Julie Edwards: And we're gonna let people in
Julie Edwards: welcome everyone. I see you starting to join us. Thank you so much. I'm Julie Edwards with niche Academy. We're gonna get started here in just about a minute. But if you would like feel free to hop over to the chat and say, Hi, let us know where you're from. We do publish the Chat Transcript on the blog with this many librarians in a room. There's so much great information that goes back and forth. You do not have to use the chat if you do not want to.
Julie Edwards: just to be clear about that, and I'm I will reiterate that with such a sensitive topic today.
Julie Edwards: Good morning, Spokane. Hello! Coming in first. Phoenix, Alabama, Georgia. High West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Julie Edwards: Nashville, Michigan, Seattle, so nice to see so many of you, hey? There's our Canadian friends. Hello, Nova Scotia, hey? North Carolina!
Julie Edwards: So great to see you all New York, Texas, Washingtonian today, hey! Massachusetts! My home state. Wow! Hi! Alaska!
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Julie Edwards: hey? Moscow! Idaho! I know where you are. I'm in Missoula, Montana. Nice to see you. Welcome, everybody. Welcome! We are at the top of the hour, and I want to go ahead and get us started. We have a great topic this afternoon this morning depending on where you're from, so we'll go ahead and launch right in welcome.
Julie Edwards: My name again is Julie Edwards. I'm a librarian and instructional designer, with Niche Academy, and I am so happy that you have joined us today for this webinar reducing burnout for academic library workers who have complicated lives also known as everybody. I was saying to the presenters that I often choose topics based on what I wish I had had someone talk to me about when I was an academic librarian.
Julie Edwards: and this is definitely right up there.
Julie Edwards: So let me introduce Niche Academy really quickly, before we launch into the webinar. We are an easy to use all in one learning platform to help libraries create and deliver effective training and measure success.
Julie Edwards: So our software is the perfect tool. If you're looking to increase your e resource usage, deliver information, literacy, instruction and measure student success and provide training for patrons and staff, including your student employees. If you're interested in finding out more about our e-learning solution, chatting with a member of our team or hearing what your colleagues and other libraries have to say. I'll drop a link to our website in the chat so you can learn more about us.
Julie Edwards: We are recording this webinar, and we will make the recording the slides, the Chat Transcript and the audio transcript available to everyone after the presentation. That will all be on our blog. And I'll email that to you directly in a few days. This is a good place to remind everyone that the chat does get published. And so if you don't want to share anything that you deem sensitive in the chat. You don't have to.
Julie Edwards: You can turn on closed captions at the bottom of your zoom screen. Please talk with each other in the chat. Share your ideas if you feel comfortable doing that. But if you have a question for the presenters, please put them in the question and answer box. So we already have well, over 200 people in the room today. Questions for the presenters do get lost in the chat when they're put there. If you put them in the QA. Box, I will do my best to moderate those at the end of the webinar.
Julie Edwards: This Webinar series is part of our commitment to solving bigger problems together, providing continuing education in the library world. I am so happy that you've joined us today. I'll drop a link to our upcoming webinars into the chat as well. So you can access those. We have one coming up that may be of interest to academic librarians on using Chat gpt in your work and in the classroom.
Julie Edwards: So without further ado, I am thrilled to welcome our presenters today, who have graciously rescheduled this after being in the path of the hurricane earlier this summer or fall, time has no meaning anymore. Post Covid. Welcome to Jessica Lee, Mike Holt and Robert Griggs Taylor. Jessica is the electronic resource and serials librarian at Valdose State University. She's the mother of one child and her research interests include
Julie Edwards: consortial migration, copyright E, resource management and library and burnout. Mike Holt is the head of research and instruction services at Lsu. Libraries. The father of 2 children, and has research interests in library and burnout, assessment of diversity, equity and inclusion, efforts and critical approaches to management in libraries.
