April 21, 2025 • 19 mins
Guest: Lauren Howard, CEO, Clinical Operations Group | CEO, LBee Health | Founder, ElleTwo
Host: Daniel Williams, Senior Editor, MGMA
Summary:
In this episode, Lauren Howard shares how her personal experience with burnout inspired the creation of virtual mental health resources. She discusses why toxic work cultures persist, how remote work reshaped expectations, and what healthcare leaders can do to better support their teams.
Key Highlights:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:16 Lauren Howard's Journey and Inspiration
03:14 The Birth of LB Health and EllTwo
05:03 Mental Health Services Expansion
07:08 Pandemic's Impact on Burnout and Isolation
09:26 Workplace Dynamics and Employee Well-being
13:48 Reflections on Work-Life Balance
18:06 Conclusion and Resources
🔗 Resources and Links:
Additional Resources:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Daniel Williams (00:03):
Hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior
editor at MGMA and host of theMGMA Podcast Network. We are
back with another MGMA Insightspodcast today. Our guest is
Lauren Howard. She's aninspiring leader in the
healthcare and mental healthspace.
She's also the CEO of LB Health,a virtual mental health
(00:26):
treatment program designed tohelp individuals recover from
burnout, toxic workenvironments, and trauma. Now
she's also the CEO of L2, andthat's a platform that's
challenging the traditionalnorms of professionalism for
women. And we're excited to haveLauren on the show. So Lauren,
(00:46):
welcome.
Lauren Howard (00:48):
Thank you so much for having me.
Daniel Williams (00:50):
Yeah. You and I were talking offline. Have
interacted with directly,indirectly with the MGMA
audience and people who are makeup that audience over the years.
So we're glad to have you onthis podcast today. I learned
about you through LinkedIn.
I feel like people do a lot ofnetworking now and make
connections and contacts throughplatforms like LinkedIn. So I'm
(01:13):
so glad I got to meet you onthere. So what I want to do is,
just ask you about thesedifferent organizations, LB
Health and L2. Talk about thoseprograms, how you started them,
what initiated that spark in thefirst place.
Lauren Howard (01:32):
Yeah, absolutely. L2 is actually the predecessor
to LB Health and it's still anactive company. We still publish
content there. We publish otherwriters who share their stories
and content there. But trulythey both came out of the same
thing, which is that I left ajob that was really toxic, just
bad for me several years ago.
(01:55):
And had spent the entire timethere when I knew I wasn't I
don't know if I knew I wasn'thappy for a long time. I think I
was very much deeply in thisbelief that this was the best it
could be. It wasn't gonna bebetter than this. And knowing
that I wasn't loving my life,but also thinking that was just
the way it was supposed to be.And I was tremendously burned
(02:17):
out.
It was a really hostileenvironment. And when I finally
left very unceremoniously, whichis not like me, I felt like I
had all of this kind ofpotential energy built up that
of all of these things that hadhappened that I didn't know what
to do with. And I process bywriting things out. That's how I
get things from my brain and getmy brain to settle down. To this
(02:40):
day, I don't know why I starteddoing it, but I just started
writing about these things onLinkedIn.
I wasn't a LinkedIn user reallyat all. Just started very
quickly. The response that Ithought I would get was, oh, I'm
so sorry that happened to you orlike, why are you sharing sad
stories for attention on theInternet? Mhmm. And instead,
what I got was, wait, thathappened to me and I thought it
(03:02):
was just me.
And I went, okay, if it's youand it's me and it's my entire
inbox, then maybe it's all of usand we just start talking about
it. That turned into Altu, whichis a community and a site where
we publish regular content aboutwhat does it even mean to be a
woman in the workplace? Why doesworking while female seem to be
(03:25):
a hazard? Where, how do we getaround, these things that we've
been taught about how we'resupposed to be in the workplace,
how we're supposed to present,which were never actually real.
And why is it so wild to askwhy?
Like, why are these thingshappening? And so we had a, we
have had, we continue to havereally just incredible
(03:47):
conversations through thatplatform about these questions
that I think we need to beanswering. But my background is
in behavioral healthadministration. I ran a for
about a decade. And as much as ltwo is my whole heart, I would
still sit around and go, I don'tthink we're doing enough.
