wait till the cup is totally empty. And we're pouring from fumes, and then we decide we need to add something to it. You need to not let the cup get empty.  

What are you doing to make sure you're taking care of you before you get to a place of total burnout? Did you take a vacation last year? Are you going to take one this year? Do you already have a plan? And you're going on vacation, are you truly on vacation? Are you away from everything? Are you still engaged with your job? These are questions you have to ask yourself in terms of when you're neglecting self-care, because self-care is so important. And again, self-care is not selfish.  

It's necessary to be able to do the things you need to do for your career and your life. It's necessary. So, if you find yourself in this place where you are just — these things are happening, you need to take a couple of staycation days. Or even I call them attitude adjustment days, AA, because you need to adjust your attitude. Have some time where you need to be away from people because sometimes, when you are in this place, you are short tempered. You snap at people. They ask you a simple question, you're snapping. That's when you know it's time for you to take some time off.  

You need to be away from people. They need to be away from you. So, dealing with burnout, it's important to recognize, watch for the warning signs of burnout. You know it's happening in your life. You can sense when stuff is shifting. You know, it's like, oh, I'm not really feeling — this is — I'm feeling stretched. I'm feeling like I'm overwhelmed all the time. Because if you're feeling overwhelmed all the time in what you do, sometimes it's staffing issues. Sometimes that's something that you're trying to hire people. But sometimes, you can't find people to work because they don't have the skill set.  

So, there's been a shortage for a long time. So, when you don't have the people in place, the people that there are having to do more work. But it's how do we work smarter, not harder? How do you do that? Sometimes it's having team meetings where you get together, and you share ideas about how do we make this work? We know we're short staffed, maybe by three people, maybe by two people. Whatever the number is, how do we make it work? Because people are getting burnt out. And when you get burnt out, sometimes there is the open door for making mistakes. Having to do rework because you are burnt out and sometimes, you're simply not focused. Reverse, undo the damage by managing stress, seeking support. Sometimes you need to go talk to someone. It's OK to go talk to someone.  

Maybe a friend, or maybe a colleague, or maybe a minister, you need to go talk to someone and say, hey, I'm not handling this well. And generally, it's because you're not taking any time for you. It's work, work, work, work, work. When you're off, it's like you're never having any downtime just to exhale. I call them "whoosah" days where you don't do anything. During the holidays, I was off for two weeks. And one week, I was in my pajamas most of the week.  

And it felt good, and I felt no remorse. I felt good. But it's OK. It's giving yourself permission to do nothing. I had all these plans of things I was going to do. I was going to do this. I was going to do that. Didn't do any of it, and I did not feel guilty. Some people feel they're not doing something, they're not productive. It's OK not to do something sometimes. It's OK just to step back and say, you know what? This is the day where I'm going to watch TV all day. I'm going to watch movies; whatever it is you want to do.  

It's OK to have that. Resilience. Build your resist... resilience by... to stress by taking care of your physical and emotional health. Again, those are things that are important. Resilience, because life will knock you down. There'll be days you come to work, and you look... it's like, oh my goodness. All this work, there's only two people. How are we going to get it done? It's taking one test at a time.  

When I worked in the blood bank, it was taking one patient sample at a time. Sometimes I might work on two or three based on the complexities of the problem. It was one that was very complex, it might just be one because this person may have had a lot of antibodies. We're trying to find the right product, and I don't need to be confused with anything else. But if it's just a simple type and crossmatch, it might be two or three people you're working on.  

So, based on where you work in the lab, whether it's hematology, chemistry, whatever it is, you have to decide, OK, how do I navigate these terms of in the public sector? How do you navigate all the things you must do within your own space? But it's taking it like one at a time, because sometimes, we try to do too much. And then trying to do too much, sometimes we leave the door open for making great mistakes.  

You have to be OK with sometimes slowing down so you can speed up. Slowing yourself down, and you just slow down, pace myself. OK, I need to pace myself. And as you do that, you can find yourself getting more speed because you've slowed down to just kind of exhale. So it's OK to exhale. You can exhale. But recognize when you are getting to that place.  