Julie Edwards: and Robert Griggs Taylor is a librarian and information professional by training, part-time professor and full-time queer person with 2 teens. Their research interests include gaming, trauma, equity, diversity, and inclusion and critical pedagogy in librarianship. I am absolutely delighted to welcome them today, and I will turn the webinar over to them.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Good day, everyone. My name is Robert.
Mike Holt: I'm Mike
Jessica Lee: and I'm Jessica.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): And today we're going to be presenting on reducing burnout in academic library workers with busy lives. Aka. Everybody using the research we gathered in 2021 and published last year.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Next slide, please.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): as introduced earlier, Jessica's Electronic Resources and Serials Library. And if I'd Boston State University and a tenure associate professor with a 5 year old. I have a now 17 huh!
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): And a 16 year old, and I can say 17, huh! And an 11 year old. Sorry we're feeling that that closeness to college age a little bit right here.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I'm a former cataloging librarian and currently teaching part time and women and gender studies. And Mike is still head of research services and research and instruction services at Louisiana State University.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Next slide, please.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Thank you.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Okay. So we've prepared a brief overview of our presentation today to start off. I'm gonna give us all a brief introduction to our research and history with this topic before discussing some of the gaps that we felt that we found in our research. That we feel deserve further exploration.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Then Jessica and I will both break down some of the institutional expectations and experiences in academic librarianship that we found contribute to burnout.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Next, Jessica will lead us through key quotations from our survey that touch on issues of trust, boundaries and mental health in the workplace, things that do affect all of us, not just those of us who are parents, and in the last section Mike will discuss some of the insights we gleaned for managing burnout.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): and as our disclaimer, the 3 of us very much feel that we are not cure to burn out ourselves. We have made individual changes to our lives over the past 3 years that mitigate burnout, and we're in better places than we were 3 years ago, and we started this research process. But we still very much feel that we are works in progress, and every day is different.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): So to give that context, I was talking about earlier to our experience with researching burnout, we prepared an overview of our research and publication history in 2020. The 3 of us here today and are not just here in in spirit. But here in the chat co-author. Amy, too, began discussing, researching, and writing about academic parental burnout while working as colleagues at the same institution.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): We did not all stay at that same institution as part of our individual plans to mitigate our own burnout.
That did not necessarily mean staying there.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): In 2021 we surveyed academic library workers learn more about their experiences with of parental burnout, which resulted in our publication burning the candle at both ends, which was published by acrol
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): while we waited on that book chapter to finish Jessica Lee and I wrote an article for the Georgia Library, Quarterly, titled Rising from the Flames, and in that article we reflected on how
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): the research that we gathered, and and that experience of writing burning the candle affected us as supervisors, and the article won an award which we were very happy about. And we were presented on that at the Georgia Libraries Conference last year
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): earlier this year all of 4 of us now spread across 3 States got to reunite at Acrl, which was a lot of fun to present our research in an interactive panel style session.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): And that brings us up to the current day, where we continue to talk about our research here with Niche Academy.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): To contextualize our research, as we mentioned earlier was about parents who are employed in academic libraries. We wanted to share with you a brief overview of how we constructed our survey. We were interested in learning about burnout from parents or academic library workers of all classifications. So we began by asking 3 qualifying questions if they're employed in an academic library.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): If they said no, they were directed to the end of the survey if they said yes. We next asked if they were parents, if they said yes, they continued on through the survey, and if they said no, they were again exited out of the survey next slide, please.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): if they experience burnout, was the final question, and for that when we then siloed our answers into 2 different sections, if the people who answered Yes were asked questions about work strategies, parental duties and work burnout, and then some personal demographic