I don't think having theconversations is enough. Like
(04:07):
validating people and makingthem feel seen, that's really
important, but there's a piecemissing to this. And one day
earlier this year, I don't knowwhy it took three and a half
years for it to happen, but oneday earlier this year, it like
smacked me in the face and Iwent, oh wait, this is what it
is. Oh, we're supposed to beactually delivering the mental
healthcare because I know how todo that. And my business partner
(04:30):
is a physician who's licensed in50 States and we actually own
four practices, three practicestogether at the time.
And I called him up and I said,Hey, do you want to open a
mental health practice? And hesaid, Sure. And I went, you
don't have more questions thanthat? And he was like, no. I
went, okay.
And then I called a friend ofmine who's an incredible
(04:50):
therapist, and it very much wentthe same way. And within a
couple of hours, we went from, Ithink I have this crazy idea to,
oh, we're actually doing thisnow. And that was less than six
months ago. And we now providemental health services mental
health services in 13 states andwe'll be in 20 by the end of the
(05:11):
month, 50 by the end of theyear. And we do support groups,
which is really where all ofthis started was everybody
coming today together and sayingthis is hard and I don't know
why.
And our support groups areavailable in all 50 States
already. And they're $20 aperson. Because part of the
reason that so many people werestruggling to find support was
that it was inaccessible. And sowe made it hyper accessible. And
(05:34):
that's really where, they're twodifferent companies, but they're
born out of the same thing.
And they connect to our othercompanies as well, because when
you're trying to help a person,there's a whole person there,
regardless what your missionwith them is. And I think that's
how all of this progressed. Ifyou had told me three and a half
(05:56):
years ago when I personally wason my couch unable to get up
because I was so burned out thatmy body and my brain just
disconnected, stopped talking toeach other, that we would be
here doing this workparticularly, I would have told
you we're insane and walkedaway, but the universe had other
plans and now we're here.
Daniel Williams (06:18):
Yeah. Wow. That is a really powerful story. And
I appreciate you sharing thatwith us. In looking at your
information on the companies,one of the things that you
really look at, you reallyaddress the feelings of
isolation and burnout that somany people feel.
What are, obviously this canoccur and create within people
(06:40):
in many different ways, but arethere some common themes? What
are you seeing that is causingthis sort of epidemic of
isolation, this epidemic ofburnout right now, particularly
if you could speak to it evenfrom the healthcare side of
things, if you're seeing thatfrom people?
Lauren Howard (06:58):
Yeah, I think there's so many layers to it
that it's hard to pinpoint anyone thing that has contributed
significantly or moresignificantly than others. But I
will say that it is not acoincidence that people are
reporting significantly moreburnout post pandemic than they
did prior. I think we don'taddress the fact that regardless
(07:22):
whether you got sick or not orsomebody you love got sick or
not, the pandemic was a globaltrauma. Everybody experienced
loss of way of life. Weexperienced loss of routine.
We experienced loss of socialopportunities. There was social
isolation, etcetera. Weeverything we knew about our
lives changed in like a two weekperiod. And then not only that,
(07:42):
but it changed in a two weekperiod with this idea that it
would go back to normal just ashort period of time. And then
it dragged on for three years.
And the 21 people you ask, it'sstill happening now. Not a
pandemic but the restrictionsare still there for a lot of
people. And so I think if I hadto pick one thing that has
(08:04):
really pushed us to eitherexperience these things more
significantly or recognize themmore significantly. It was the
pandemic, either because of justbecause the loss the loss of way
of life and the considerableisolation that came from not
seeing people in person, butalso from this very shifted
(08:26):
perspective on how we'resupposed to feel about work to
begin with. When you're stuck inyour house because people all
over the world are dyingunexpectedly and it's terrifying
to walk out your front door, allof a sudden you reassess your
priorities and you go, should Ifeel anxious on Saturday nights
when my boss texts me thatthere's an emergency that's
never been an emergency?
(08:47):
No, probably not. Should I beworking eighty hour weeks for a
medal that doesn't exist?There's no trophy.
Daniel Williams (08:54):
Right.