And if you're already there, you need to think about, OK, what do I need to do to dial back? To do some things differently? To make some adjustments? To take a vacation? To take a staycation? Whatever it is, what am I willing to do to dial back? How do I work on managing the stress? How do I get my stress level down? How do I do some of these things? You need to begin to look at some processes and some things you can do in that area. And then realizing, I need to take care of my physical and emotional health. Are you exercising? Because exercise is a great way to work to sometimes to relieve stress.  

And if you're in the burnout phase, it allows you to burn that energy. But people sometimes say, I don't have time to exercise. You don't have time not to. It's your physical health. It's a discipline. It's deciding you're going to do it, and actually doing it. It's not always easy. I tell people, one thing you might want to do, I actually have a calendar. A physical calendar. Your old-fashioned calendar that has 12 months on it.  

And I have it in my bedroom. And I mark out, my goal is 20 days a month. That's the goal, to walk 30 to 45 minutes. And I check it off. I mark it off the calendar when I'm doing it. So, I have to go past it every day to see where I am. Right now, I'm at four days and we're in day six. So, I'm ahead of the game. But it's a discipline that I know that it's good for me. I don't always want to do it, but it's good for me. So, you have to fight for that.  

That physical— your physical body, you have to fight to make sure you're taking care of that physical body and exercise. If you can't do 30 minutes, start with 10 minutes. Start with five minutes, if that's what it takes to get— just simply get started with taking care of your physical and your emotional health. No way you can do 30 minutes or 45 minutes, because that will be the end of the year, and you still won't be there, and you won't have exercise at all. Start small, and work to getting up to where you're doing more. But just get started. That's the key thing. Just get started.  

So, the difference between stress and burnout, you see here, burnout may be the result of unrelenting stress, but it isn't the same as too much stress. Stress, by and large, it says here, is when the pressures, the demands are just physically and psychologically just too much. Burnout, on the hand, is not enough. It's where you feel empty. There's no motivation. You're beyond caring. It's like, don't care. Whatever happens, it just happens. You just do what you want to do. You really have— you're just in a place, almost numb. And that's when you know, that's a serious spot that you really need to step back. Because that's not healthy for you or the people that you're associated with. It's not healthy.  

So, we look at stress, and we look at burnout. Stress is characterized by over engagement, whereas burnout is characterized by disengagement. Clearly, there's a difference. Emotions are overreactive in stress. Emotions like, you're numb. You don't, I don't really feel... please, whatever you want to do. It's OK. I don't care. That means, because you're just like, don't matter. You're numb because you feel you're almost in a state of hopelessness, which the next line, says it produces helplessness and hopelessness. You feel there's no hope for this. This is a lost cause.  

Whereas on that side with stress, produces urgency and hyperactivity. Stress, in terms of primary damage, is physical. In burnout, the primary damage is emotional. Stress is loss of energy. Burnout is loss of motivation, ideals, and hope. You don't care. You have no ideas. You're not trying to be creative. It's like, whatever you want to do. I don't care. I'm just here. I'm showing up. That's what you do. Sometimes, you simply show up. You are there, but you have left the building. You're present there, but you have left the building because you're physically— your body is sitting there, but everything else is gone. 

You're numb. Leads to anxiety disorders with stress, leads to detachment and depression with burnout. So, you have to ask yourself, where am I on this continuum? Where am I? And then say, what do I need to do? What must I do? You have to ask yourself on this list, OK, what are my options? You have to sometimes get real with yourself, and determine what are my options? OK, if I continue on this path, what's likely to happen? If I don't make some changes, what is likely to happen? You have to ask yourself some hard questions, and be open with what the answers are, and say, OK, based on what I'm putting here on this piece of paper, I don't like the outcome. So, what are my options? What do I need to do differently? And then you have to decide, what are your options? What can you do differently to be able to navigate this?  

You have— those are questions only you can answer, because you have to know when you got to a place where you can no longer handle this. It is over the top. It is more than you can handle. You're depressed. You're detached. You are numb. All those things are real. They can lead to major, major issues in your life. And in the workplace, it can be catastrophic because you can make a mistake that can be very detrimental to someone. Do you have to ask yourself, where are you?  

