What is burnout? And why is it so prevalent in HR?

Join host Stacey Nordwall and special guests Julie Turney and Stephanie Lemek for a deep dive into HR burnout - an issue that has become critical for the field.

Drawing insights from Emily and Amelia Nagoski's book "Burnout," the conversation goes beyond the oversimplified notion that burnout is just feeling tired or can be fixed with a long weekend. Instead, they explore how burnout represents a biological stress cycle that needs proper completion, discussing concepts like "Human Giver Syndrome" and the unique challenges faced by HR professionals who are often expected to maintain endless empathy while managing their own stress.

The episode critically examines why HR practitioners are particularly vulnerable to burnout, exploring factors like the isolation of the role, the expectation of constant emotional labor, and the tension between doing what's right and what's organizationally possible. They also challenge conventional burnout prevention advice, critiquing surface-level solutions like "take advantage of company benefits" or "have meeting blackout days" in favor of more systemic approaches.

Whether you're an HR professional feeling overwhelmed by increasing demands and limited resources, or a leader looking to better support your HR team, this episode offers both validation and practical strategies for addressing burnout in the human resources field. The discussion particularly resonates in a post-pandemic context, where HR roles have faced greater demands while often being first in line for resource cuts.

Connect with Stephanie:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanielemek/

At her website: https://www.thewoundedworkforce.com/

Connect with Julie:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamjulieturney/

At her website: https://www.hratheart.com/

Connect with Stacey:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceynordwall/

Articles and book:

Beyond burnout: Why changing how we talk about employee well-being could help solve it
Half of HR report burnout, wanting renewed job focus
Why HR leaders are struggling to retain their own team members.
8 Surprising HR Burnout Statistics in 2025.
Burnout

Chapters

• 5:14 Statistics on Burnout and HR
• 18:13 What is Burnout + Book Discussion
• 40:49 What could have made the Burnout Book better
• 52:44 Addressing and preventing Burnout

Transcript

Stacey Nordwall (00:00:00):

Welcome to Toot or Boot, where each week we talk about news related to HR and the world of work. Each week I'm joined by guests and we tooth the news we like and boot the news we don't like. I'm your host, Stacey Nordwall, a serial joiner of early stage tech companies as their first in or only HR person. And joining us today, we have Julie and Stephanie. Before we dive in, I want to address what I will call the dulcet tones in the room, which are that I do have a cold, but I am okay. And this cold was not enough to stop me from being in this conversation today, which I have been looking forward to over the last month since I got Julie and Stephanie to join this episode about burnout. I've had the pleasure of meeting them both in person and following them both on LinkedIn and seeing the absolute tremendous work that they're doing in the HR community. So I'm very stoked about today. For those listening who don't know you, let's start with some introductions. Julie, could you tell folks a bit about yourself?

Julie Turney (00:01:08):

Sure. Hi everyone. My name is Julie Turney and I am a former corporate HR professional, now HR consultant, HR coach. And I now spend my time supporting HR professionals who are struggling with burnout and the symptoms of burnout as well as workplace trauma. I'm also an author and my book is called Confessions of an HR Pro, stories of Defeat and Triumph. And I also host a podcast show called HR Sound Off where we demystify or debunk a lot of the challenges that we face in HR because real or not to others, they are very real to us. And outside of that, I am a Barbadian. I live in Barbados for the most part, but I was born in the UK and I have Barbadian and Jamaican roots and UK roots. I'm a mom and I'm a wife and loving the work that I'm doing now. I wish that I had done it sooner, but hey, such is life. We're here now. That's the most important thing.

Stacey Nordwall (00:02:18):

Fabulous. Thank you so much. I like the full picture of who you are and I feel like we don't do that enough when we're doing our intros. Stephanie, could you tell folks about yourself?

Stephanie Lemek (00:02:31):

Absolutely. First of all, can I just say what a pinch me moment it is to have my name mentioned in the same sentence as Julie's. Oh my gosh, I met her in person last year finally, and I, if you picture someone having an absolute fan girl moment, that was me. That was me with Julie. So this is just such an honor. My name is Stephanie Lemek. I'm a former HR executive, spent about 16 years and I like to say in every role from intern to head of HR and every kind of organization from big Fortune 500 company to fun little scrappy startups. So I've seen a lot as most of us have as HR professionals. About three years ago, a story, perhaps we'll talk about it a little bit here as we talk about burnout, but a story many HR professionals experienced during and post covid experienced some burnout, experienced reckoning with my own career and what was important to me.

(00:03:33):

So I decided to go out on my own. One of the unexpected joys of going out on my own doing HR consulting has been founding my organization called the Wounded Workforce. And the Wounded Workforce is dedicated to building trauma-informed workplaces and advocating for mental health in all sorts of workplaces, all sorts of avenues. So I am so thrilled to be able to contribute to this conversation. A little bit about me personally. I live in Phoenix, Arizona now, so yes, I'm Cosplaying Winter in this sweater. I am originally from Omaha, Nebraska. I live with my husband and our two very noisy chihuahuas, so hopefully they don't decide to make a cameo today. And I have two teenage stepdaughters as well.

Stacey Nordwall (00:04:21):

All right, awesome. So after all of that, y'all can tell why I am very excited about today and why I think we are going to, we're going to really benefit from the knowledge of Julie and Stephanie as we're talking about burnout. So I want to start with why are we even talking about burnout? I think part of that, Stephanie alluded to the demands of HR became so much greater during the pandemic, and we were also, often some of our roles were some of the first targeted for layoffs, which meant even fewer resources for those who remained on top of budget constraints, all of which just stretched people in the industry even further. And that is very clearly seen in the statistics that have come out about HR in the past few years. I'll share a few of those. I saw recently from HR executive, they said HR professionals suffer from higher burnout and turnover rates than professionals in other fields.