Lauren Howard (08:54):
No, probably not. And so when your perspective on
the, your why changes, and thenon top of it, everybody just
went through this really hardthing. Those things can't be,
those things can't be extricatedfrom each other. And there's not
a coincidence that we areexperiencing such a huge,
(09:15):
whether it's an uptake orwhether it's just better
communication around the factthat so many people are feeling
this, so many people are feelingisolated, burned out, depressed,
etc. But then I will also saythat our workplaces aren't doing
anything to help in a lot ofcases.
I think the more we treat peoplelike they're numbers and not
(09:38):
humans who are performing a job,the more we dehumanize them, the
more they don't like going towork, the more toxic that
environment gets. And so it's alot of things, but there are the
people who have performed jobshave never been anything other
than people. And when you workin roles that you constantly
(10:01):
feel like your need to be human,which has never gone away, is
going to interfere with yourability to be employed. That
leads to the kinds of stressorsthat we see lead to burnout. We
talk to people all the timeabout the things that have them
feeling burned out and it'snever their job duties.
Never. They'll say it's themental gymnastics at the
(10:22):
workplace. It's the politicsaround doing their job. It's
managing up. It's contortingthemselves into a pretzel to
fulfill whatever obligation theyhave to fulfill because they
can't just do the job.
They have to do all the thingsbefore they can do the job. And
if you ask them, okay, if youcould just do your job duties
(10:44):
and not have all of theancillary stress, would you go
would you leave work and worryabout, would you leave work and
worry all the time? And they go,no, cause I'm not thinking about
my job duties when I get home orwhen I clock out. I'm thinking
about how's going to, how's thisgoing to reflect on me so that
understands that I've done thework and have I reported back on
(11:05):
this correctly? And are theygoing to think that I'm doing my
job?
Are they going to think that I'meffective? Those are the things
that people report to us areactually the drivers behind the
burnout. Almost never the job.
Daniel Williams (11:17):
So, that is so interesting, and what I want to
follow-up with is these things,these environments, these
political environments or toxicenvironments, they were around
before the pandemic. Were theyin as much supply, so to speak?
(11:39):
Prior to that, what is it rightnow that's going on that you're
seeing this uptick in burnoutand or toxic environments? Is it
even people feeling more open orvulnerable to express it or
report it? What, help meunderstand that aspect of it.
Lauren Howard (11:58):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I
think there has been a generalshift of priorities. I think
we're having betterconversations about you are not
defined by your work. Your worthdoes not come from your work.
You are a human regardless whatyour title is.
You are a valuable humanregardless what your title is.
And so I think all of that hasbeen instrumental in creating
(12:20):
some of this stuff. And do Ithink it's worse now? I don't
really know, but I know thatpeople are responding more
negatively toward it now. Ithink part of it may be some
backlash for what we call thegreat resignation when so many
people were just walking awayfrom I was one of those people.
And just ex- they were able tojust walk into another job and
(12:42):
it was not a problem. And nowthe employers are really back in
control of that hiringlandscape. And there is
something that feels a littlebit, I don't know if vindictive
is the word, but like veryalmost nefarious about the fact
that this is our we're it's aemployer's market. You're not
the commodity anymore. We are.
(13:03):
And so I think there's some ofthat. But I also think I agree
with you that we have started tomake a shift toward teaching
people what's okay, what theydeserve. We say this all the
time. A paycheck is not apermission slip for abuse. You
aren't subject to abuse justbecause you got a job.
They still have to treat youlike a human. They still have to
(13:25):
respect you as a person. That isin a lot of cases misaligned
from what we see in actualworkplaces currently. And it's
very hard when people know thatand their employer has not
caught up to it. And so I thinkthat kind of misalignment is
(13:45):
where the real friction iscoming from.
Daniel Williams (13:48):
Yeah. And I want to get your thoughts on
this part of it as well. When wedid have that initial shutdown,
lockdown from the pandemic, wehad a lot of downtime, so to
speak, that maybe we hadn'tpreviously had as people who
were working, people reflected.I know people I knew personally
(14:11):
made personal choices saying,I'm moving back home. I'm
realizing I don't know how longI have.
And so if I have X amount oftime on this earth, then I want
to spend it with family. I wantto spend it doing this. Or maybe
I want to work from a hybridenvironment or a remote
environment. So many differentoptions there. It really allowed
(14:34):
us to reflect on what's reallyimportant to us.
And maybe at that point yourealize, doing the filing the,
this file or that file orwhatever that function of the
job might be, it's a means to anend, but maybe there are other
things that I wanna pursue aswell. So I wanted to get your
thoughts on that, if you'reseeing that come out, or a
(14:57):
prioritization of work and life,so to speak.
Lauren Howard (15:02):
Yeah. I we saw a lot of it once it became clear
that remote work was gonna stayfor a lot of people for a while.
People started making what wouldpreviously have been selfish
decisions because it wasallowed. The number of people
who moved across country ormoved out of the city or looked
for less expensive housing,while at the same time
(15:24):
increasing productivity inworkplaces. So they weren't all
together, but in general, wentup during the pandemic, not
down.
And so people were both able torecreate their jobs into new
structures that worked for thempersonally, but also they were
able to do it in a place wherethey wanted to be, that either
(15:46):
felt safer, that felt like home,that felt whatever. And so a lot
of people learned that theycould have both. You can have
the life with the people youwant to be around and still do
the job. I think what we'reseeing now though, is this is
obvious. Most of the bigcompanies are calling their
(16:07):
people back in.
People who have moved acrosscountry, people who did their
jobs exceptionally during thepandemic remote and who are now
getting called back into officesfor reasons that don't make
sense because their jobs werefine. And that's another huge
source of friction because itserves the company. It doesn't
(16:28):
serve the humans who areoperating the company. And the
company, instead ofacknowledging and they never
would, but for the most part Ihave seen instead of
acknowledging the realities ofwhy they're really asking people
back, they give them reasonsthat that don't benefit those
individuals. So we think theteam works better when you're in
(16:51):
person and can collaborate.
And everybody's going, we'vebeen doing that for four years
and we didn't have a problem.But why does it matter now? And
the reality is, and this is theunfortunate and somewhat
nefarious reality of these pushto return to office, but there's
a lot of commercial real estatesitting empty. Right. And most
of investments are in their realestate or, and a lot of big
(17:13):
banks investments are in thatreal estate.
And if those real estate, ifthose real estate holdings go
down in value, the company ofitself is less valuable. And I
tell people this all the time.And I it's not that I don't
understand it. I understand itfinancially, but I also think
that if you the ROI on havinghappy employees is more
(17:37):
important than the ROI on anexpensive building. And we talk
about it all the time.
That is a very conscious choiceto value property over your
people. And you can't expectthat people are gonna be excited
to go to a workplace like that.You just can't. And especially
when it goes against all of thedata that we've seen except
(18:01):
property values. That's the onlydata that doesn't support it.
Daniel Williams (18:04):
Wow, that is remarkable. I think that's a
wonderful place to just end thisconversation. And I did want to
give you an opportunity. Do youhave any resources that you
could share with us, some links,or where can people connect with
you to learn more about the workthat you're doing? And if they
need help to get help as well?
Lauren Howard (18:24):
Yeah, absolutely. You can find our mental health
services as well as accessiblegroup services. You do not have
to be enrolled in mental healthto use the groups at
lbhealth.com. L B E as inEdward, E as in Edward, health
Com. There are also burnoutinventories there.
There's some questions. There'ssome resources for how to deal
(18:44):
with certain situations whereyou can find more help. And then
our other website is L2.com, e ll e t w 0 Com. Lots of content
there on what it's like to be awoman in the workplace, how you
navigate through those things.And then you can always find me
on LinkedIn,LinkedIn.com/in/l2elletwo.
(19:06):
I post there literally everyday. I'm always there running my
mouth, and I'm pretty easy tofind at any of those places if I
can help at all.
Daniel Williams (19:14):
Exactly. That's where I found you. We met there.
And so I'm so glad I don't goout to LinkedIn very often, but
you popped up in my stream whenI was out there and I went, I
gotta talk to this person. Thissounds pretty impressive.