And then basically, sometimes take time away, take a day off, take a couple— again, I keep saying, time off is good for you. And some of you said, well, I can't take off. Well, if you don't come in tomorrow, what happens? They figure out how to get stuff done. They do. Because when you get burnt out to a point, it can actually make you sick. This stuff is real. And so how do we navigate it in an environment where there has been a shortage for a long time? It's going to get— you got to get creative.  

How do we make sure we get more people in the pipeline to know about this career, so we can have people that are going to be in the pipeline for us to be able to select, to hire? I encourage people when I work with clients in this space, I say, go to children when they're in elementary school. Talk to them about the options that you have as a laboratory professional, the different options you can have.  

Because by the time they get to middle school, sometimes, they've already got their mind made up. High school is way too late. They need to know; this is a viable career option for them. So, strategies to deal, to cope with burnout include starting your day off by giving thanks. Journaling, reading something that inspires you. These are simple things you can do. You can do these. I tell people, count your blessings. Sometimes, just sit down and write, OK, all the things you're thankful for. Have a thankful list. You woke up.  

You can walk. You're not on a breathing— you're not having to use oxygen to breathe. You have to begin your day giving thanks. Journaling, whatever it is, going to inspire you to realize that you are blessed because you woke up. Adopt healthy eating, exercising, and sleeping habits. That means sometimes, you can't be eating sometimes all this food from fast food restaurants and stuff, not exercise, you're not sleeping. You've got to make some healthy choices. Sometimes that may mean the night before or on the weekend, cooking meals that you can have, doing meal prep, or having someone do meal prep for you so you can have better meals. So, when you come to work, you bring your own lunch that's healthy. Again, exercising, you can go outside your workplace, or step outside the building, and do something, and walk 10 or 15 minutes. It's a discipline. You have to be willing to do these things if you want to work to reduce some of the burnout you're experiencing. Set boundaries.  

Sometimes you just got to set some boundaries. OK, I'm going to lunch today. I'm going to whatever it is. I'm taking me to lunch, and I'm going down to the cafeteria. I'm going in my car. Whatever you want to do. And you go, and you might sit down and take your 30-minute nap. But you're setting boundaries in terms of I'm doing this for me, because it's that important. And I tell people, that's so serious. I had a busy weekend, and I talked to a lot of people. I do a lot of things. I'm involved in a lot of things.  

And so, Sunday evening was kind of like, it was raining in Atlanta. It was just one of those rainy evenings, where you just want to get relaxed. That's exactly what I did. And so, I made some calls. No one was in. So, then I got to a place. I said, this is my time now. Unless someone puts in a 911, I'm not answering the phone. So, some people— a person called me. I looked at the call, and just continued to lay on my bed and relax because I set a boundary.  

I'm not talking to anybody. Unless you put 911 in, I am not going to take the call. So, I set boundaries for myself in terms of their time. This is my time to replenish, “whoosah,” whatever I want to call it, this is my time. I'm not taking the call unless you put a 911 in. And a 911 did not come, so I did not take any calls. But you have to get that selfish with your boundaries that it's going to replenish and renew you. Take a daily break from technology. Sometimes, fast technology. Get off of social media. Take a day off. I got off Facebook four years ago and have not been back. I'm on LinkedIn and some other ones, but I left Facebook four years ago. And I have no plans to go back. Sometimes, take a break from technology. Turn your phone off. It's OK. You can turn it back on. But sometimes, turn it off, or get off social media for — I only want to go on social media for 30 minutes a day. 

OK. Sometimes just basically, get away from that because sometimes, that technology also is adding to the stress level for you. Because you're reading stuff. You're reading about other people. You're reading about people's lives. This is happening. Their career is soaring. Blah, blah, blah. Sometimes you just got to get off of social media. Get off technology. Nourish your creative side. Sometimes do some — I call it spirit storming. Bring — brainstorming. Think about ideas. What would happen if I did this?  