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): information. And then we asked the similar questions for the people who indicated they did not experience burnout.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): next slide, please. Okay, thank you.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): In our survey we examined print. We examined Principal burnout for academic library workers with minor children, ages 0 through 18, and we heard calls from a lot of parents of adult children who are still very active caregivers, and others who are balancing care, taking of minor children and or elderly disabled family members. So the lies are a little more complex than what we were necessarily asking for in our initial survey questions
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): also in our survey findings. Many respondents interpreted the questions to include their status as caregivers for adult children, which was not something we had thought of when constructing those initial questions. So future researchers, we feel, really should construct their surveys a little more carefully to account for those different caretaker needs, and you can even delve into them at
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): different life stages and to to drill a little further down into the complexity that your life sort of takes on whenever you're dealing with, say, an infant versus an 8 year old or an 8 year old versus a 12 year old.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Your life's gonna look a little different at different life stages of your children.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Researchers also could examine different types of partnerships adult and child living arrangements and other levels of complexity that occur when life and obligations outside of the work environment intersect with concerns inside the work environment.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): the focus is definitely
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): being on. Parents comes about in this survey, because parental responsibilities
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): cannot really be contained to just after work hours. It's not something you can just drop off at the door whenever you enter work, and then not think about until you leave work. It's something that's always on your mind, and it very much impacts not just you, but also your co-workers.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Next slide, please. And so now in this section, we're going to briefly contextualize our research in the current academic environment.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): So some of the common rules and expectations of next slide, please. I'm sorry I have
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): it flipped up on my.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): so I could see my notes. Here are the some of the common rules and expectations of the workplace for academic library workers. Many of us are operating under an assumed 40 h work. Wait Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 with 1 h lunch break for academic library workers. There are certain specific factors that
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): we feel can lead to increased burnout
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): attaining professional librarianship, status or tenure often requires completing another degree that cannot happen during regular work hours. Library workers are often expected to be active in professional development activities, researching, writing, and service answering emails at all hours coursework preparation. If you're a teaching librarian
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): and the research and service expectations are often regular components of the job breakdown. So, for example, university library worker may be expected to vote 70% of their job to their main job tasks cataloging, for example, my heart
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): or 15% to service activities and 15% to research. But the realities of the day to day work environment means often that research, writing and service activities have to be completed after hours or on the weekends in regards to service. Simply being on committee is fine, but to attain tenure often, and you need to be a little more involved serving as a chair or vice chair or secretary, and that's consuming even more time that's not necessarily available to you.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Next slide, please.
Jessica Lee: Hi, this is Jessica.
Jessica Lee: So in any work environment there
Jessica Lee: are polarizing sides of how people are managed, and
Jessica Lee: and that can sometimes contribute to burnout. And I wanted to envision a scale that represents opposing factors we face as academic library workers. Do we work in a patron centered department that requires desk time. Or is there more flexibility? Because you're in a department that isn't patron facing
Jessica Lee: like cataloging
Jessica Lee: often where you land on the sliding scale depends on you. Your employer's management, style, favoritism, and many other factors. There's also societal expectations, gender dynamics and expectations also factor into this as well
Jessica Lee: balancing boundaries in an equitable environment or other factors to to consider as well. All of these areas interact with each other.
Jessica Lee: and some are controlled, controlled by you as a person and and your employer or manager which can cause conflict.
Jessica Lee: So each area listed in the scale has 2 polarizing sides.
Jessica Lee: First, there is flexibility in rigid scheduling. Often where you land. On this depends on your employer and supervisor.
Jessica Lee: sometimes.
Jessica Lee: and managers are much more willing to let you work from home or
Jessica Lee: come in later, because you have to go. Take your child to the dentist, or things like that. So
Jessica Lee: those things can contribute to burnout. If you're depending on what type of manager you have.
Jessica Lee: Next, we have trust, slash.
Jessica Lee: We have trust and doubt, skepticism. which can lead to less effective and efficient workers. When there is doubt you may feel more likely to point the fingers at others.
Jessica Lee: Earning someone's trust is crucial to having a functioning department. Trust is a two-way street.
