Mervyn Dinnen  0:00  
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Mervyn Dinnen  0:00  
Hey, welcome to the HR Means Business podcast, which is part of the HR Happy Hour Network. I'm your host, Mervyn Dinnen. In today's episode, we're talking about something that's becoming impossible to ignore. Mental fitness in high pressure workplaces. We talk a lot about well being, we talk a lot about burnout, but what does it actually take to build teams that can perform at a high level without breaking under pressure? Joining me today is Alexandra Kafka from orkplace well being platform, Oxyza. We'll be exploring what mental fitness really means, how leaders can spot burnout before it becomes a crisis, and most importantly, some of the practical tools that organizations can use to build resilience in a sustainable way, because high performance and high well being shouldn't be opposites. So the real question is, how can we design work so that they coexist? Let's get started. Alexandra, welcome to the HR Means Business podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? 

Alexandra Kafka  0:17  
Absolutely, Marvin, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you. My name is Alexandra Kafka, and I'm the founder of Oxyzn. And as you said, I'm a corporate well being architect, and I also organize corporate retreats all around the world. I have helped up to this date, I have helped more than 50 organizations to support their employees mental health and well being. And yeah, one my favorite topic, I guess, is the future of work. And our topic today is so much related to that. So I'm so so happy to be here today. Thank you for inviting me.

Mervyn Dinnen  1:48  
It's a pleasure to have you here. We hear a lot, and there's a lot of talk online and in person about mental health at work, but you talk particularly about mental fitness. So what? What do you see as the difference? And why do you think that distinction matters, especially in high pressure sectors?

Alexandra Kafka  2:09  
That's a great question. I guess when it comes to mental health support versus mental fitness support, mental health support is, in many, many cases, reactive. What do I mean by that? We tend to try to get the right mental health support in place when something has already gone wrong, whereas mental fitness support is more proactive, because it has to do with daily training and daily maintenance of our good mental health. Also it has to do with expanding our capacity to hold more stress so we do not collapse under pressure and at the end of the day, it has to do with how do we learn to regulate our nervous system? But it's interesting also, because we see now with AI, there's this rapid development of AI today, whereas pressure is not going away, right? It only gets more and more intense. We see complexity and the workplace as not going away. Digital overload is increasing. So I guess the question becomes, can our nervous system sustain that base? That's that's that's why I feel like mental fitness actually reframes the conversation, and this is definitely a language leaders understand when it comes to recovery, when it comes to learning how to manage difficult emotions and feelings, or even, you know, developing soft skills. So, yeah, the one thing is more reactive, the other thing is proactive. And that's why I am a big believer of mental fitness.

Mervyn Dinnen  4:14  
The traditional, what I suppose most people at work would call the high pressure sectors. So, technology, finance, healthcare, kind of professional services in general, that what are you seeing now in those in terms of stress and burnout patterns? Do you think things are getting better? They're getting worse, or is it a bit more complex?

Alexandra Kafka  4:36  
Yeah, I don't. I don't think it's simply worse. I definitely think it's more and more complex. And I mean, I get to work with many organizations in finance, legal practices, hospitality, those are, yeah, industries where there's a lot of high pressure, right? But what I get to witness time and time again is that these days, we are not just dealing with workload stress anymore. It feels like we are dealing with an overstimulated nervous system. So many employees are struggling with digital addiction. They are struggling with, trying to keep up with AI disruption. There's global uncertainty. I see the boundaries between work and identity are so blurred nowadays, and there is a number of patterns I'm seeing. For example, I get to discuss with senior leaders, and so many of them nowadays, they report exhaustion, exhaustion on a weekly or monthly basis. Or I've seen many, many high performers who do not know how to recover from stress, or high performers who have lost their ability to recover. So I see people. I see employees who are looking fine, right? But when I have a deeper conversation with them, I get to see that their sleeping habits are really bad. Their healthy habits are so unhealthy, they might struggle with loneliness and disconnection. So from my understanding, I guess burnout, it doesn't feel like is is louder. It's just like that the system looks functional from the outside, but if you are inside, you can tell that the nervous system of so many employees is not functional. And, yeah, there is a need for support and help when it comes to the space, I guess.

