As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, millions of professionals have to adapt to working from home. For many workers, stress and anxiety are at an all-time high. We offer some helpful tips to prevent burnout when working remotely.

Set and Maintain Boundaries

Your mental health will benefit from strong boundaries between personal and professional life. These boundaries are more challenging to maintain when working from home. It is a good idea to set up an official workstation, dress in work clothes every morning, and stick to a schedule if possible. Create some quiet space for yourself where you won’t be interrupted. You may need to establish a quiet time for an hour or more where you cannot be interrupted by housemates or children. For those who have children and other responsibilities, it might be harder to stick to a schedule. It helps to plan your day in advance and balance professional and familial responsibilities.

Stay Active

With millions of people contending with stay at home orders, activity levels are bound to be lower. However, physical activity is essential for reducing stress and keeping concentration high. Stay active! Take short walks around the block, do some yoga, or even just stand or walk around during phone calls. Sitting at a desk all day will quickly lead to burnout. It’s easy to get lost in your work when you work remotely. Set regular reminders on your phone to stand up and move around.

Prioritize Tasks

During this time, you’re likely to be juggling more responsibilities than you normally would. While you’re still performing your regular work, there are competing concerns for housework, and potentially a spouse or housemate working from home as well. And if children are involved you’ll be feeding and entertaining kids, and helping them with their remote-schooling. With so many things going on at home during a quarantine, focus on high-priority tasks. Homes are full of distractions. During this unique time, you may not be able to work as many hours. With all of your other responsibilities and these added distractions, you may only be truly productive for 4 to 6 hours a day, so make sure you focus on completing your highest priority tasks.

Most people in C-Level support are not used to working from home full-time, and even the ones who have experience working remotely aren’t used to having children and spouses at home with them or having the added stress of coping with an international health crisis. Be proactive to maintain your mental and physical health during these difficult times, so you don’t end up burning out.

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Job hunting in the area of C-Suite support can be challenging. The employment market is more competitive than ever before, and expectations are high. If you want to land the job that is right for you, you need to set yourself apart from the rest and make sure employers take notice of you. Here’s how to outsmart your job-seeking competitors.

Make Your Resume Stand Out

Given the number of resumes hiring managers read, it’s important to find ways to make your resume unique. When they get to the end of a pile, you want your resume to be the one they remember. First, design a resume that is eye-catching. Second, tailor the resume to the specific job for which you are applying. So many candidates submit generic resumes without taking the time to customize them to the role. Don’t make that mistake. Your resume should tell a story and showcase quantifiable ways your skills can benefit the employer.

Nail the First Impression

Managers make dozens of decisions and assumptions about you within the first minute of meeting you. You need to think about how you present yourself. Not only do you need to dress the part, you also need to have the right posture and attitude. Although entirely unfair, women are even more likely to be judged on appearances. In any case, you want people to see you and immediately think you’re professional, serious, and confident. If you show up late with your shoulders slumped, the employer will have a hard time envisioning you as a member of their team.

Think About the Questions You Ask

Don’t focus questions on pay, benefits, perks, etc. Ask questions that show you are genuinely interested in the company and want to bring value to the employer. Your questions should focus on company culture, company objectives, desired leadership qualities, career development, and performance expectations. If you focus on how the job will benefit you, the employer may question your motives.

Follow Up

Many of your job-seeking competitors will follow-up with the hiring manager after the interview by sending an email. You can help yourself standout by sending a handwritten note instead. A handwritten thank you note will feel more personal, while also sending a clear message to employers that you want the job. Plus, handwritten follow-ups are more memorable and will help you improve the overall impression the hiring manager has of you.

In a competitive job market, your goal should be to stand out from your job-seeking competitors. Make your resume memorable, your first impression positive, and intentions clear. You want the employer to know you are serious about working for them and that you have skills and qualities that will provide real value to the organization.

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Although major steps have been made toward gender equality over the past decade, women still face many obstacles in their professional lives. Women make up half of the workforce, yet it’s harder for them to find employment, earn raises, and land promotions. This is true in many fields and industries. Here are some of the most pervasive problems for women in the workforce.

Hiring Biases

A joint study by professors at Columbia University, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago revealed that two-thirds of hiring managers in the tech industry chose male candidates even if the female candidates performed the same or better than the male candidates. Similar studies showed the same bias is present in the sciences and in the corporate world. People of all genders have an unconscious bias toward men, assuming men are more competent than women even when they have no evidence to back it up.

Promotions

One of the biggest problems women face in the workplace is recognition. Female employees have to work harder than their male counterparts for their managers to publicly praise them. They are also overlooked for promotions. Many female professionals feel like they don’t have a fair opportunity to earn promotions, having noticed that their male colleagues often received promotions before them even if they have less experience.

Gender Pay Gap

On average, men are paid more than women for the same work, even when they have the same educational and professional background, work the same hours, and have the same responsibilities. Since men are often more likely to receive raises, the pay gap experienced often increases over time. A study by the WAGE Project suggests the average woman with a BA will receive a third of what a man with the same degree makes over the course of his career.