(00:05:19):

The turnover rate, they said for HR was 15% worldwide compared to an 11% average for other job functions from HR magazine. They said 52% of HR professionals experienced burnout in the past five years, and 34% are considering leaving the industry. And some statistics from people's fears. They said 95% of HR leaders find working in HR to be overwhelming due to excessive workload and stress with 84% frequently experiencing stress and 81% reporting burnout. They've also said 90% identify budgets as a top challenge, which is not too surprising. And 91% acknowledge that there's really been a significant transformation in HR in our roles. So that's why I wanted to get together with these folks who I really admire the work that they're doing around mental health and HR community to talk about burnout in our industry. I had like, let's start with Stephanie. Is there anything I mentioned that surprises or particularly resonates with you in what I just said? Those statistics.

Stephanie Lemek (00:06:30):

I mean, unfortunately, no, it is not surprising. When I reflect back on my own in-house HR career, I probably the most exacerbated moment of burnout for me was certainly during the Covid-19 pandemic. And if we unpack all of the things that were going on during that time period, in addition to all of the things that have continued to go on. But there were moments throughout my career, even when I was in huge HR teams for big companies where the feeling of being an HR professional was just intensely lonely. I have this very early memory from when I first started doing HR where we were going through a period of layoffs and I was laying off other HR team members personally. And it's just such a unique position that I think so few people recognize how draining that is from an emotional standpoint for HR professionals, whether it is your colleague laying you off or being that colleague who has to deliver that news.

Stacey Nordwall (00:07:47):

Julie, was there anything that surprised or resonated with you particularly?

Julie Turney (00:07:55):

Definitely no surprises there for me, resonate everything. I think in harmony with what Stephanie said, I think from my own personal journey, I've worked with organizations where I've been a department of one. I've worked in organizations where I've been a team of 40. I've worked with organizations where I've been a team of five, and so I know each of them has their own complexities and their own challenges. But as we talk about this thing called burnout in this place that we call HR or this profession that we call HR, I think there are so many variables that people are not aware of that happen in our space that people need to become more cognizant and open to understanding that when it comes to recruiting an HR professional, what you're really asking us to do, I find a lot of times for us in this space, we exist in this thing called the Gray Zone, where there's the things that we know we're supposed to do as HR professionals, and there's the things that organizations impose on us because they don't know where else to put it.

(00:09:20):

So they put it in hr and because we don't know how to say no, we will do it. But I know that, for example, in my HR career, there are times where immigration has fallen on me to help migrate expats into the country. Is that really an HR thing? Of course not. There's nowhere in any HR certification that says that immigration relocation of families sits within the HR space, more of an admin thing, but does it sit with hr? Sometimes we end up in this black hole, or we're actually dealing with things like as we relocate them, finding their housing, finding schools for their children. There's so many black holes that end up being put into this space called hr. And so there's the sheer lack of understanding of what it is that we're supposed to do that then increases upon the workload that we end up doing.

(00:10:24):

The emotional intelligence, as Stephanie said, that is required for us to do the work that we do requires high emotional intelligence and high emotional intelligence. That means that we expend our energies so much, and as a result of that, it can leave us feeling very drained, but also traumatized, right? Because we're carrying other people's trauma and their stories that are not ours really to tell, but they're still ours that we are burdened with. And so when you have all of these things compiled with performance management and employee relations and compensation and learning and development, when you have all of those things just falling in your space, then you're going to burn out over time because it's not sustainable to do all of those things as a department, one or two in any organization.

Stacey Nordwall (00:11:24):

I felt all of that very deeply. I was like, oh, I feel like I'm not even breathing, because that's bringing me back to some of the situations that I've been in.

Julie Turney (00:11:36):

Oh, that means we need to complete some stress cycles there, Stacey,

Stacey Nordwall (00:11:44):

And even as you were talking too, I think as both of you're saying this, I'm thinking that's us in isolation. That's just our role. That's not even our whole other lives, our whole other identities, every other thing in how we're interacting with the world, that's just that sliver. Yeah, that's not even our whole being. So that's a lot.

Julie Turney (00:12:14):

Absolutely. You think of who we are as human beings. Your entire human being is made up of you being a mother, a daughter. Daughter, you're mother or you're someone's sister or brother. If you're a male in hr, someone's cousin. And then on top of that, you are a member of a community. The neighborhood that you live in, you're a member of that community, your friends with so many people. If you go to church, then you're a part of a congregation. There's so many things before you are an HR professional in an organization, and then tied to all of those things is your lived experiences, right?

Julie Turney (00:13:04):

So it's just so much. Yes, Stephanie,

Stephanie Lemek (00:13:07):

I love that you pointed this out because I think so often HR professionals get the singular identity within an organization, and we all kind of know what I'm talking about. I think I'm kind of fun. I think I have a great sense of humor, and yet somehow, oh, HR is here in the break room and it's like, I worked with you for two years. What in the world is this? It's this really weird set of expectations we get. It's almost like this HR costume gets put on us, not by ourselves, but by the people we spend so much time with in our workplaces. And it's a really weird feeling. It can be isolating, it can be othering. And then on top of that, I also think with we, I love the black hole analogy. Anytime anything has to deal with people, it's like, oh, and no one wants to do it.

(00:14:10):

Oh, hr. It's like, well, most of our companies, inherently everything is people. Everything can't be up to us. If you would like it to be, let us know and let's have the budget and all the other things align. But there's also this expectation of perfection that I think is unspoken with all of those things where because it has to deal with our people, it becomes really high stakes and this expectation of perfection, I think it's very unspoken, but I think it's underlying so much of what HR professionals are doing because it's perfection in how we're interacting with people. It's also perfection in processes and systems that we are responsible for, and it adds up to a pretty heavy weight.