What are some ways we can do this job faster, or more efficient? Just sometimes engage your creative side of thinking. Just be willing to do that. OK, open up my mind's green light thinking. What other ideas can you do, come up with, that would help you be able to do your job more successfully? What would you do about in terms of learning how to balance your life better, or having more harmony, or just having more fun, or laughing out loud? Whatever it is, what are those things that you need to do?  

Write it down. Nourish your creative side. Spend time talking to people that are also creatives and say, what would happen if we did this? What would happen if we did this? Having those conversations will also help you navigate and cope with burnout. Learn how to manage stress. We're going to talk about managing stress. Stress is a normal part of life. You can't get away from it. It's a part of life.  

But you have to learn how to manage it because sometimes, it can be over the top. Because sometimes, people stress you out. Sometimes, people stress you out. Sometimes, your close friends may stress you out. Sometimes, you have to disconnect from some people because they stress you out. Yeah. Friends, sometimes you see people that you work with. Some people that you work with are not necessarily friends because I tell people, as a former HR person, you come to the workplace. It's great to have friends in the workplace. It is great. That's a wonderful thing.  

It's not a requirement to do your job. It's a requirement for you to work to get the job done, to move the mission and vision of the organization forward. But you don't have to go to lunch with them. They don't go home with you. But you gotta learn how to be a professional, and work with them during the job. That is critical. You have to learn how to do that. So, these are some things that you can think about. But again, I would add to that, that laughter journal, creating a laughter journal.  

Again, that's so important. What makes you laugh out loud? Here's something I'm going to share because this is what someone shared with me when I went to a conference, I spoke at about four... the year of COVID, 2020. I went to a conference, and I was one of the coaches there. And the lady spoke from the dais, and she said, in life, we have to determine our crystal balls and our rubber balls. She said let me explain what I mean by that.  

She said the crystal balls are the events that if you miss, like a wedding, your child's first basketball game, or a recital, or a birthday celebration, a significant, whatever it is, those are crystal ball moments that you cannot recapture. Yeah, you can watch them later on. But it's a crystal ball. When a crystal falls, you can't put it back together again. Then we have the rubber balls. That's a missed deadline.  

That's a missed meeting. Those are things that you can recover from. So, she said, we need to determine in life what are our crystal balls, and our rubber balls? Sometimes we're treating our crystal balls like rubber balls, and our rubber balls like crystal balls. It's determining what are your crystal balls and what are your rubber balls? And you just have to gauge and manage them from that perspective. So, more strategies for coping with burnout. The most effective way to combat burnout is to stop doing what you're doing and do something else.  

OK, if I'm doing this and this is not working, I might need to do something else. Sometimes you got to actively address the problem and your concerns and be clear on what the problem is. This is the problem. This is my problem. Here are my concerns. You have to be willing to address that. Clarify your job description. OK, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And we know there's a catch-all phrase, and all other duties as assigned. But clarify, OK, what specifically am I doing? Sometimes you have to ask for new duties, or sometimes you have to take time off and unplug.  

And sometimes it's important even sometimes to do cross-training where people learn your job so that sometimes people can help you out. It's OK to get cross-trained for some stuff, because that will help you sometimes not have to do as much, or someone else can help you out. Or at least they're learning another skill set. They can help you sometimes in a moment of crisis, or where there are not enough people that are there that day. You have to clearly identify, what's the problem? From my perspective, what is the problem? What are my concerns? And I have to share that with whoever — my boss, my leader, whoever it is, then clarify. OK, I need clarification. What exactly should I be doing?  

I'm looking at these 20 things. What are the top five? Asking for new duties sometimes or new assignments, OK, how do we basically learn how to work smarter with what we're doing here? And then again, I've already said, take time off to unplug. Take a staycation day. Put in for a vacation day. Put it in. And if you're at home, it doesn't matter. If you can't go to Hawaii or someplace, take it off and just be at home in your pajamas, or outside. Whatever it is you want to do, do whatever you need to do that makes you happy. If it's putting — working in the garden, if it's going to the zoo, whatever it is, do what makes you happy. But do something that makes you happy when you unplug. So, stress, it's your body's natural way of responding to any kind of pressure or demand.  