Mervyn Dinnen  6:55  
I mean, burnout often seems to be something that seems to be very sudden. You know, it's kind of people reach a point and that's it. But you know, from what I understand from conversations with people like you, it's, it's never really sudden. So it's, are there early warning signs that leaders HR teams tend to miss that you can think of?

Alexandra Kafka  7:19  
Yeah, I guess before I discuss about the science, I would like to talk a little bit about a myth. When it comes to burnout, there is a myth so many HR leaders think that, you know, burnout appears as mental breakdown, right? So there's okay, there's other signs. We see an employee struggling mentally, and that means they experience burnout. But in reality, I get to ask my clients this question all the time. I ask, what is the first stage of burnout? How is it called? Or what are the signs? What do you think are the main like, kind of symptoms or patterns? And most people, of course, they say, you know, they guess exhaustion. They think, oh, you know, if an employee's like a cynical or if an employee is a disengaged, that's a sign, right? But what if I tell you, Mervyn, that there's none of those things, and there is no negative, actually, negative characteristic when it comes to burnout, when it comes to the first stage of burnout. And actually the name of the first phase of it is a positive name. It is called the honeymoon phase. And it is called the honeymoon phase because an employee experiencing like high energy, the dopamine is high, commitment is high. And is this in those cases where we tend to push harder because it feels good to do so, right?  You know when work feels thrilling and exciting, and there are moments when we feel like, you know, boundaries are not necessary. It's just a phase where we have to work a little bit harder or a little bit longer, and it feels right, but that, here's the thing, the body's warning signals do not get louder, they get more and more quiet. And that was my story. That's my story, too. I used to work in corporate before. I used to work in a very fast paced industry, and I missed the alarm. I was so, um. Am excited so happy to be in the role I was where nothing else mattered. So I kept going, and I kept pushing harder, and I kept working those long hours because it felt good, and then I kept doing it until it was really very, very late for me. So it happens to so many of us because we tend to override hunger, we tend to override fatigue, tension, anxiety, and in many cases, is because the mission matters, or because we this is our first new role, or this is our first business, or this is an exciting project, and suddenly, you know, we are living in a paradox kind of thing, where we might wonder, why wait a second? This is a career I chose, and I feel happy and fulfilled within this career. Why is my body breaking down? And here's why: passion fuels output, but it does not automatically fuel recovery. So what do I mean by that our nervous system still needs poses, safety signals, completion cycles, even during joy. And that's why I think if you are a leader and you love what you do, burnout isn't a matter of if, it is a matter of when. So I guess my life's work is to try to encourage leaders to be more aware of this and to be more aware of of the behavioral shifts and how to identify the alarming signs of burnout early on.

Mervyn Dinnen  11:49  
Okay, so when, when someone is already burned, burned out. What does a real recovery look like? And what do organizations leaders managers often get wrong when they try to help?

Alexandra Kafka  12:05  
I guess so many times I see HR teams trying to support and help their employees by, you know, trying to introduce one type of solution. But the reality is that, like a quick fix. The reality is that one size doesn't fix all. And the reality is that when we just try to introduce some kind of Spa solution, wellness cliches, for example, I see many companies that say, Oh, I we see our employees are stressed, let's introduce a series of yoga classes, right? But what I typically say is that a recovery, true recovery, true nervous system regulation is not a yoga class alone. We need recalibration. So from my point of view, there are three stages. So first of all, we have to learn to, as executives, as leaders, we have to learn how to stabilize our nervous system. This is so important. Step number two is that we have to be intentional about reducing mental load. And the third thing is rebuilding our resilience so we can hold more pressure, but in a way that is sustainable in the long run. So I guess what organizations get wrong. I see so many organizations introducing well being apps. There are so many apps nowadays, instead of trying to adjust the workload, for example. Or I see many organizations, you know, sending an employee on leave because they are already burned out, but then returning them back to the same structure, to the same environment. Or I see organizations treating burnout as a personal weakness. It is not. I guess if somebody collapses under impossible pressure, the answer isn't just doing another resilience training alone, it's about structural honesty.

Mervyn Dinnen  14:23  
Okay, there's also, I think sometimes, a kind of tension between individual resilience, but also fixing systemic pressures around the organization. How, how do you go about balancing, what do you think people should be trying to do when it comes to the balance between personal mental fitness but organizational responsibility on the other side?