Stacey Nordwall (00:15:05):

And I feel like part of what you're saying there too, it's that expectation. And I think I saw someone talking recently on LinkedIn about the idea that HR has this mask on. I think sometimes there's an expectation that we have a mask on because we need to show up into situations in a certain way, and that might not be how we're feeling in that moment. We might be dealing with our own stress or trauma or any of those things, but we're expected to show up in a certain way, and that's an additional level of dissonance or tension or stress that we might be carrying on top of this expectation of perfection or how we must be or how we are perceived within an organization. So that's a lot to carry for just people trying to do jobs to help the organization

Stephanie Lemek (00:16:02):

Make a living, do their job. Yeah, wild. Right? I remember, this is a really sad story, but this is probably one of the most visceral moments of just is this seriously what I'm supposed to do in this job? One of our senior leaders passed away, and I was on vacation and the senior leader had passed away, and I found out obviously right away and started trying to navigate that. And that same day I found out I was fielding phone calls from people jockeying to fill that person's position. And I was devastated. This person passed away and at the same time need to navigate someone calling and being like, well, blah, blah, blah, this and that. When I just wanted to scream, are you freaking kidding me? It was incredibly challenging. And I think while it may not be the exact same type of conversation, I think HR professionals are navigating this sense of extreme emotion because part of the reason we are drawn to the work we're doing is because we care deeply, often, and then needing to kind of pull into the state of numb professionalism or whatever you want to call it. And it is painful. And even with years passing, reflecting on that story, it still brings up a lot of emotions, a lot of pain. For me, just thinking about it.

Stacey Nordwall (00:17:49):

And I think to your point, that's the kind of context shifting, maybe not to that level, but that context shifting that folks are doing on the daily within HR. So I want to talk more specifically about, we kind of got into what are all the reasons why this role is particularly stressful, but we're not necessarily talking about stress, we're talking about burnout and what burnout is. And we often hear it framed as just stress, feeling really tired. I'm feeling overworked. Or if it's something that if you just take a long weekend or you take a week off, then your burnout will be fixed. But we know that's not the case, and we know that burnout is about a chronically experienced stress that leads to just physical, mental, emotional exhaustion. And there's so much more to burnout than even this general definition. I think this is part of why Julie and I connected when you post about on LinkedIn about the burnout book by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. And for me, yes. For me, that book really expanded my understanding of what burnout was and why I felt the way I felt, especially because sometimes I was thinking, looking at my workload like, okay, but I've managed my workload. I've figured it out, so why am I still feeling so exhausted? Why do I still feel so burnt out? So Julie, how do you think about burnout after reading this book and through all the work that you've been doing with HR folks?

Julie Turney (00:19:27):

Yeah, this book confirmed so much for me when it comes to burnout. I already knew what burnout was because thank God I had amazing doctors who were able to help me understand what I was going through in the years that I was dealing with my burnout journey. But the book really helped me to understand things about me that therapy years of therapy maybe didn't do for me. It really did close a lot of gaps and a lot of cycles for me. So for example, the book talks about something called the human Giver Syndrome, and I'd never heard about the human giver syndrome before I read this book. And I think a lot of HR people who go into HR are just that they are human givers. And one of the ways that it describes it, do you mind if I read it? Because I feel like the book does it so much better than I do.

(00:20:28):

But it says that the human givers are expected to offer their time, attention, affection, and bodies willingly placidly to the other class of people, which are the human beings or human takers. And the implication on these terms is that human beings have a moral obligation to be or express their humanity while human givers have a moral obligation to give their humanity to the human beings. And most women are human givers, and the HR profession is full of women more so than men. So it's a predominantly female profession. So human givers, it says must at all times, be pretty calm, be happy, generous, and attentive to the needs of others, which means they must never be ugly, never be angry, never be upset, never be ambitious or attentive to their own needs. And I find a lot of this is what compiles our burnout for us as HR professionals, because heaven forbid if we ever tell someone no, whether it's an employee who wants a leader that wants to, heaven forbid if we say no, because then we're seeing what are we seen as, right?

(00:21:50):

Heaven forbid we say that it's something that's not in our bandwidth or we don't have the capacity to do it, right? Heaven forbid if someone is down and we're down, we're having a bad day, and we behave or display the feelings of what that bad day is having for us. But heaven forbid we do that when someone is not okay. Right? Heaven forbid we say we're not okay. Heaven forbid we say we're overworked or overloaded, heaven forbid we say no. Right? And so I think a lot of all of this is what compounds this thing that we call burnout. There are two pieces to this. There's burnout that you've experienced in your current job. There's burnout that you've experienced in other jobs that you've not completed the stress cycle on. And so you've carried that stress from one job to the next, to the next to the next.

(00:22:47):

And so your compounded stress is not just tied to the work that you're doing, which is part of what you were saying, right? You've got your job under control in this job, but what about all the other times you didn't and you never completed the stress cycle or dealt with those. And so you've got all of this compounded stress, which is building your burnout, because burnout is not a one day event. It's not a one month event. It's happening over time. And so sometimes it could take years for you to build up and have some kind of episode that brings you to the point of recognizing this is burnout. Then your healing journey could take years too. Just recognizing that all of these things, this book really helped me to put all of those things together and be like, wow, it closed so much for me. And it helps me to recognize that the work that I do is definitely necessary, because I don't think as hr, we clock this and that's why we're stuck in this situations we're stuck in, and that's why we have all of this undefined or unsure black hole of nothingness of Why do I feel this way? What does this really mean?

Stacey Nordwall (00:24:10):

Yeah. And one of the things that came up for me as you were saying that is there's almost an expectation that HR folks arrive as an empty vessel. There's nothing there. It's all, everyone can pour into it or pour into it or pour into it, but that's not reality.

Julie Turney (00:24:30):

Nope. Definitely not. But yeah, I highly recommend if you've never read that book, go get it. This book really, I've read so many burnout books before, but when you read a book that Brene Brown says is a must read, you got to read it.