And in Atlanta, where we live, many of us live, if you get on the road to drive in Georgia, you're going to experience some stress in Georgia because people drive crazy. They're crazy. I mean, they get behind the wheel and they just, they're just — I mean, the stuff they do. They just go across three lanes, and just get in front of you. And you're in the slow lane doing the speed limit, and then they get upset trying to blink, turn the lights on. I'm in the slow lane for a reason. Get in the fast lane. It's just crazy. It's crazy when you're driving. But you get — if you drive in Atlanta, there's going to be some stress.  

So, you need to have — sometimes leave early enough so that you can basically minimize the stress. Leave — give yourself enough time to be able to get there with more than enough time. Just some easy listening music, whatever it is you like, praise and worship music, whatever it is you like, put that music on so you can coast in. So, when you get to work, you're not highly stressed. Because stress is the wear and tear on our minds and bodies, as we continue to cope with a continually changing world.  

And what we saw certainly when COVID happened, we had to pivot. Everyone heard that word. You had to pivot because no one saw COVID coming. And the stress level for people went up because now all of a sudden, people were confined to homes. They couldn't go anywhere. Sometimes they realized they didn't like the people they live with. That's what happened. Some people didn't like their husband, their wife, they didn't like who they live with. Their children, they realized there was a difficult season, and there was nowhere you could go because you were captive at home. The stress level went up. So, is stress bad? No, stress is not always bad. It depends on the situation, how it's handled.  

Getting married, sometimes having some holidays, some celebrations, sometimes that creates stress, but it's good stress. There's eustress, which is your good stress. There's distress, which is your bad stress. So not all stress is bad. It's based on how you handle it, and how you approach it. So, steps to manage stress... It's taken breaks when needed. Again, I keep talking about that. Setting those boundaries, taking a pause. Pausing, pausing, pausing. You've got to sometimes set boundaries and stick to them. Exercise. You keep hearing me say that. Learn to say no. No is a complete sentence.  

And I know sometimes, in the world of the lab, you can't say no because they bring a test in. You got to get stuff done. But sometimes, you may be saturated with enough on your plate already. You can't take anything else on right now that's going to be safe for you to do. So, you have to sometimes learn how to say no. And sometimes we're saying we need to say no to things outside of the workplace that we're saying yes to. Take care of yourself. Self-care is not selfish. Establish a normal routine that works for you. What works for you? Stop and count your blessings.  

These are basic. These are fundamental things, but these things help you in terms of navigating stress. Seek out social support. Sometimes you need to get support from — it might be a therapist, a minister, whoever it is. Your friend, a colleague, whatever. You need to get some support from someone who's going to give you some guidance about how to navigate this situation. Spend time with loved ones and friends. And I tell people, spend time with little people. Little people, they make you laugh out loud. They say stuff, they do stuff that is just hilarious. They're so pure. They just say stuff. One little girl one time told me, she said, you got lipstick on your teeth. You need to do like this. She was trying to tell me how to lick my lips together so I could get the stuff off. I just had to — I was falling out laughing. It was just like, they are funny.  

They make you laugh. They say stuff. Take time off just to refresh, replenish, and renew you. You can do that. You have to fight for that. You realize, you can't be all things to all people all the time. There's — you can't be Superwoman, Superman all the time. Sometimes you got to take the S off your chest. Ask yourself, will this matter in 24 hours? And then get spiritually grounded.  

And you can add to this list to yourself in terms of things you do. But you have to say in 24 hours, will this really matter? If it won't, then sometimes scale back. Dial back. Learn how to dial back. So, we talk about work-life harmony: better physical health. Why is it important? You want better physical health?  

Fewer burn outs, reduce stress, increased creativity. When you're not all wound up like a rubber band, all tightly bound, wound up, you can think clearly. You can have creative ideas because the ideas can flow. When you're highly stressed and burnt out, your creativity is shut down. When you have work-life harmony, when there's more in place, you have higher morale, lower absenteeism.  

Those are things that are indicators in the workplace that people are a little bit — maybe a little bit happier here. Better relationships, fewer health problems, and the list goes on and on. You have to fight for this. You have to fight for it. If you don't fight for it, it does not happen. So, self-care is the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well-being and happiness, especially — in particular — during times of stress. Self-care is not selfish. You need to say that out loud. Self-care is not selfish. It's not. I need to keep reminding you this. Keep reminding yourself. Self-care — put a little post it notes where you work in the lab. Self-care is not selfish. I'm going to lunch today. Self-care is not selfish. I'm taking a weekend off. I'm going on a vacation.  

I'm going to take a vacation, maybe take a cruise at the end of the year. But you do something for you that will help you replenish and renew you because you're on a cruise ship, unless you get a package where they can reach you, you don't have to talk to people. You can be off and have some time where it's just you settle — you, and being present there, being present in the moment.  

Self-care ABC's. Your awareness, raising the awareness in terms of the awareness level. Am I aware of how I'm feeling? What do I need to be doing? It's really self-awareness. You talking to yourself saying, you know what? This is not good for me. I need to make some changes. I need to be self-aware of what I'm feeling emotionally, and the impact it's having on other people. Balance and boundaries. Clearly, we've talked about that. Balance and boundaries, setting those boundaries, and sticking to them, and having a sense of balance in terms of that work-life harmony where you can say, you know what? This is enough. I need to be off today.  

I'm taking a day off. I'm going to the park. I'm going to eat my sandwich by myself in my car, and I'm going to turn on some music, whatever it is you need to do. Commitment to say, is that important? I'm committed to doing some of these things. I'm committed to creating a self-care plan. I'm committed to that. So, the question is, ask yourself — creative. Questions to ask yourself as relates to self-care. What makes me feel most at peace? What brings me joy? What brings me a sense of purpose? Where do I find meaning and value in my life? What is my why? Why do I get up in the morning? What makes me excited about getting up in the morning? What makes me excited about that, and what is my why? What makes me laugh out loud?  

These are some questions. If you can answer these questions, these will help you on your journey to self care. So, remember, you can't pour from an empty cup, so take care of yourself first. They wouldn't tell you to get on a plane, you get on the plane, they're giving you instructions to say put your oxygen mask on first. Why is that? Because if you don't put it on first and you pass out, nothing happens. You put it on the other person, you pass out when you're trying to put it on them, no one is saved. But if you put it on yourself, you can save other people. So put your oxygen mask on first.  

And so, I know, am I 13 minutes? So, I'm going to stop sharing and come out, so we actually have 13 minutes to have Q&A. So, I'm back. So, it's 13 minutes on the nose. Yeah. As Chelsea stated earlier, we will take a few minutes to answer as many questions as possible. If we do not answer your question today, we'll do our best to answer it via email, that is, if you did not submit it anonymously. If you have any questions after today, please email onelab@cdc.gov. OK, let's get started. We have a really good one in here. OK. This reminds me of myself. When I'm trying to create a better work life balance and say no when I'm given more work, I'm always the go-to person in a small lab. I get the most tasks because of exactly what you said, you get it done and done well.  

How do I go beyond that no? If it is not expected, what do you do? I am still — when I still have to complete the task, even though I'm already overworked? So, here's the deal. When that happens, first of all, I would talk to my supervisor and basically have a heart-to-heart. And I would ask the question, if there was something I could share with you that would help maybe the team be more effective, can I share that with you? So, your boss will say, sure, sure, sure. You say, what I'm observing is that I'm kind of like the go-to person here. And I'm doing a lot of work. And I don't have a problem. I'm going to do my work, but I don't see the levity and the equity in terms of this work being distributed across the board. And I understand that I heard this presentation, and I heard this lady say when you basically are the go-to person, you get more work.  

So, it's actually, we're penalizing the performer and we're rewarding the non-performer. What gets rewarded gets repeated. So how do we make that shift? What can we do to help people who are not maybe as sharp as I am be more effective? How can we help them? Because I feel — I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling burnt out. And it's having a real conversation. That's what I would do. I think that's a good one. OK, this one, this person asks, how do they help a coworker understand that they are getting burnt out and need to take time for themselves? Just for me, I'm just going to tell you, look, Alicia, you need to take some time off because you are short tempered. You have no patience. You're snapping at everybody. We need a break from you, so take a few days off, OK?  