Jessica Lee: There are times where I've seen this, where
Jessica Lee: I work in tech services. And so let's say, someone cataloged
Jessica Lee: this item wrong, or had the wrong call number or didn't have a barcode, or whatever so
Jessica Lee: depending on. Sometimes you can see a history in the
Jessica Lee: the Your Ils, so you can say, Oh, well, so and so did this, but my name is also on that knit list, so you can point fingers saying like, well, this person messed up. But in the grand scheme of things. We can't really tell who messed up. But does it really matter as long as we fix the issue.
Jessica Lee: remote work, and physically
Jessica Lee: being required to be at the library. or I kind of see this sometimes, as like you have to prove yourself to work from home. Since 2020 many major universities
Jessica Lee: which don't include a lot in the South, in my opinion, offer hybrid scheduling in their job ads that once you complete a 3 to 6 month period
Jessica Lee: you can have a hybrid schedule. This is different than needing to prove yourself or that work from home comes with strings attached.
Jessica Lee: Excuse me, there was a niche Academy presentation a while back, where a librarian discussed doing big brain projects
Jessica Lee: at home. She worked at a public library. I felt like this was tied to trust.
Jessica Lee: If we trust our employees, they can have an opportunity to surpass our expectations and thrive even when we're working remotely.
Jessica Lee: This librarian talked about big brain projects that these kind of events that she would put together. She needed more time to just kind of sit there and focus. So she did that at home, and I thought that was a great way to allow people to work from home when necessary.
Jessica Lee: Boundaries are also are so important to curbing burnout and low morale. It's easy to let work consume your life.
Jessica Lee: I can check my email from almost anywhere
Jessica Lee: I've read in responded to work emails on my honeymoon, my maternity leave while breastfeeding while while on an actual beach. Some of this is on me. But I had to put into place
Jessica Lee: people who could fulfill my job duties while I was out. I didn't really make an effort initially, since I'm the only electronic resources librarian.
Jessica Lee: Now, I have other librarians who can handle some issues while I'm out.
Jessica Lee: If not, it can wait.
Jessica Lee: The mentality around work can be grim and remove the joy around it. I enjoy my job and coworkers, and shouldn't feel the need to respond while I'm out of the office.
Jessica Lee: Also. No, is a full sentence.
Jessica Lee: discovering the ability to say, No can reduce Burnout by releasing the fear that any time we're asking you something we should do it. You know how full your plate is.
Jessica Lee: If you add something, see if there's something else you can draw.
Jessica Lee: Lastly, we need a culture of care
Jessica Lee: where it is understood that our lives outside of work exist while we work we are in the show. Sever.
Jessica Lee: I'm still an on call, mom. 24 HA day, and if my daughter's school calls, I'm usually out the door immediately. I'm a mom first, and I'm not perfect at balancing all the things. But when we don't have that understanding, there becomes a fear of failure in making mistakes as well.
Jessica Lee: and when that failure is too big it can cripple effectiveness and efficiency. I don't expect my employees to work every second
Jessica Lee: of the workday. I think we should be able to coex enjoy each other, but also obviously do work.
Jessica Lee: Those things can coexist.
Jessica Lee: My goal when dreaming up this scale was to illustrate how so many important aspects of our work life are interconnected, and how, no matter how much we try our personal lives, invade invade our work lives
Jessica Lee: the major overarching theme for this is that communication is key without communication, misunderstandings happen. and although communication can be difficult.
Jessica Lee: But it's necessary to advocate for yourself.
Jessica Lee: Also having a friend at your job can help. Is there somebody you can vent to. I find that to be really helpful and obviously, and my co-presenters are the people that I like to vent to, even though we don't work together anymore.
Jessica Lee: Next slide
Jessica Lee: in this section we will dive into our previous survey results for comments on trust boundaries and mental health at work.
Jessica Lee: Robert, you will read the slides you, the read, Robert, will read the quotes on the slides, and then I will expand on them.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Politics.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): The first quote is the support was better in previous years than now. Turnover in Hr. Has lessened relationships with Staff at the institution and Trust.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I used my leave for every minute I was out on my kids, doctors, appointments, and other activities, even though my director said I could make up hours because the childless co-worker watched my time like a Hawk. I didn't want to give her anything to complain about. This was stressful and unnecessary, and left me with little time, little leave to enjoy time off.
Jessica Lee: There seems to be a common societal understanding that we are our jobs, and we are there to do a job. And that's what must come first.
Jessica Lee: However, setting flexible boundaries can create trust in a happier working environment.
Jessica Lee: We should all know what our limits are, and hopefully have employers or managers that respect our boundaries.
Jessica Lee: The mantra of higher education, for at least the last decade has been, do more with less. As budgets and fast rings. We need to be intentional about what needs to be done and find things that
Jessica Lee: we have done in the past, that maybe with the reduced staff that we have, we can let go.
Jessica Lee: Oh, next slide.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I have made it clear that I am a mom first, and I will not make apologies for being a mom. I found that it was expected in my first week on the job working full-time.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I know that other librarians without kids do not have an understanding of this. I know that I will not rise in the ranks as others will, and that is okay with me. However, I think Job flexibility should be at the forefront, not just for parents, but for those with aging parents, not just for parents. Excuse me.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): but those with aging parents or other aspects of life that need attention. Second quote.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I don't think anything I've experienced is particularly unusual. It just feels hard to balance everything all the time, particularly all the different kinds of tasks, responsibilities that we're expected to do in an academic librarian job where we have faculty status, I primarily find it to be an issue of multitasking requirements and too many demands at any given time
Jessica Lee: in these survey responses. The first discusses how the Respondie is a mom first, and how that can limit her ability to rise in the ranks.
Jessica Lee: but they made a good point that flexibility benefits everyone. It's not just for parents.
Jessica Lee: The expectation of what is required of faculty, especially tenure track, can feel overwhelming.
Jessica Lee: Combine that with budget, customs, frigging staff you can easily be doing the jobs of several people. How many of us have worked on research publications or presentations after hours or on the weekends, because there just isn't enough time in the 40 h work week.
Jessica Lee: Next slide.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): First quote.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): there's definitely a don't ask for too much attitude projected at parents. It's difficult to ask for what you need when too much isn't defined until you've asked for too much or much bigger sin, taken too much without asking first
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): having to ask for what you need can be humiliating, and serve as a reminder of how you don't fit. Second quote.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): There's a big emphasis on fairness at my institution.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): no work from home, because not everyone can work from home, and that's not fair.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Can't close the library due to staff shortages, weather, etc. Because that wouldn't be fair to the other staff and faculty who still have to come to campus.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Librarians can't have flexible hours, because hourly Staff can't union contracted ships, and that wouldn't be fair.
Jessica Lee: The first survey response focuses on the don't ask for too much attitude
Jessica Lee: projected at parents, that this may be different at every institution
Jessica Lee: as of right. Now, I'm the only faculty librarian with a minor child.
Jessica Lee: So I am unique in my position that I'm the only one with a kid.
Jessica Lee: so II do think about these things. Do you need to ask for permission first, or ask for forgiveness. F.
Jessica Lee: Ask for forgiveness afterwards. In some cases I can't tell you how many times something involving my daughter has unexpectedly up. And in my schedule
Jessica Lee: I really also wanted to showcase the second response. how fairness can stifle flexibility. Instead, maybe there needs to be opportunities for others to work remotely.
Jessica Lee: There's never going to be a hundred percent fairness. What
Jessica Lee: I think it's about balancing
Jessica Lee: the needs of the person, the needs of the department in the library. And so.
Jessica Lee: while some people may need more flexibility because of things in their lives, others may not. And I think that doesn't mean that those opportunities should be stripped away from others that need it.