Stacey Nordwall (00:24:50):

Yeah. I think for me, I mean, part of what made it impactful as well was I think that I'm very in my head a lot, and this book is about being more so in the body or recognizing how everything that you're experiencing is being held in your body. And that was one of the main things that it triggered for me was you can't think your way out of it. Your body is holding on to all of that. Your body is experiencing it. Just because you have resolved a challenging conversation with someone and thought your way through it doesn't mean that your body has done that and has completed the cycle. And that was one of the big realizations for me was how much over years as you're saying, my body had been holding onto. And one of the things I distinctly remember at work, someone had said to me, you sigh a lot. And I was like, oh, I am like, oh, okay, oops. And I finally was like, I got to get something to help me manage the stress and anxiety. Talked to a psychiatrist and I mentioned this to them, and she said, you're not breathing. Your level of stress and anxiety is so high. Your body is essentially forcing you to take deep breaths, and that's why you're sighing. And that just blew my mind, Stephanie, and I know you've been wanting to say something.

Julie Turney (00:26:40):

I was just saying I feel that I was saying it was putting my hand to my chest because I'm feeling that so much because I remember coming towards the end of my corporate HR career, I remember one day my CFO passing the door to my office and he said, do you know I've passed here five times and every time I pass, I've heard you let out the biggest sigh I've ever heard. And then I came home from work and my husband said to me, you sigh a lot. My husband recognized it, my kids recognized it. My CFO recognized it. And I was like, and it is only after going to therapy, I realized there are certain moments that have stressed me right out, like pull your hair out that I've recognized. I've never, I've stopped breathing in that moment because you don't know what else to do, right?

(00:27:40):

The stress is so much. And then I let out the biggest sigh. So that totally resonated with me for a moment. But it also, again, this book also helped me to realize, it talks about recognizing that releasing the stress cycle should be as simple as breathing. It's not a tick the box exercise. So it's a physiological shift. It's a shift in your body and in your intention, your mindset. And so you recognize that your burnout journey starts with you and ends with you. It's not about the work, it's about you first. What values have you let go of that have put you in this state? What have you allowed people to do to you? How have you trained people to treat you versus how you really need to be treated? And so it really makes you start to look within a lot, cry a lot to be able to move yourself forward. But I felt that side thing because yeah, I've had that.

Stephanie Lemek (00:28:56):

I am worried. No one told me I was sighing a lot. Now you're afraid to tell me when you bring up. So I did. I read the book Burnout about a month ago. I have thoughts, I'm going to hold onto 'em first for a second, but when you talk about the human giver, I thought that was very interesting. And to me it sounded a lot like a trauma response. And so a lot of times when we're talking about a trauma response or being triggered or activated, whatever terminology you prefer, it is your body, your physical body experiencing a callback to a previous traumatic experience. So again, your mind, your body, they get a little out of sync. And common trauma responses oftentimes, and you've heard this before, fight or flight is what people always think about. So you are feeling threatened somehow. You're going to either fight your way out or you're going to flee.

(00:29:55):

But this is actually quite common, especially for women, is some other trauma responses, Freeze and Fawn and Fawn, the Fawn trauma response I refer to as the People Pleaser trauma response. And it is, how can I reshape myself, how I'm appearing my behavior to placate this threat? And when we think about, and we especially think about adverse childhood experience or childhood traumas, those things that happen that create this inherent experience of perhaps a fond trauma response for some of us that people pleasing can be deeply connected to previous experiences of trauma. So if we aren't able to do the work around understanding when we're triggered understanding like, wow, this is weird. Why am I behaving this way in this moment? It can be really hard to understand and appreciate how this is kind of snowballing or creating this cycle where it becomes much, much easier to land and burnout. I also think something that's really interesting, and I can't wait for someone much smarter than me to do a research study on this, but I think the rates of secondary trauma and compassion fatigue

(00:31:23):

In our modern workplace and just in our modern society overall are much higher than we realize. And just to give folks a quick explanation of what I'm talking about. So secondary trauma is the idea that you are absorbing others' emotional pain. So you are experiencing witnessing hearing stories about someone's own traumatic experience. And the physiological impacts of that are the same as having experienced that trauma yourself. Compassion fatigue is a little bit different. It is, I like to call it emotional exhaustion, but that constant exposure to all of these terrible things, terrible stories, terrible images, kind of leaves you unable to absorb anything else. It's like a full sponge, and there is nothing left for you to feel. And what's interesting is when we look at secondary trauma and compassion fatigue and how it manifests, its emotional numbness or detachment, increased cynicism or feeling ineffective, physical exhaustion, mental fog, withdrawal from work life, personal life.

(00:32:39):

These are very similar if not the same as burnout. So I'm big believer that secondary trauma, compassion fatigue are fueling burnout for professionals. And then you think about HR professionals, some of the conversations we're having about FMLA, about layoffs, about the challenges going on in the world about people's emotions they're bringing to the workplace investigations, and then also layering on just in general our society. We have 24 7 unfettered access to all of the traumatic and terrible experiences of our world through social media, through news. So I am a firm believer these unaddressed issues of secondary trauma and compassion fatigue are really fueling these feelings of burnout for many people, but especially for HR professionals as well.

Julie Turney (00:33:34):

I want to toot that. So there was a study done sometime back, I can't remember when, but I remember reading the study and it did show that when you think about, so burnout is the outcome is the outcome of repeated stress, but it also includes compassion, fatigue and trauma. And so it's those three things coming together that brings you the eventuality, which is burnout. So just as you said, the reason why HR professionals feel that the most, as Stephanie said, is because we are experiencing all of those things all at once. So when you think about first responders, first responders experience all of this as well. So if you think about your doctors, your nurses, your fire, fire responders, firefighters, and then you think about also they even include attorneys, right? So I'm thinking if you can include attorneys, you should also include HR professionals.