Alexandra Kafka  14:52  
That's a wonderful question, actually, so I guess nervous system regulation is key. And I keep saying that because, from my point of view, there is, like a sequence. So we see, like I see, many executives, senior leaders, who actually learn how to regulate the nervous system. They do get access to the right tools they need, and when they do that gives them greater clarity. So when they get greater clarity, they become more courageous. And when I say courageous, I mean courageous to share, to change, to raise awareness of what they've learned. That's why, part of the reason why, when I introduce a well being initiative within our organization, I'm always keen to engage the senior leaders from the day one, because when they get to learn how to regulate, then they can think more clearly, and then they can act boldly. So resilience without reform is just a tolerance training, but a reform without regulated leadership, in many cases, becomes chaos. So it's not either or or it's just a sequence, and it's like, yeah, we have to embrace that kind of journey, I guess the senior executives so we can, we can see the benefits and then communicate those benefits to the rest of of the organization.

Mervyn Dinnen  16:39  
Out of interest the how do you see the balance between, say, the HR department or the HR teams and HR leaders with the overall business leaders? Do you find in the work you do that sometimes there's a not a disconnect, but sometimes it is they're not really aligned?

Alexandra Kafka  17:00  
Yes, of course, there is a lack of alignment in the sense that, I guess many HR leaders, they do want to achieve certain KPIs, and of course, to get the return of investment when it comes to introducing A new vendor or a new well being program, whereas I see, you know on the other side executives within the organization, they have different kind of agenda, and because in many cases, there is not alignment when it comes to the milestones and the key metrics that they will help them feel like fulfilled and that they do things right. Career wise, they might, you know, there is a lack of understanding and a lack of communication. So there that leads to lack of engagement on behalf of executives when it comes to well being programs, because they might see them as nice to have, instead of an essential, important fundamental part of high performance and productivity and attracting great talent, all those things. So I guess, if there is a way we can, you know, if there is a way we can change this is by making sure that those two agendas come into alignment. 

Mervyn Dinnen  18:27  
If you're advising a leadership or an HR team tomorrow or this afternoon, whenever, what two or three practical tools or habits within the business do you would you recommend them implementing immediately to start building mental fitness in their teams, if that is an issue that they've identified? And it could be, you know, things like, I don't know, rituals, frameworks, check it. You know. What are the things you would recommend?

Alexandra Kafka  19:01  
I guess I'm a very, very big believer of easy, practical, portable tools and techniques employees can access on a day to day basis, so they can boost their energy levels, so they can enhance focus on concentration, be more productive. So one of the main things I highly recommend is teaching physiological down regulation. What do I mean by that? Simple breath work, visual gaze shifts, vagal resets. These are mindfulness, very short like boosters, that can actually support their employees on a day to day basis. And these are three minutes practices that can be used between meetings so a team can actually decompress when they need it the most. The second thing, I guess, has to do with the digital over simulation. And I would introduce the idea of quarterly digital Sabbath days, where once every three months, one day every three months, we just do practice digital detox. What do I mean by that? No internal meetings, no reactive emails, just cognitive reset, where we can actually we could invite employees to reflect on their goals, their strategies, their purpose, and it's a day where everyone gets to stay disconnected so they can reconnect in a more meaningful way. And the last practice, I guess, is scheduled recovery windows. So for example, a very good idea I've seen that stem time again is trying to protect that kind of 90 minute deep work experience for the employees. So this work like blocks, so we have 10 Minute reset buffers every 90 minutes. So yes, we can immerse ourselves into one project we are working on, and then we can give ourselves some mental rest. I guess those are the three main practical tools and implement tomorrow. And, yeah, not no philosophy, just trainable skills, really.

Mervyn Dinnen  21:39  
How is it thinking about, I suppose, measuring mental fitness or well being. Yeah, I think that team, some teams, will probably use traditional things like engagement scores, absence data, absence patterns and things like that. But how would you advise organizations and HR teams going about, kind of measuring in a meaningful way, kind of the level of mental fitness or well being in the business?