Jessica Lee: Next slide.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I always feel torn between being a good parent and a good librarian. I feel guilty for spending time away from my children, which I would in any career. But then I also want to be an effective librarian.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I think the guilt of not being a hundred percent at either contributes to burnout.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): When my kids were babies. I was always so tired when I came to work, and then I had to pump at different times of the day, and I was very scattered because my purpose seemed split even when I was at work.
Jessica Lee: Boundaries are a healthy part of our personal and work lives.
Jessica Lee: Even when we create boundaries, there can be sometimes guilt associated with holding our grounds.
Jessica Lee: asking for flexibility can cause us to feel guilt, because
Jessica Lee: often standing our ground and protecting our mental well-being isn't something that's protected or isn't something that's encouraged. Healthy boundaries can be flexible. There are many people in my organization who do not use their leave. They lose leave at the end of the year every year.
Jessica Lee: They never go on vacation, and they never need to use sick leave. It'll get to the point like I said, where they lose leave which completely blows my mind.
Jessica Lee: There are times when I needed to go to the doctor more regularly than my colleagues. I feel weird using my leave, and I shouldn't. I earned it. But when a culture of care isn't promoted, it can feel wrong to advocate for yourself, or take time to do the things that you need to do for your mental well-being or physical well-being.
Jessica Lee: My colleagues and I have been discussing Burnout for the past 3 years, and I still feel boundary guilt. It's a difficult thing to shake, but necessary when I hold a boundary. I often text Robert, and tell them how I
Jessica Lee: held a boundary when I needed rest.
Jessica Lee: I said I needed to to to my boundary horn boundary horn
Jessica Lee: next slide
Mike Holt: alright. So in this next section, we're gonna discuss how the morass of tensions that we all have between work expectations and worker needs can be
Mike Holt: can be better balanced. And I just wanted to call out one comment. I just saw in the thread that I thought was particularly important in many cases. Folks required to work in person, and with fixed shifts, or at a socioeconomic disadvantage, but still don't expect privileged employees to sacrifice.
Mike Holt: and I think that is very important to say and recognize as well, because oftentimes it's not the lower workers that use that fairness argument. It's usually coming from higher up. That I've heard the fairness argument from before, too. So I think that's a very important distinction. So I'll go on to my own next slide since I'm driving
Mike Holt: so one of the problems contributed. Academic library and burnout has been just what I think, II hope, is a familiar term by now, when I call it the neoliberalization of public higher education that's been present
Mike Holt: since at least the 1980 s. In America. It's manifested itself in libraries in the mantra. I'm sure you've all heard, and our webinar organizer was talking with us before of do more with less
Mike Holt: budgets and staff are shrinking at a number of institutions, and that always means more duties for the people left behind. When you couple that with the uncertainties of the tenure system and pressures of parenthood on top of it. It's very, very little wonder that we have an epidemic of burnout in our profession. The mission just keeps continuing to creep and grow larger in each of our job descriptions.
Mike Holt: and the often small percentage for other duties as assigned it probably seems laughable to most of you at this point. So in all of this we have to fight back against the neoliberal paradigm to lessen burnout. It doesn't have to mean becoming an activist warrior or anything else like that to add more to your already over stuffed plates
Mike Holt: instead, I like to think of it as a searching for the areas that you know, or at least suspect, that you can push back against. Do what you can. Most of it is gonna be small, but it's always helpful. Remember these important truths when trying to figure out your courses of action first.
Mike Holt: Just remember, have grace for your coworkers wherever you can. When it relates to job duties. We're all imperfect humans, and we make mistakes, and that's fine. Give your coworkers some room to be human and don't constantly push them for output, and it leads to the second most important truth, and that there are no emergencies in library work. If you feel guilty about not replying instantly to an email that comes in at night. Don't.
