The days of wearing badge of honours are slowly fading away.
This was evident when a panel moderated by Thrive Global Founder and CEO Arianna Huffington recently at Fortune’s Brainstorm Health Conference showed some of America’s top bosses are leading the charge.
Arianna was joined by Barry Sommers, CEO of Wealth Management at JP Morgan Chase, Chip Bergh, CEO and President of Levi Strauss, and Deborah DiSanzo, general manager of IBM Watson Health.
The panel discussed how they model healthy workplace behaviour within their companies, embracing methods like meditation, exercise and email boundaries to improve employees’ well-being.
People 'are obsessed with how many hours people work' on Wall Street, said Sommers, adding that employees are 'getting out of there as fast as they can because they’re totally burnt out.'
Sommers adopted meditation a decade ago and been meditating twice a day for 20 minutes ever since. He also aims for eight hours of sleep a night, something that 'goes completely against mainstream assumption that JP Morgan is the boiler room of burnout,' Huffington pointed out.
Bergh said that the whole human driver performance. As a triathlon and marathon runner, he encourages his employees to introduce exercise into their normal routines.
He also sets an example by making it clear when he leaves the office during lunch to work out.
Practicing what you preach at the top was a common theme during the discussion.
DiSanzo said, 'I try to make a habit of not emailing on the weekend,' in hopes that her team will model the same behaviour.
It is important that the movement comes from the top down in an organisation to show that they are truly committed to making their employees happier and healthier.
While there is still a long way to erase the burnout culture, the panel discussion was a sign that the things are moving in a positive way.
Courtesy: www.journal.thriveglobal.com