Alexandra Kafka  22:05  
This is a very interesting question, because, I mean, from my perspective, we with the platform, with Oxzyn, I know we have seen that reporting is equally important as running the program or raising awareness about the program is equally important, because if the data is not accurate, or if we haven't analyzed the data the right way, we don't have the opportunity to adjust the program in a way that then will make better impact. So from my perspective, some of the metrics that I've seen that work really well. Some of them, actually, we introduced them quite recently. So it is about introducing indicators like sleep quality trends, to to have some metrics where we can see calendar density versus recovery time. There is a metric where we can see voluntary turnover in high performers, physiological safety reporting, and I guess my favorite is the emotional energy tracking we do. It's not just about productivity, it's about energy. So when we are able to keep the energy in a very high levels, the employee, it's not he or she is not just more productive, they're better to collaborate and, yeah, better to work with. So that helps the entire team. I guess those are few of the metrics. But from my experience, I guess if you only measure output, you miss capacity, and if you measure capacity at the end of the day, you predict sustainability. And that's something we I guess most organizations try to to predict was so important these days.

Mervyn Dinnen  24:06  
That's interesting. And also, I think that there's a lot of organizations try and strike this balance between high performance and high wellbeing. Do you think that they can genuinely coexist? And you know what tends to separate in your experience organizations who get this right from those that don't really?

Alexandra Kafka  24:28  
So this has been the core of my life's work, to be honest with you, Mervyn, in fact, the slogan of My company that is called let's let's awake your zen warrior. So for me, this the idea of Zen warrior as an employee who can actually be a great performer, while at the same time they can practice self care and well being and support their mental health daily. So I'm a big believer. I know it can definitely coexist. But of course, there are some, let's say, requirements, right? So first of all, we have to make sure that recovery is seen as performance strategy. For me, so, so important we have to help lead us to model boundaries and also high output. You know, it has to be paired with deep focus, not constant noise, constant overstimulation and distraction. So the companies, I guess, that get this right, they can train to help them. Their executives train their brain like they train skills, right? So it's this idea I typically say, like the mental fitness kind of studio. It's just for the brain. It's something we have to keep training ourselves to be mindful, to be present, to support ourselves in a way that is very proactive. And yeah, it takes intention, effort, space and time. So the companies that get this right, they redesign work rhythms. They reward clarity, not just speed. Yeah, and as I said, they help their executives to train their minds, just like they might train their bodies or their skills. So high performance without regulation is not sustainable. I've experienced this myself, personally. I know this for sure, because I've experienced burnout before, and that cost me my career. It was a very painful experience, and I know exactly how it feels to be a high performer and keep going and pushing hard without, yeah, without just learning how to regulate your nervous system so it can be sustainable. And then I guess high well being without ambition leads to stagnation, right? Because I see the other side too. I see some companies, they over focus on well being and mental health, and this is the only thing they preach every day. But that can lead to stagnation. So we have, we need to have the right balance. So the future, I guess, from my point of view, belongs to regulated ambition, nervous system, regulation and ambitions, but in a way that is sustainable.

Mervyn Dinnen  27:46  
We're coming to the end of the conversation. It's been fascinating. Alexandra, you've shared a lot of information that I think you know a lot of listeners will be able to go away and think about and maybe implement into their business. Now, before you go though, I understand that you're writing a book on mental fitness, so what inspired it, and what are you hoping that people will be able to take away from it?

Alexandra Kafka  28:11  
Thank you for for mentioning this, because it's a project I'm really, really excited about. I'm about to publish this book very, very soon. It's my first book, and it means the world to me. So the idea of this book is back in 2018 when I experienced burnout and panic attacks, my mental health was at risk. I decided to quit my career, and I embarked on a journey in 34 countries around the world where I spent time with Buddhist monks, Olympians, neuroscientists, and my mission was to hack sustainable high performance through Mindfulness. So because, as I said earlier, right? The question is, how do we sustain intensity without burning out? So I traveled, I worked, I failed, I regulated, I reset. And from all this journey, this two years journey, I saw repeatedly that high achievers are strong, but untrained in recovery, so I wanted to write a book about recovery. So what leaders can take away is practical rituals that can help them to regulate the nervous system, mental endurance tools, the discipline of stillness and silence, performance through, again, nervous system regulation. So it is 34 chapters, 34 countries, and every chapter, yeah, every chapter there is a conversation I have, a mini story I have with a guru, where I learned something, and then that is the tool I learn, and I translate this tool into a more urban setting.

Mervyn Dinnen  30:14  
Thank you for the conversation today. It's been really, really interesting. Okay, Alexandra, it's been a pleasure to talk to you today. Thanks for your time. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai