Dr. Whitney has a crucial conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Kerr about the realities of working moms and the emotional and physical burnout they’re facing, as well as what it would look like to really have an environment in a workplace where burnout wouldn’t even exist.
Dr. Jacqueline Kerr is a Behavioral Change scientist, host of The Overcoming Working Mom Burnout Podcast, and recently gave the TedX speech called “How to Stop Burnout Before It Starts.”
Baked Alaska analogy at the beginning.
EPISODE Highlights:
Dr. Whitney: What is your background? What made you so interested in burnout?
Dr. Kerr: I was in a school of medicine, focusing on the public health side. Within that construct of the school of medicine, women can face a lot of struggles and bullying. It can be really toxic for women within those sectors. I wasn’t even really aware of the environment I was in while I was in it. Much like a fish doesn’t know it’s in water, I didn’t see everything that was happening around me. I gravitated towards an environment where competition was really fierce, which is great, but can be really destructive. And in the current day and age, it hasn’t gotten any better. It’s only gotten more intense. And we want students in medicine to have role models and women to be researching health problems. Because when there aren’t women looking into those things, women’s health issues aren’t studied.
And when I was in that environment, I rose up. I was at the top of my class. Millions of dollars in grants. But when I became a mum, I didn’t like myself. I didn’t like the way I was parenting, but didn’t know a different way. I took on more and more leadership at the university and led my own research groups trying to prove myself. So there were definitely a lot of things I brought into my own burnout but that’s how it got me started down this path and looking into what I could do through my own research and coaching.
And I realized that at a certain point, the struggle of motherhood and career was too much. And I was wrapped up in all the emotions of what it would mean to leave that career I had invested in for so long and eventually had suicidal ideations–I felt like a failure. I was able to reset my mind and body, but I never wanted another mum to go through what I did. So that’s what I’m hoping to help solve through my research on burnout for working moms.
Dr. Whitney: Tell me about the scientific findings you came to to help working moms not have to get into that space.
Dr. Kerr: One of the biggest pieces of framework is that mums can’t just try to avoid burnout. Much like dieting isn’t just a matter of willpower. You have to have support at home, access to healthy foods at a cost that makes sense for you, and not be surrounded by tempting foods. Some of the conditions that cause burnout are lack of reward, lack of flexibility, and injustice and value conflicts in your workplace. And when those arise, that’s an environment ripe for burnout.
But it’s not necessarily something that goes away once you leave that job. If you don’t work on your mindset, you’re going to end up in the same place–which is why we offer coaching surrounding your mindset that bolsters your emotional intelligence, boundaries, and great communication skills that you need in the workplace.
A comprehensive workplace solution, for me, is 3 parts. First, when the workplace sees employee well-being as a Key Performance Indicator, because then it’s accountable all the way up to the board level that the priorities, investments, and the evaluation all stem from that. And then you’d start to see that a lot of the self-care and mental health benefits are just short-term solutions. Yes, we need to process stress and get it out of our bodies, but those are so limited at the population levels.
Second, when you can align all of the guidelines the National Academy of Medicine has made with your DEI strategy, you can institute fair pay and psychological safety. That will really improve the situation for people of color and other disadvantaged people, which will allow them to do their job without feeling like they have to reprove themselves and constantly feel like they have to earn their value.
Lastly, there needs to be learning collaboratives. This allows you to institute change within the workplace and constantly be checking where the barriers are, who is in charge of the workflow, how things are working (or not working) smoothly. You’re all learning from each other in a more cohesive way.
Dr. Whitney: Tell me more about the National Academy of Medicine and the guidelines that they have come up with. What are they suggesting?
Dr. Kerr: There are two pieces of their guidelines. First, there’s taking action against clinician burnout which is a systems approach to professional well-being. Second, is preventing clinician suicide which they really highlighted during the pandemic. They wanted to ensure that a physcian’s mental health does not reflect on them losing their license. They have a lot of resources on how to talk to your colleagues if you think something might be off.
The 6 goals of their guidelines were to have a positive work environment, a positive learning environment that supports the goal that everyone is has an open mindset about learning around well-being, reducing administrative burdens, enabling technology solutions, providing support to clinicians and learners (access to coaches, therapists, etc…), and invest in research.
Dr. Whitney: If someone is starting to experience burnout, what do you recommend?
Dr. Kerr: First, pay attention and track how you’re spending your time. How much time are you spending on things that are not core to your business and that you don’t love? How much are you saying yes versus no? Then you can start to get control over it and take a look at what you really want to be spending your time on.
Dr. Whitney: So much of motherhood we wear our busyness as a badge and really just want everyone to see all the things we’re volunteering for and how worn out we are because we can see all the things all the other moms are doing.
Dr. Kerr: Right, we’re comparing ourselves to the moms that are feeling the burnout just like we are. Instead, what if I compared myself to my husband and the things that he says yes or no to, completely guilt free? That’s a much better place to see holes in how you approach a situation.
Dr. Whitney: Tell everyone where we can find your podcast and your TedTalk.
Dr. Kerr: My website, jacquelinekerr.com, has links to all my things, including my podcast, Overcoming Working Mom Burnout, and my Ted Talk, How to Stop Burnout Before It Starts.