What Can Organizations Do?

First and foremost, companies should actively work on making their processes for hiring and promotions objective and unbiased. Many managers are unaware of the biases they have, so the best way to approach decisions is to leave no room for subjectivity. Companies can also establish mentorship programs for women in the workplace and be proactive in hiring women for leadership positions. Organizations with more diversity in their leadership tend to perform better, so it is a win-win situation.

Gender inequality is a huge challenge in contemporary work culture. In most fields, women are less likely than men to be hired or promoted. They also tend to receive less money than men for the same work. If companies want to attract and retain the best talent, they need to rethink their approach to gender equality and take clear steps to reduce bias in their practices.

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Countless articles have addressed one of the most important tasks given to senior leadership within any organization: the ability to identify the next generation of future leaders within the firm. We look for passionate individuals who wake up each day craving success and can channel that passion into actions and results. We seek out creative thinkers who are intensely curious, identifying those who naturally crave answers and alternative ways of approaching problems. The trait of true grit is valued within an organization. We respect those who have the strength to learn why they failed, what to do in the future to succeed, and the willpower to get back on the horse and try again.

Research on the topic reveals another crucial attribute as it relates to identifying future leaders: the stress test. Great leaders always seem to have the ability, at least in appearance, to remain calm during situations that make most of the general population fall to pieces.

Why the Stress Test?

Drama in the workplace is the enemy of productivity. Incessant venting can create an emotionally exhausting experience for all involved. Individuals who react, instead of respond, typically do not endear themselves to others within the team.

Alternatively, good leaders can keep cool even when the situation provokes an emotional reaction. But great leaders also help everyone else stay calm and contribute to the imminent situation and impending objectives. There is a difference between managing one’s self and managing the reactions of others, and the two don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

Within the workplace it is common for individuals to achieve promotions based on their commitment to personal success early in their careers. As individual contributors, they can produce more simply by doing more. They can choose to work harder and longer, and to be more productive. There is a tremendous amount of control and correlation with the relationship between effort and outcomes. When promoted into leadership, one suddenly becomes responsible for the work and success of others. Leaders’ efforts alone are often insufficient to achieve results, especially if they lack the coaching ability to adequately influence others. Thus, the stress test is relevant not only for one’s capacity to manage personal emotions, but also to transform the dynamic of the entire workplace.

Screening for Stress

It is commonly known that individuals put their best foot forward throughout the interviewing process – both applicants and hiring managers alike. When do you really get to know what is underneath the surface? What combination of behavioral-based interviewing questions and situational scenarios should we use in order to see a candidate’s true colors under stress? The subject of engaging a candidate in awkward situations in an interview is not widely accepted, likely for good reason. Sighing or interrupting candidates while they are talking, acting aloof and not paying attention, or repeating questions to see if someone gets frustrated doesn’t lend itself to an attraction-based recruitment strategy. Consider some of the following questions to evaluate aptitude:

• It doesn’t seem as though you have enough experience for this role. Tell me why you believe we should hire you, or why I’m wrong in my assessment.
• I don’t think I understand your answer. Can you please explain it differently?
• How would you handle putting in a couple hours of overtime after a busy, stressful day?
• Tell me about a time when you didn’t reach a goal. What happened, and what did you learn?
• How do you prevent a situation from getting too stressful to manage?
• What advice would you give to calm down a colleague who is stressed out about a deadline?
• How would you deal with frequent changes at work? Client expectations change, a deadline gets moved up, new inexperienced individuals joining the team, etc.
• How do you ensure that stressful situations in your personal life don’t affect your work performance?

Also worth noting is the dynamic between a personality type and the ability to cope comfortably with change or pressure. Some individuals are wired to embrace bold new ideas and the bigger picture, believing that risks are worth taking and love a challenge. Others are pragmatic, drawn by data and facts, and to whom details matter. Although the former may be naturally wired to deal with stress easier than the latter, it is possible to teach a key component of stress management: detachment. Teach individuals to avoid negative self-talk, the “what if” rabbit holes, and to slow down and breathe. It is possible to coach emotional stability, allowing employees to understand how to view a situation with a healthy level of detachment, process what is happening around them, and take helpful and purposeful action.

On the Brink of Burnout

Improving stress management capabilities is one thing but bringing employees to the brink of burnout is another. Create a healthy balance between high achievement and high enjoyment. Be spontaneous. This could be as simple as rearranging office furniture or hosting an impromptu casual lunch gathering. Instead of your next brainstorming meeting being conducted in the office, take a walk instead. You may be surprised as to how the creative moments can flow in a more relaxed setting. Ask individuals what they think. You do not always need to implement their input, but people want the opportunity to be heard. Know their personal and professional goals for the year and take responsibility for helping them achieve at least one or two of them yourself. Make progress on helping uncover the future potential of each player on your team. They put their careers in your hands and it is a responsibility, as a leader, that we should take seriously.

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