(00:34:43):

I honestly think if you can include attorneys, you should include HR professionals. So this is what was the summary of my TED talk a couple years back where I talked about HR being the hidden first responders in the organization because that is exactly what we are. When something goes wrong, we're the first responders to the situation. Covid organizations, were looking towards HR to give us an answer. The fires in California that happen every single year, there's some kind of activity that's happening in the organization to how we're going to support employees. The response to removing DEI initiatives and organizations that are intentional about let's keep these, what are the conversations they're having in those moments? And the response to all economic crisis as they happen in our environment all impact how we as HR respond to support the people. Because that's what we're about. We're not just sitting in our organizations going, who do we hire today?

(00:35:55):

Who do we fire today? That's not what we're doing. The best HR people are, how do I keep my people happy at work? What's happening in my world right now in my industry, in my organization? So we get very linear and also very granular about how these things are impacting our people. And so because of that, so many things are keeping us up at night about how do we keep people happy at work? And then in addition to that, if we are the people who people trust, there's so much we know. There's so much we know from a leadership perspective that no one else can know. So even if we have a team, we can't even tell our team until it is time to trigger something. So it means sometimes you're sitting on information for months about team members and departments. Let's not forget, there's also the fact that we sit in spaces where conversations happen that make us even question how these people leading, getting all this money

(00:37:07):

When we're the ones who are either giving answers or support to help them communicate things across the organization. So when you think about how intense the work that we do from an HR perspective is that it's so much more than hiring and firing all of that trauma. And it doesn't have to be big trauma, but it could be small trauma. So I want to give you an so we all know the small traumas, but I also want to tell you the big traumas, right? I've sat in organizations where I've experienced employees who have been raped, who have experienced some form of domestic violence, but I always remember one of my HR colleagues who I admire immensely, Dr. Khalilah Olokunola, and I remember Khalilah when K and I first met the organization she was working with hired specifically employees who had been to jail. So she worked with convicts, right?

(00:38:16):

That's who she hired active gang members. And in her organization, they even had a hotline to support families of active gang members. And I remember Khalilah sharing with me three experiences where she was organizing organization events or team events where gunfire actually happened in her presence with her family. And so there are HR professionals who are out there doing work from a humanitarian perspective who are trying to give people a second chance and are experiencing things at a very violent level. And so when you take all of those things into consideration, everybody's not sitting in an organization that is sunshine and roses. Everyone's not sitting in an organization where the leadership team fully supports them. Many of us are sitting in organizations where we have to fight for simple things like an HRIS system or an HS system or an LMS system, or to even fight for having to be able to engage Stephanie and talk about mental wellbeing in the workplace. Because there are a lot of leaders who believe that mental wellbeing is fluff fluff and, and it's just something HR is imposing on employees. So if you talk about mental health, you're going to make the employees think they have mental health issues when they don't,

Stephanie Lemek (00:39:50):

Right? We're going to manifest them somehow. One of our secret powers we didn't know

Julie Turney (00:39:56):

About. It's crazy. And so when you are working with leadership like that, how can you not be stressed, right? Leadership who thinks that these things are airy fairy and make no sense whatsoever. And so you're constantly in this fight or flight in your own job fight. And then, my God, imagine if you're in fight or flight in your own life, day-to-day life, right?

Stephanie Lemek (00:40:25):

I want to talk more about this book, the Burnout book, since you brought up some of this. So I brought this out. I realize I pulled this on screen quite cryptically. So there are things about this book I want to toot, but then there's also a really big thing about this book. I've got a boot.

(00:40:46):

I know I'm get ready. Alright. So I really love some of the data, the science behind this. I especially like the embodiment of our burnout of our trauma. It's very true. If someone wants to get super duper technical with me, polyvagal theory and the autonomic nervous system, this makes understanding that much more accessible. So toot all about that and some of the action items you can take from it. Even right behind me, I've got my polyvagal flip chart. So I love that. I always love making sure, understanding that mind body connection, especially when it comes to carrying trauma or those bad experiences in our body. I love it when that's more accessible. Where I've got a boot, this book is, this is an incredibly gendered book. This is a book for women. And I wanted it to say that if this book said a book for women and burnout, I would feel different about it.

(00:41:49):

Here's my beef with it. I think this had an opportunity to be much more intersectional and address some of the specific things that yes, there are specific things that women face and experience in our lives that help contribute more specifically to burnout. I would argue you could talk about that when you talk about a person of color, an individual with a disability. You could also talk about that when someone is a veteran and how those experiences may contribute more specifically to burnout. And also I think a really interesting conversation we're missing out on by not making this conversation a bit more intersectional is some of the unique things about men and men's experience and how the appropriate level of masculinity can actually lend itself to burnout as well. So I think for me, that was a missing piece for this. Listen, I won't ever tell anyone not to pick up the book.

(00:42:46):

I think it can be a fabulous resource for folks. But in terms of holistically addressing burnout, this was a miss for me. If you're really interested in learning more about men burnout, psychology, this book, the Psychology of Men in Context, yes, I own this book. I know whatever, very interesting and also can kind dive in to some of those different things that may be contributing to how burnout can impact men and different factors like, hey, you got to be working for providing gear for your family. All these different things can feed burnout for men as well. Really, I think that that was a myth and that would've been a great opportunity. I think I would be going crazy with my toots if that had happened.

(00:43:31):

One thing also I want to call out specifically why I think it's important to boot this aspect of the book is I think when we talk about burnout, when we talk about mental health challenges, when we talk about trauma and specifically automatically put the lens of women around it, I think we devalue it unintentionally. We make it a women's problem when it isn't. It isn't everyone challenge. And so I think we unintentionally kind of increased stigma around access to mental health support for men, for non-binary individuals, for other genders. And I want us to stop doing that. And on top of it, the way it's written is giving me that girl boss energy. So I think this is a book I think for women who want to read and understand about their burnout. I too it in that aspect. But in terms of holistically addressing burnout, I think it's super important for us to look at it in a more intersectional way and understand how different sets of expectations we have in our society, different experiences can lend themselves to contributing to burnout and how we can recover from it as well.

Julie Turney (00:44:50):

That's fair. That's fair.

Speaker 5 (00:44:55):

Brene Brown is going to be so mad at me. Oh my gosh, I don't think so.

Julie Turney (00:45:00):

I don't think so. Like I said, I think that when you read a book, any book that you take from it what you need, and then every book is going to leave you with something that's going to be like how this could have been done better.

Julie Turney (00:45:16):

Do agree with you that I think I learned so much about myself in reading this book. Where I would add a boot to this book is I would say, how do you spark the conversation to raise awareness so that people better understand this thing that we call burnout and how it impacts us in the workplace. I think it is very easy. This book is all about you. So number one, raising your awareness around burnout, how it shows up in your body, things that you can do to help yourself, because I do believe that the burnout journey does start from within. You need to come to grips with the fact number one that you're burned out. Number two, that you do have the power to do something about it.

(00:46:08):

I do agree that the conversation could be more well-rounded, but I would say, how do I even spark or start that conversation? So I do kind of like the storyline around the book, how it took us through this conversation that was happening between these two women and how they were navigating their journey and understanding things a little bit better. But I do think it could have helped us with how do we now move this conversation from us as women to men or to the organization and how do we educate the organization? So I feel like it may even need a crash course or a masterclass on burnout could follow it, right? But that's, like I said, every book you read is going to have some things that you're going to like, some things that you're not going to like or ways that you think it could be better. But I do think that moving the conversation forward for me would've been another helpful piece for the book.

Stephanie Lemek (00:47:07):

Absolutely. And I love your point about we kind of take what resonates for us in the moment with the book. I mentioned I read the book a month ago because I think that's important context. I read the book a month ago and I had already read this. So for context, this is work that I've been knee deep in for a while, and that is where this, we really missed an opportunity here is coming up for me or someone just beginning to explore burnout, really diving into their own experience. That's where I'm like, yes, absolutely. Pick up this book. I think it can be great for you. I will also offer, this book did make me deeply paranoid about getting an impacted colon for some reason. So that whole storyline was like,

Speaker 5 (00:47:55):

Wait a minute. I'm concerned now. This was not something that I needed to worry about, but now I'm like sipping on my water, dehydrated, dehydrated my deed.

Stephanie Lemek (00:48:12):

Good lord. And this was the second time I'd heard about that because I think it's Allie Wong, the comedian  talks about the same thing happening to her. And I'm like, what is going on? So fair warning, if you do pick up the book, the reasons I booted it for the opportunity around being a little bit more intersectional or inclusive. Also, you might get really paranoid about getting an impact impacting colon. So there’s that, but Julie wasn't prepared for that to be a main takeaway for me. I'm up at night reading about this,

Julie Turney (00:48:54):

Stephanie, I have to say I'm never ready for you even when I think I am. I'm not you talking about trauma, talking about impacted colons. You never know.

Stacey Nordwall (00:49:09):

Yeah. You're reminding me when my first interaction with the book, when I first read it, I was in this was, I don't know, I mean it was pre pandemic. And a friend of mine who is a therapist, we were in a bookstore together and she was just like, you need to read this book basically how it happened. And I looked at, I'm like, okay, all right. And so when I read it at that moment, it was, I'm seeing everything that I'm experiencing and I was deep in being in burnout in that at that point. So for me, and I did recognize even at the time, they're like, okay, this isn't fully, they dipped the toe in on intersectionality. I think they didn't fully go into it, but it was so just opening my eyes to the things that I was experiencing where I wasn't quite connecting the dots. And so I really at that, I needed that in that moment. I needed that kind of recognition to be seen, to be validated, to kind of say, I think we get this way sometimes, or am I really experiencing, what am I experiencing? Am I crazy? Am I not seeing this accurately? And it was kind of this validation of you are seeing this accurately. This is real. And for me, that was really powerful in that moment. I needed to have that kind of understanding and that validation.

Stephanie Lemek (00:50:49):

And they have a little workbook too, and I actually really love this workbook and I'm going to toot the workbook where I had some beef a little with the book. The workbook is great because I think this is truly about that sense of self-awareness, that sense of, okay, like you said, Stacey, I'm validated now, how can I actually practice some of this? And I think it takes things that I mentioned are kind of technical, like polyvagal theory and it makes it super accessible and you can be just like, oh my gosh, I'm so burnt out. You can pick this up and write your origin story for 40 minutes and you can do these activities. And I think that is really helpful. I think that diving into that sense of self-awareness where you're at, what we can do, especially I was able to do that with a licensed clinical therapist. I was able to do that through therapy. When we look at the accessibility challenge around therapy, I love tools like this because it just takes a barrier for you to do some of that work yourself. When therapy is out of reach, whether it is a financial burden or just accessibility, there aren't enough therapists, there's not enough therapists of color, there's not enough intersectionality within the actual practice of mental healthcare. So I love that there is a tool that you can just kind of pick up or 20 bucks and start to take action. I think that that's really meaningful.

Stacey Nordwall (00:52:33):

So that for me is a good segue because I want us to also get into talking about how can HR folks in particular prevent and address burnout. For me, this is where I got frustrated with some of the articles that I had sent for us all to review, and I wanted to just boot. I was like, boot, boot, boot, boot it all. Because I felt like the recommendations that they gave for how to prevent or address burnout, they weren't practical to me or particularly helpful. For example, in the HR executive article that we read, which was why HR leaders are struggling to retain their own team members, they said, okay, well you could remind the team to take advantage of company benefits, have meeting blackout days, create external HR communities and tell them to interview at another company. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Not that.

Stephanie Lemek (00:53:31):

What would you do if your boss is like, Hey, you can go interview at other companies. I would crash out. Are you kidding me?

