Burnout, Fatigue and the Architecture Workplace

According to the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, fatigue is defined as the body’s response to sleep deprivation or lengthy physical or mental hard work. The laws requiring periodic break periods serve a pragmatic and reasonable purpose — to counteract the onset of overwork and mental fatigue. 

Larissa Barber, Ph.D. and Amanda Conlin, both psychologists who focus on work-life balance among employees, talk about the vitality of frequent breaks at work. This isn’t the type of break where we vent to a coworker in the office kitchen about how annoying a contractor has been on site. Rather, according to Barber and Conlin, adequate breaks consist of detaching oneself from the work environment. “One key component of an effective break is psychological detachment, which refers to mentally disengaging from work thoughts. By shifting our focus, detachment helps us to directly reduce work demands that are causing fatigue and to naturally recover,” they explain in their Psychology Today article on the topic.

The experienced reader will relate to the feeling after a lunch-and-learn, “working” lunch, or any other lunch activity that takes place inside the office. As awesome as some of these things are, one still would benefit from that time away from the office to refresh and regroup. 

With the architect traditionally taking on the role as the owner’s agent with the contractor, coordinator of an entire team of consultants, and manager of an internal team, social interactions make up a large portion of time. The complexity of any building project will always pose problems and, unfortunately, all parties involved in solving those problems are not always pleasant to work with. When a team member returns to the office after a rough day at the project site, the last thing they need is more stress among their coworkers.

The now popular business consultant, Simon Sinek, reminisced in an interview about one of his first jobs. When talking about his past boss Sinek said, “...she had this belief that if you don’t look harried and insane, then you’re not working hard; I remember pretending that I was stressed out.” Sinek goes further to share how if he looked too happy that his boss thought he wasn’t doing anything. This is often the case in rigorous work environments, especially in architecture. The term “sweatshop” was coined for a reason. It’s often in the pressure one receives from the leadership at their place of work that they begin to display the symptoms of mental and physical fatigue.

Matthew Hallowell, an associate professor of construction engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder who has also published work in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine explained, “You can be fatigued simply if you go to work and have really poor social interactions with your co-workers – it’s not just about how much sleep you get.” The workplace should be a place of refuge instead of anxiety. 

But sadly, architecture is filled with stories of young team members going off to the bathroom to cry from frustration, or seasoned project managers storming out after a long stretch of built-up bitterness. All stemming from poor interactions amongst the people within the firm. Fatigue is not only caused by “lengthy physical or mental hard work” but also from unempathetic interpersonal experiences. 

If the office sucks all the life out of an employee then they have nothing left when they go home to their lives outside of work. Bob Borson, architect and creator of the website Life of an Architect, even says in one of his posts, “I work regular business hours because I have a family and it’s important to me that I get to come home and see them.” 

I had a young professional recently share with me how he had to work from 6 am until about 10 pm one night (this was one of many consecutive long days) while working on a design-build proposal at his firm. It wasn’t until he began to feel physically ill and looked visibly exhausted that he was allowed to go home. But not before he was asked to be back early the next morning to wrap everything up. That is utterly preposterous. When an employee is continuously put under unrealistic pressure, fatigue ensues and soon grows into real physical and mental health concerns. All for what? An extra detail?

It seems to come down to a simple question most employers should ask themselves: what is more important, the work or the people? Knoxville-based architect Elizabeth Eason answers this question: “We really want our employees to work a 40-hour workweek and go home to their family or get out in the community or be active as members” says Eason. “And so we try to make that the culture here,” she said in an Archinect profile on her firm. One of Eason’s top priorities is in limiting long hours and ensuring that her team has the flexibility they need to live their lives. 

It’s workplaces that value their people above anything that flourish. And it’s employees of those places that stay loyal and produce the best work. There was another young professional I spoke with who has just left a toxic work environment. She expressed how at the previous firm she had to beg to leave at a reasonable time to study for her ARE exams. That the manager on her project expected her to work long hours and that any time she brought up studying (something the firm “encouraged”) she was intensely reprimanded). 

“I started to become depressed, I’d cringe at the thought of having to go to work every morning. And when I was in the office I literally started to have mental breakdowns from how bad the anxiety started to get,” she confessed. Now, this talented designer is at a firm that values her, her time, and her ambitions to become licensed. “It’s like night and day working here,” she told me. “I actually look forward to coming to work each day and I love my coworkers.” 

When this young woman started to feel valued she experienced more joy in her life, produced better work, and now looks forward to going to work in the morning. That’s what life is supposed to be about. Will there be crunch times? Of course! But people come before work. Firms that embrace this have the happiest team members and tend to attract the best talent. 

Ultimately, the cure for the bombardment of fatigue in architecture seems attainable. Yes, we all need rest, we need to take breaks, get outside, and refresh our minds, but this cannot happen if the place we work does not embrace it. This is the essence of The Architecture Lobby’s Just Design initiative, celebrating those practitioners who have made this a top priority. It is an embodiment of something Oprah Winfrey said: “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

Leaders like Elizabeth Eason personify this ideal. Her priority is the well being of her staff; she is a leader of the people. As architecture evolves, so does its culture. Hard work is essential to produce excellent work, this is a given. But, as we see with countless examples, the prerequisite for excellence can be sustainable.

Source: Archinect.com

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