Lauren Howard, thanks forjoining us on the MGMA Insights
podcast.
Lauren Howard (19:32):
Awesome. It's so wonderful. Thank you for having
me.
Daniel Williams (19:34):
All right. That is going to do it for this
episode. As Lauren was sharingthose links, we will put those
in the episode show notes. We'llalso develop an article on
MGMA.com where you can accessthe direct links to her and her
resources as well. Until then,thank you all for being MGMA
podcast listeners.
Hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior
editor at MGMA and host of theMGMA Podcast Network. We are
back with another MGMA Insightspodcast today. Our guest is
Lauren Howard. She's aninspiring leader in the
healthcare and mental healthspace.
She's also the CEO of LB Health,a virtual mental health
(00:26):
treatment program designed tohelp individuals recover from
burnout, toxic workenvironments, and trauma. Now
she's also the CEO of L2, andthat's a platform that's
challenging the traditionalnorms of professionalism for
women. And we're excited to haveLauren on the show. So Lauren,
(00:46):
welcome.
Lauren Howard (00:48):
Thank you so much for having me.
Daniel Williams (00:50):
Yeah. You and I were talking offline. Have
interacted with directly,indirectly with the MGMA
audience and people who are makeup that audience over the years.
So we're glad to have you onthis podcast today. I learned
about you through LinkedIn.
I feel like people do a lot ofnetworking now and make
connections and contacts throughplatforms like LinkedIn. So I'm
(01:13):
so glad I got to meet you onthere. So what I want to do is,
just ask you about thesedifferent organizations, LB
Health and L2. Talk about thoseprograms, how you started them,
what initiated that spark in thefirst place.
Lauren Howard (01:32):
Yeah, absolutely. L2 is actually the predecessor
to LB Health and it's still anactive company. We still publish
content there. We publish otherwriters who share their stories
and content there. But trulythey both came out of the same
thing, which is that I left ajob that was really toxic, just
bad for me several years ago.
(01:55):
And had spent the entire timethere when I knew I wasn't I
don't know if I knew I wasn'thappy for a long time. I think I
was very much deeply in thisbelief that this was the best it
could be. It wasn't gonna bebetter than this. And knowing
that I wasn't loving my life,but also thinking that was just
the way it was supposed to be.And I was tremendously burned
(02:17):
out.
It was a really hostileenvironment. And when I finally
left very unceremoniously, whichis not like me, I felt like I
had all of this kind ofpotential energy built up that
of all of these things that hadhappened that I didn't know what
to do with. And I process bywriting things out. That's how I
get things from my brain and getmy brain to settle down. To this
(02:40):
day, I don't know why I starteddoing it, but I just started
writing about these things onLinkedIn.
I wasn't a LinkedIn user reallyat all. Just started very
quickly. The response that Ithought I would get was, oh, I'm
so sorry that happened to you orlike, why are you sharing sad
stories for attention on theInternet? Mhmm. And instead,
what I got was, wait, thathappened to me and I thought it
(03:02):
was just me.
And I went, okay, if it's youand it's me and it's my entire
inbox, then maybe it's all of usand we just start talking about
it. That turned into Altu, whichis a community and a site where
we publish regular content aboutwhat does it even mean to be a
woman in the workplace? Why doesworking while female seem to be
(03:25):
a hazard? Where, how do we getaround, these things that we've
been taught about how we'resupposed to be in the workplace,
how we're supposed to present,which were never actually real.
And why is it so wild to askwhy?
Like, why are these thingshappening? And so we had a, we
have had, we continue to havereally just incredible
(03:47):
conversations through thatplatform about these questions
that I think we need to beanswering. But my background is
in behavioral healthadministration. I ran a for
about a decade. And as much as ltwo is my whole heart, I would
still sit around and go, I don'tthink we're doing enough.
I don't think having theconversations is enough. Like
(04:07):
validating people and makingthem feel seen, that's really
important, but there's a piecemissing to this. And one day
earlier this year, I don't knowwhy it took three and a half
years for it to happen, but oneday earlier this year, it like
smacked me in the face and Iwent, oh wait, this is what it
is. Oh, we're supposed to beactually delivering the mental
healthcare because I know how todo that. And my business partner
(04:30):
is a physician who's licensed in50 States and we actually own
four practices, three practicestogether at the time.
And I called him up and I said,Hey, do you want to open a
mental health practice? And hesaid, Sure. And I went, you
don't have more questions thanthat? And he was like, no. I
went, okay.
And then I called a friend ofmine who's an incredible
(04:50):
therapist, and it very much wentthe same way. And within a
couple of hours, we went from, Ithink I have this crazy idea to,
oh, we're actually doing thisnow. And that was less than six
months ago. And we now providemental health services mental
health services in 13 states andwe'll be in 20 by the end of the
(05:11):
month, 50 by the end of theyear. And we do support groups,
which is really where all ofthis started was everybody
coming today together and sayingthis is hard and I don't know
why.
And our support groups areavailable in all 50 States
already. And they're $20 aperson. Because part of the
reason that so many people werestruggling to find support was
that it was inaccessible. And sowe made it hyper accessible. And
(05:34):
that's really where, they're twodifferent companies, but they're
born out of the same thing.
And they connect to our othercompanies as well, because when
you're trying to help a person,there's a whole person there,
regardless what your missionwith them is. And I think that's
how all of this progressed. Ifyou had told me three and a half
(05:56):
years ago when I personally wason my couch unable to get up
because I was so burned out thatmy body and my brain just
disconnected, stopped talking toeach other, that we would be
here doing this workparticularly, I would have told
you we're insane and walkedaway, but the universe had other
plans and now we're here.
Daniel Williams (06:18):
Yeah. Wow. That is a really powerful story. And
I appreciate you sharing thatwith us. In looking at your
information on the companies,one of the things that you
really look at, you reallyaddress the feelings of
isolation and burnout that somany people feel.
What are, obviously this canoccur and create within people
(06:40):
in many different ways, but arethere some common themes? What
are you seeing that is causingthis sort of epidemic of
isolation, this epidemic ofburnout right now, particularly
if you could speak to it evenfrom the healthcare side of
things, if you're seeing thatfrom people?
Lauren Howard (06:58):
Yeah, I think there's so many layers to it
that it's hard to pinpoint anyone thing that has contributed
significantly or moresignificantly than others. But I
will say that it is not acoincidence that people are
reporting significantly moreburnout post pandemic than they
did prior. I think we don'taddress the fact that regardless
(07:22):
whether you got sick or not orsomebody you love got sick or
not, the pandemic was a globaltrauma. Everybody experienced
loss of way of life. Weexperienced loss of routine.
We experienced loss of socialopportunities. There was social
isolation, etcetera. Weeverything we knew about our
lives changed in like a two weekperiod. And then not only that,
(07:42):
but it changed in a two weekperiod with this idea that it
would go back to normal just ashort period of time. And then
it dragged on for three years.
And the 21 people you ask, it'sstill happening now. Not a
pandemic but the restrictionsare still there for a lot of
people. And so I think if I hadto pick one thing that has
(08:04):
really pushed us to eitherexperience these things more
significantly or recognize themmore significantly. It was the
pandemic, either because of justbecause the loss the loss of way
of life and the considerableisolation that came from not
seeing people in person, butalso from this very shifted
(08:26):
perspective on how we'resupposed to feel about work to
begin with. When you're stuck inyour house because people all
over the world are dyingunexpectedly and it's terrifying
to walk out your front door, allof a sudden you reassess your
priorities and you go, should Ifeel anxious on Saturday nights
when my boss texts me thatthere's an emergency that's
never been an emergency?
(08:47):
No, probably not. Should I beworking eighty hour weeks for a
medal that doesn't exist?There's no trophy.
Daniel Williams (08:54):
Right.
Lauren Howard (08:54):
No, probably not. And so when your perspective on
the, your why changes, and thenon top of it, everybody just
went through this really hardthing. Those things can't be,
those things can't be extricatedfrom each other. And there's not
a coincidence that we areexperiencing such a huge,
(09:15):
whether it's an uptake orwhether it's just better
communication around the factthat so many people are feeling
this, so many people are feelingisolated, burned out, depressed,
etc. But then I will also saythat our workplaces aren't doing
anything to help in a lot ofcases.
I think the more we treat peoplelike they're numbers and not
(09:38):
humans who are performing a job,the more we dehumanize them, the
more they don't like going towork, the more toxic that
environment gets. And so it's alot of things, but there are the
people who have performed jobshave never been anything other
than people. And when you workin roles that you constantly
(10:01):
feel like your need to be human,which has never gone away, is
going to interfere with yourability to be employed. That
leads to the kinds of stressorsthat we see lead to burnout. We
talk to people all the timeabout the things that have them
feeling burned out and it'snever their job duties.
Never. They'll say it's themental gymnastics at the
(10:22):
workplace. It's the politicsaround doing their job. It's
managing up. It's contortingthemselves into a pretzel to
fulfill whatever obligation theyhave to fulfill because they
can't just do the job.
They have to do all the thingsbefore they can do the job. And
if you ask them, okay, if youcould just do your job duties
(10:44):
and not have all of theancillary stress, would you go
would you leave work and worryabout, would you leave work and
worry all the time? And they go,no, cause I'm not thinking about
my job duties when I get home orwhen I clock out. I'm thinking
about how's going to, how's thisgoing to reflect on me so that
understands that I've done thework and have I reported back on
(11:05):
this correctly? And are theygoing to think that I'm doing my
job?
Are they going to think that I'meffective? Those are the things
that people report to us areactually the drivers behind the
burnout. Almost never the job.
Daniel Williams (11:17):
So, that is so interesting, and what I want to
follow-up with is these things,these environments, these
political environments or toxicenvironments, they were around
before the pandemic. Were theyin as much supply, so to speak?
(11:39):
Prior to that, what is it rightnow that's going on that you're
seeing this uptick in burnoutand or toxic environments? Is it
even people feeling more open orvulnerable to express it or
report it? What, help meunderstand that aspect of it.
Lauren Howard (11:58):
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I
think there has been a generalshift of priorities. I think
we're having betterconversations about you are not
defined by your work. Your worthdoes not come from your work.
You are a human regardless whatyour title is.
You are a valuable humanregardless what your title is.
And so I think all of that hasbeen instrumental in creating
(12:20):
some of this stuff. And do Ithink it's worse now? I don't
really know, but I know thatpeople are responding more
negatively toward it now. Ithink part of it may be some
backlash for what we call thegreat resignation when so many
people were just walking awayfrom I was one of those people.
And just ex- they were able tojust walk into another job and
(12:42):
it was not a problem. And nowthe employers are really back in
control of that hiringlandscape. And there is
something that feels a littlebit, I don't know if vindictive
is the word, but like veryalmost nefarious about the fact
that this is our we're it's aemployer's market. You're not
the commodity anymore. We are.
(13:03):
And so I think there's some ofthat. But I also think I agree
with you that we have started tomake a shift toward teaching
people what's okay, what theydeserve. We say this all the
time. A paycheck is not apermission slip for abuse. You
aren't subject to abuse justbecause you got a job.
They still have to treat youlike a human. They still have to
(13:25):
respect you as a person. That isin a lot of cases misaligned
from what we see in actualworkplaces currently. And it's
very hard when people know thatand their employer has not
caught up to it. And so I thinkthat kind of misalignment is
(13:45):
where the real friction iscoming from.
Daniel Williams (13:48):
Yeah. And I want to get your thoughts on
this part of it as well. When wedid have that initial shutdown,
lockdown from the pandemic, wehad a lot of downtime, so to
speak, that maybe we hadn'tpreviously had as people who
were working, people reflected.I know people I knew personally
(14:11):
made personal choices saying,I'm moving back home. I'm
realizing I don't know how longI have.
And so if I have X amount oftime on this earth, then I want
to spend it with family. I wantto spend it doing this. Or maybe
I want to work from a hybridenvironment or a remote
environment. So many differentoptions there. It really allowed
(14:34):
us to reflect on what's reallyimportant to us.
And maybe at that point yourealize, doing the filing the,
this file or that file orwhatever that function of the
job might be, it's a means to anend, but maybe there are other
things that I wanna pursue aswell. So I wanted to get your
thoughts on that, if you'reseeing that come out, or a
(14:57):
prioritization of work and life,so to speak.