Stacey Nordwall (00:53:38):

Well, I know it's that old Laslo Bach advice of everyone should always be interviewing. And I'm thinking to myself, none of these things are necessarily bad things to do in general, but in hr, when you are already stressed, burnt out, you don't have time or energy. These things don't seem practical to me. Finding jobs to interview for takes time and energy. Having meeting blackout day is cool. That's not how HR works generally. You don't get to say, oh, I'm not having any meetings, nobody come talk to me today. This is not really practical. So for me it was like, I understand, or I think in the People Spheres article, they kind of said, oh, we really need to get adequate resources. Yeah, no shit man. I would love magic wand, right? Oh, if I had only known to ask, it felt so ridiculous and silly to me that, and yeah, I booted them all. So I really wanted to then talk to you two about what do you think, given your experience, your work in this subject with HR community, what are the kinds of things that you tell people? What do you think are practical, real helpful things unlike what we saw in some of these articles?

Stephanie Lemek (00:55:13):

I've got one, I've got one. And I think it works for hr. I think it works for anyone. And I find myself actually talking about this a lot when I'm coaching early career professionals. And I think it gets to that people pleaser tendency. So we talked about it a little bit, that human giver, that empty vessel HR is expected to be that fawn or people pleaser. It's really hard sometimes to say no. And a lot of the advice we get is hold your boundaries firm and say no and say no more. And that's great, but it's also like, do you really feel like you can do that? Most people with they are already struggling with holding boundaries. If they're already struggling with saying no, just saying, Hey, just tell people no is not going to be this amazing solve for them. So I like to offer, if no feels out of reach for you, say yes with a lot of context, clarity and questions. So say yes and get more information about what they're looking for. So you have really super clear, if you're like, Hey Stephanie, can you help me with our holiday party? I'd go, Hey, would you mind telling me a little bit more about what kind of help you're looking for? What specifically are you wanting? Instead of me in my head going, I am now doing the holiday party. We've never done anything like that before.

(00:56:40):

So you're asking those questions, you're getting clarity to understand, Hey, what does this person actually need help with? So we can kind of say yes, but say yes to little piece and then verbalize that back to them like, yes, I am more than happy to help with contacting vendors for flu shots. I don't know why we're having flu shots. This is a very bad holiday party. I'm more than happy to contact vendors and I can do that by X date. And just set clarity, set those clear expectations. So you're really just shaving down what you're doing or you're saying, yes I can, but I need X, Y, and Z from you. And also I can do it by this date. This is not going to be the end all be all. But it does two things. It helps kind of filter down what is actually needed from someone in terms of support from you.

(00:57:34):

And it also helps you feel a bit more empowered so you have a little bit more say in what you're doing without telling someone who's not used to saying no. Oh, just say no eventually. Hopefully, yes, we get to that place, but I think that baby step can be really super helpful. Something to look at the flip side. So if you're that HR leader who's looking to retain their team, my number one recommendation to everyone always is to find ways to give your team more choice. And this gets to, at the core of trauma is a lack of choice. It's a feeling of powerlessness. So when we find ways to offer choice, we create that sense of self-efficacy and empowerment. And this is not, hey, let your team do whatever they want. It's as simple as would you like to work on this project or this project? How you go about doing this is up to you. Little pieces to infuse choice. And the beautiful part about infusing choice into our work is almost always, it's completely free low barrier to entry to start doing it tomorrow and it can make a big difference.

Julie Turney (00:58:47):

Yeah, I love those.

Stacey Nordwall (00:58:50):

Julie, do you have things that you recommend or that you do for yourself as a kind of burnout prevention practice or a way to address burnout?

Julie Turney (00:59:03):

So I want to go back to further where Stephanie started. I want to go back to the beginning. So one of the things that I always, when I'm working with HR professionals and coaching them through their burnout, the first thing I always ask them is, do you like yourself and do you love yourself? Do you know who you are? Because I feel like once you understand who you are and if you like yourself and if you love yourself, if you're willing to do that work and be like, no, I actually don't like myself, but I do love myself. Here's what I don't like about myself, but here's what I do like about myself. And understand that for you first, because your burnout journey, remember is repressed stress. So it probably goes back to your childhood. So there's a little bit of psychology that needs to happen.

(00:59:58):

And usually I would recommend persons then start to engage a therapist and work along. I work better as a coach when I have someone who's doing the work on themselves through therapy. Then the next thing that I would say is I always encourage people to assess their HR career. Are you where you want to be in your HR career right now? And if not, where do you want to be? What does that look like for you? The other piece is, are you in a role that you're happy with right now? And if the answer is no, why are you here? Is it the money? Is it the perks? Is it you've got kids going through school, you have a mortgage, a car payment? You don't think you'll be able to get another job? And a lot of times when I'm working with HR leaders, they say, I don't think that I will get another job like this somewhere else.

(01:00:53):

So you already have that lack of belief in yourself, which then takes me back to, you need to go do some therapy and do some work on yourself, right? Because the moment you don't believe, I never encourage people to stay where they are. I always push people to move beyond. So if you're an HR business partner, I'm pushing you into an HR director role. If you're a director, I'm pushing you beyond that chief people officer. We're aiming for the height right then, but do you see a clear path to that? And a lot of times HR people do not. Whether the organization has a clear career path for you or you have a clear career path for yourself, a lot of us don't have that. And so I encourage HR professionals, let's build a map. Let's create a path. Let's look at where your competency gaps are and let's help you close those through certifications or gaining experience by working on projects in your workplace.

(01:01:52):

Because just because you're burned out does not mean you're burned out because you're doing too much. You might be doing stuff you don't like, right? So it's trying to understand the difference between doing stuff you don't like that's just boring and the people are stressing you out versus trying to move yourself forward doing stuff that you actually like. And a lot of times the other piece is around am I working in an organization that I actually like? Do I actually believe in what the organization believes in? Do I have a leadership team that believes in that as well? Because if you have a leadership team that doesn't believe in the mission, the values, the strategy that they've created, then what are you working for? Because you'll never achieve anything from a people standpoint. When you have a leadership team that is not on the bus, it's just words on the wall.

(01:02:50):

And so just getting people to make the hard decision about, even though I like the money and the perks, the work gives me no purpose, then you need to move on and find somewhere that gives you purpose and just getting out of your comfort zone for a moment. Wonderful things happen. I've had so many success stories of people who have been able to do that and do great things going forward. And then I've had people who've just been like, I like this money too much. I'm just going to do the work on me, and I'm going to stay in this crummy job with these horrible leaders because that's where I'm at. I, I'm going to just do the work on me. And that's totally fine too. But then as you do the work on me, just remember what is your purpose? And then eventually they'll come to the point of, well, now that I've done the work on me, I actually do need purpose. These people suck. Let me go.

Stephanie Lemek (01:03:48):

I think this is, I want to toot everything Julie just said.

Julie Turney (01:03:51):

So those are the kind of things that I recommend for people. Those are the kind of things that I work to help people navigate that burnout journey. You got to know if you like yourself, you got to know if you like the work you do, the organization you're in. We tend to have, we as human beings have a tendency to believe that what we get is what we deserve versus what set the intention of what is my purpose and am I living in my purpose? Do I deserve to be a chief people officer and love people and help people navigate their journeys through the organization and make them happy and do things that inspire them? Absolutely. If that's what you want to do, so then why are you settling to be an HR business partner for 20 years? Makes no sense. None whatsoever. So something's got to change.

Stephanie Lemek (01:04:53):

I think you said two things. I really want to, I mean everything, but you said two things I think are super important to call out. I think something we often overlook when it comes to our relationship with work is most of us work for money to take care of ourselves and our family. And glossing over that I think is kind of crappy because we're not recognizing people are finding financial safety in their jobs and being able to support themselves in their lives. So let's not poop all over. I don't know why I'm so fecal today. I apologize. Let's not poop all over them because they're making their livelihood. That happens. And when I relate to what you're saying personally, Julie, when I look at how I felt in a lot of roles where I was in a place of burnout, I did not like myself.

(01:05:44):

I loved myself always, but I didn't like myself in those roles. And when I did that work and reflected back and I'm doing the work I do now, I like myself and I love myself. I like who shows up every day. And part of the reason I'm able to do that is because I have some financial privilege being married and having a supportive husband. I like to be transparent about that because it is so hard when we're not honest about most of us work to make a living. And so just having that moment to work on yourself is worth it. Even if you do need to keep working and doing what you're doing to put food on the table. I love that you called that out and appreciate it so much.

Stacey Nordwall (01:06:34):

Yeah, I think I want to, oh, Julie, did you want to say one more thing before we start wrapping up?

Julie Turney (01:06:40):

No, I just wanted to, well, yes. Yeah. I just wanted to say that I don't believe when it comes to being human, I've learned so much about when I stepped out of corporate HR and the work that I'm doing now, I have such a huge passion for the work that I'm doing now, and a lot of times people will say, well, you've been self-employed for a while, and it's easy for you to say quit your job. If you're not happy. Absolutely not. It is not easy for me to say that, and I'm asking you to do something that's really hard, which is be honest with yourself because if you can't be honest with yourself, who can you be honest with? That's all I'm asking you to do. I'm not saying quit your job. I'm saying you're not stuck. There is another way around this, whether it is ultimately that you quit your job or you find hobbies and things that bring you joy while you still do the work that it bores you to death.

(01:07:43):

So be it. If it is that you are able to have a leadership team that believes in you, and you can have an honest conversation with them and say, I don't like this work. However, we do not have a chief of wellbeing, or we don't have a chief analyst for people, or we don't have someone who is specifically catered to helping our people who are looking to retire and leave the organization. The possibilities are endless for what you could do and how you could move yourself forward. I just want you to be honest with yourself and say, I'm not happy doing this, and so what am I going to do to get unstuck? That you have options and I just want you to explore them. That's all I want for people. The same way we do it for employees. We as HR are employees and we should do the same thing for ourselves, but because of this human given syndrome, we don't because we feel like, God forbid, that we should want to be happy practicing hr, God forbid, but we should be where we strive to make people happy at work every day. Why can't we be happy? That's all I'm saying.

Stacey Nordwall (01:09:01):

Yeah, and I want to just round us out by something. I think, Julie, you had mentioned earlier that I want to invite everyone to think about these things, do this work and say that burnout, it can be a years long journey for recovery. That's something that I know myself, I've experienced myself. It has taken me years to recover from my very deepest moments of burnout, and so you don't want to get to that point. You really want to be thinking about introspecting making these changes ahead of time. So I appreciate so very much everything that you both have shared today, and I want to make sure that anyone listening knows where they can contact you, where they can follow you. If there's anything that you want to promote or tell them about, Stephanie, why don't you go ahead and start, let people know where to contact you.

Stephanie Lemek (01:10:06):

Yeah, you can reach out to me on my website, www.thewoundedworkforce.com, and you can also find me on LinkedIn also, just in terms of a free resource. I have a free self-care workbook that breaks down work and life separately. If you want to grab something for free, you can download that for my website as well.

Stacey Nordwall (01:10:30):

Fabulous. And Julie?

Julie Turney (01:10:33):

Yeah, so you can find me at www.hratheart.com, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn pretty much every day, so you could definitely find me there sharing stories, and also you can check out my book, Confessions of an HR Pro, Stories of Defeat and Triumph. I also have a corny sense of humor, and I usually take that to TikTok, so you can find me over on TikTok at Your HR coach. Just sharing my journey and some of the crazy stuff that happens in HR, I try to find a way to make it funny, but it's not (laughs). 

Stacey Nordwall (01:11:16):

All right. Thank you both so much for joining Toot or Boot today.