I love you to life. Because some people don't see that. They don't see themselves. You can't see the frame when you're in the picture. So, I see that you are basically— and this is for you. This is to help you because you are burnt out, and I don't want you to stress, I don't want you to stroke out here. So, I would encourage you to take a staycation, to take a day off and just do something for you, because you are stressing people out because you're so tightly wound. It's not healthy for us here. You just have to be really honest with them.  

You have to tell them again. Ask the question, hey Alicia, if there was something I could say to you that would help us work better together and help you be more effective at your job, can I share that with you? You would say, sure, Nancy. Then I'm going to say, what I observe is that you are highly stressed. And then you get to tell them what you see. That's what I would do. Yeah. That's a good one. Let's see. This person when you're a salaried leader, finding a way to turn off is almost impossible. What are some ideas on how to accomplish that? You just— it's a discipline. You have to work on turning off.  

You have to imagine. Sometimes you have to take a vacation where you cannot be connected. Like when I went to Jamaica last year, yes, you can also have people call you, but I put my phone on airplane mode. So, unless you did some FaceTime with me, and if you didn't do — first of all, I don't even want to talk to you. I'm on vacation. So sometimes you have to be OK with saying, it's OK if I'm not there. The question you have to ask yourself, if you never come back to your workplace tomorrow, what happens?  

Do they close because you're not there? Do they basically say, oh my goodness, this person didn't show up. No, they keep it moving. They figure out a way to get it done. So, it's basically, you have to talk to yourself and say, it's not healthy for me not to be present. If you have a family, you need to be present with your family. You do a disservice when you're always plugged in, you're always picking up your phone when you're at home, looking at work stuff. So, what are you telling your family? They don't matter. Is that the message you want to send? You have to look at your behavior and the impact it's having on people around you that you love and make corrections. It's a discipline.  

You have to work at it. It doesn't happen overnight. It is a marathon, not a sprint. When you realize that, you give yourself permission to realize it's not going to happen overnight. Next question? Yes. Next question let's see. With the busy environment of the lab, what can be done during day-to-day lab activities in real time to reduce stress? Taking your breaks, taking your lunch. When I used to work — I worked in a blood bank. I worked at Emory, and I worked as a blood bank specialist.  

And we worked with people who had — I remember a lady had eight antibodies, and we had to try to find blood for her. Now, you cross — you type a lot of blood, you type and cross-reference a lot of blood trying to find units of blood for that person. I had to get away from some of that because I needed to go clear my head because I need to think about all the stuff going on. We looked at, we've done this test, and then you see something that's lurking that there might be another antibody lurking. It's just undetectable. 

And so, you're like, OK, would this — whatever we get, will that be least incompatible? But it's basically giving yourself permission to say I'm going to — I'm go to lunch. I'm going to lunch. I'm going to lunch. When I go to lunch, I don't want to talk about work. I will eat by myself. But you have to — those, in the day-to-day, you have to fight for those things. You have to take your breaks. You take your lunch. Maybe you can't take your breaks all the time, but you got to fight to take them. And then sometimes, you need to have little positive affirmations around your ear to remind yourself, if I'm not here today, if I don't come back tomorrow, they will still keep moving.  

You have to put stuff around you to remind yourself that you don't stop the flow of anything. They'll figure out how to get it done. So put affirmations around you to remind you that I'm enough. I can take a break. That's what I would encourage you to do. Well, this one is a good one. If you're the only one at your workplace, and feel that when you need time off or leave early, you get a lot of attitude or gestures, how can you explain, you just need a day? I have spoken with the supervisor, but nothing changes. Then you don't worry about it. You just take your time off and enjoy your time off.  

Because if you talk to the supervisor and make them aware, you know, hey, you're entitled to take time off. You're entitled to that. That's an HR... I mean, I'm an HR person. You're entitled. You can put in time off. You have — you get so many vacation days every year. You get sick days so many every year. That's part of when you get hired, you get those things. And so, it's important for you to fight to take them.  

So, you take time off because you're doing it — sometimes you're doing it for — you can tell your supervisor, I'm doing it for the organization. Because if I continue to come to work, I'm going to stress out. I'm going to snap, and I might say something I need to say. That's why I'm taking the day off. That's keeping it real for them. But again, you have to tell people, you don't — you have to realize it's important.  

You have to fight for some of this. Because people — if you're a candid person, a worker bee, chose to do a good job, it's unfortunate, it happens in all the interests I work in. People who a good job get more work. When you want to take time off, they don't want you to take time off. Sometimes they don't even want you to go to another area. They don't even want to help you get promoted to another area because you are the one who gets things done. These are things are the real. And so, I'd say when you need to take time off to unplug, you have to do what you got to do for you because you need to fill your cup. Ideally, you want to have so much in your cup that it goes into your saucer, and you pour from your overflow. You can't do that if you keep working every day. Next question. This person wants to thank you for the presentation.  

That they recently left a toxic work environment in a hospital lab as a supervisor. They are fearful to enter back into that role because they feel that many labs have the same issues. How would you decide when it would be time to get back into that role? I think that's a personal decision you have to — when you've left the area because it was toxic, and realizing sometimes that is systemic within the industry in many cases, you have to say, OK.  

Maybe you need to look at, are there other options in other areas you can use your skill set that do not require you going back into that same kind of lab, maybe another industry. Because when I worked as a medical technologist, I worked for ortho diagnostics, I did sales support for the reagents in terms of all the products people use in a blood bank. I basically did training around that. So sometimes, are there other things you can do with your skill set that don't cause you to have to necessarily work in a lab? Because I left the lab, and actually went and started doing presentations and supporting clients about how to use our products correctly in terms of the blood bank.  

Because sometimes if you go back into it, if you go back into it, I think it needs to be time for you to refresh, renew, and say, OK, what am I going to do differently going in? How do I change my leadership style maybe to help change the culture? Because sometimes it's a culture that's been established. How do I basically create some things that can help change the culture? And again, this is a marathon, not a sprint. All right. So, I think that's all the questions we have time for.  

So, thank you again, Nancy, for joining us, and for the presentation. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. Next slide, please. We are offering one PACE credit for today's webinar and are implementing a new process for obtaining your credit. PACE credit will now be immediately available on our OneLab REACH in your My Learner hub for easy access. To receive your PACE credit after participating in today's session, you will need to log into your OneLab REACH account, visit the link in the chat, and use the passcode to complete the evaluation within two weeks. You must be logged into your OneLab reach account to access the evaluation.  

You will also receive an email containing these instructions if you miss the link and the passcode. Next slide, please. We would like to introduce you to the 2024 DLS Extension for Community Health Care Outcomes, or ECHO, biosafety program, which launched in January 2023 to develop and engage the biosafety community and practice to address biosafety challenges in the clinical and public health laboratories. If you are a laboratory biosafety professional or you know someone that's a biosafety professional, please consider registering for the ECHO biosafety sessions.  

You can access the Zoom link, detailed information on upcoming sessions, and resources from past sessions through the ECHO biosafety website link that's provided on the slide or in the chat. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact dlsbiosafety@cdc.gov. Next slide, please. We would like to briefly highlight the next OneLab Network event on Wednesday, March 27th at 12 noon Eastern Standard Time. The event title is Risk Assessment in Clinical Laboratories.  

The presenter is Ms. Crystal Fortune. The registration link is posted in the chat. Next slide, please. We'd also like to invite you to register for the OneLab Summit. This free virtual event connects laboratory professionals in real time to support a unified response to laboratory education and training needs. Attendance is open to anyone interested or involved in the laboratory profession. Registration — register now through the link in the chat. As a reminder, the slides and audio recording of this event will be posted to the website within two weeks of today.  

And lastly, we encourage you to utilize the OneLab inbox to share your training needs and OneLab feedback. We use your input to select event topics and better understand the community needs. The OneLab email address is posted in the chat for easy access. 

Again, thank you for joining us today, and have a great rest of your day.