Lauren Howard (15:02):
Yeah. I we saw a lot of it once it became clear
that remote work was gonna stayfor a lot of people for a while.
People started making what wouldpreviously have been selfish
decisions because it wasallowed. The number of people
who moved across country ormoved out of the city or looked
for less expensive housing,while at the same time
(15:24):
increasing productivity inworkplaces. So they weren't all
together, but in general, wentup during the pandemic, not
down.
And so people were both able torecreate their jobs into new
structures that worked for thempersonally, but also they were
able to do it in a place wherethey wanted to be, that either
(15:46):
felt safer, that felt like home,that felt whatever. And so a lot
of people learned that theycould have both. You can have
the life with the people youwant to be around and still do
the job. I think what we'reseeing now though, is this is
obvious. Most of the bigcompanies are calling their
(16:07):
people back in.
People who have moved acrosscountry, people who did their
jobs exceptionally during thepandemic remote and who are now
getting called back into officesfor reasons that don't make
sense because their jobs werefine. And that's another huge
source of friction because itserves the company. It doesn't
(16:28):
serve the humans who areoperating the company. And the
company, instead ofacknowledging and they never
would, but for the most part Ihave seen instead of
acknowledging the realities ofwhy they're really asking people
back, they give them reasonsthat that don't benefit those
individuals. So we think theteam works better when you're in
(16:51):
person and can collaborate.
And everybody's going, we'vebeen doing that for four years
and we didn't have a problem.But why does it matter now? And
the reality is, and this is theunfortunate and somewhat
nefarious reality of these pushto return to office, but there's
a lot of commercial real estatesitting empty. Right. And most
of investments are in their realestate or, and a lot of big
(17:13):
banks investments are in thatreal estate.
And if those real estate, ifthose real estate holdings go
down in value, the company ofitself is less valuable. And I
tell people this all the time.And I it's not that I don't
understand it. I understand itfinancially, but I also think
that if you the ROI on havinghappy employees is more
(17:37):
important than the ROI on anexpensive building. And we talk
about it all the time.
That is a very conscious choiceto value property over your
people. And you can't expectthat people are gonna be excited
to go to a workplace like that.You just can't. And especially
when it goes against all of thedata that we've seen except
(18:01):
property values. That's the onlydata that doesn't support it.
Daniel Williams (18:04):
Wow, that is remarkable. I think that's a
wonderful place to just end thisconversation. And I did want to
give you an opportunity. Do youhave any resources that you
could share with us, some links,or where can people connect with
you to learn more about the workthat you're doing? And if they
need help to get help as well?
Lauren Howard (18:24):
Yeah, absolutely. You can find our mental health
services as well as accessiblegroup services. You do not have
to be enrolled in mental healthto use the groups at
lbhealth.com. L B E as inEdward, E as in Edward, health
Com. There are also burnoutinventories there.
There's some questions. There'ssome resources for how to deal
(18:44):
with certain situations whereyou can find more help. And then
our other website is L2.com, e ll e t w 0 Com. Lots of content
there on what it's like to be awoman in the workplace, how you
navigate through those things.And then you can always find me
on LinkedIn,LinkedIn.com/in/l2elletwo.
(19:06):
I post there literally everyday. I'm always there running my
mouth, and I'm pretty easy tofind at any of those places if I
can help at all.
Daniel Williams (19:14):
Exactly. That's where I found you. We met there.
And so I'm so glad I don't goout to LinkedIn very often, but
you popped up in my stream whenI was out there and I went, I
gotta talk to this person. Thissounds pretty impressive.
Lauren Howard, thanks forjoining us on the MGMA Insights
podcast.
Lauren Howard (19:32):
Awesome. It's so wonderful. Thank you for having
me.
Daniel Williams (19:34):
All right. That is going to do it for this
episode. As Lauren was sharingthose links, we will put those
in the episode show notes. We'llalso develop an article on
MGMA.com where you can accessthe direct links to her and her
resources as well. Until then,thank you all for being MGMA
podcast listeners.
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