Mike Holt: No one's lives are on the line here unless the building is burning down and you're the dean. It can wait until the next day, or until you get back from whatever rest you're currently taking. And I don't say
Mike Holt: that to make it seem like you can just say, Okay, I'm not gonna reply to emails anymore and make it go away. It's just something to tell yourself to hopefully help reduce your boundary gilt. It's kind of one of those things that you always hear in therapy, you know. Fake it till you make it you just have to tell tell yourself that I'm not gonna respond. I'm not gonna respond. I myself put a sick in my signature like, just because I'm sending this email right now does not mean you have to respond. You respond during the time you feel comfortable responding in
Mike Holt: so Another thing I like to say is that
Mike Holt: efficiency it doesn't equal effectiveness. For example, as technical services departments shrink their methods that are put into place to reduce the workload on staff and faculty. For example, shell. Freddy books can get purchased from vendors with barcodes, spine labels mark records, but oftentimes those monographs they have incomplete records, incorrect call numbers, and they can end up, needing time to fix those errors.
Mike Holt: Efficiency and effectiveness is a balance, and can sway into being, counting and micromanaging which are the absolute dirtiest words to me. The flip side of effectiveness can be micromanaging someone's interaction with a patron, and whether or not it was done the right way, or whatever the consequences of not giving your employees. Grace is becoming a micromanager.
Mike Holt: and you know what I even have one here. And some employees can respond well to the course of supervision that is micromanagement, but many more burn out and respond poorly to constantly having someone over their shoulder, you know, test, tisking them for what they're doing, and the key in all of that is to be communicative with your coworkers and find the path forward to helping each other be your best selves.
We also completely understand that even
Mike Holt: even this may not be possible. As toxic coworkers, they're just a reality, and they're going to be everywhere, and we've suggested anybody dealing with that should consult the literature on toxic co-workers for strategies to help them bring them to the table for those conversations, and I'd also like to say that you can also reach out if your institution has, like an Ombudsman.
Mike Holt: anything like that, they are great resources for figuring out those toxic things, so try those out if you have it.
Mike Holt: So, to provide an example from my own experience, I arrived at my current position in July 2021. It was a time of low morale and heavy burnout in the field. We were, you know, just started, but not really beginning to emerge from the world of Covid.
Mike Holt: So I did what I could, and I listened to the people that I supervised and what they needed and tried to bring it up to management and through advocating for and actually receiving things like raises, job description updates. And most importantly, I think a flexible hybrid work schedule. I haven't eliminated Burnouts with the people, but I like to think we've worked together as a group to help reduce it as much as we can in our situation. It's a trickle up action.
Mike Holt: you know, we constantly push concerns up through difficult conversations, and that's, you know, one of the only ways that we can make progress in all of this.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I'm going to read the quote again. Some parent librarians who've been there a while have really changed culture.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): We've had 4 new little ones born since 2,017 and 5 other library staff have kids, college age and younger out of 25 or so staff. So right now we have a really supportive staff and library director. We established a private, quiet, lockable, dedicated pumping space in the work. In the library.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Colleagues are flexible and kind. When sick kids necessitate working from home faculty get 6 paid, weeks
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): weeks paid and 6 weeks. Fmla staff get Fmla and can take additional time from leave. Hr. Could be more supportive, or at least transparent, about requirements, paperwork, etc.,
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): that new parents needs to complete prior to and after leave.
Mike Holt: Yeah. And I would say that this is a excellent example of you know how having parents in the library can really change the culture. When I came into my current position there were only 2 parents, including myself in the department.
Mike Holt: But now I think we have. We have 2 who are expecting mothers any day now, and I'm interested to see how that changes the culture, especially now that our outgoing governor here in Louisiana has designated 6 weeks of paid parental leave, and even better, has given 6 weeks of paid parental leave to anybody, regardless of whether or not they are the birthing parents, or
Mike Holt: you know, if they are part of the parenting team, they can get that leave, and that was super awesome. No guarantee that the incoming
Mike Holt: Governor won't just yank it away. But we're proceeding here at the university like it's going to stay.
Mike Holt: But yeah, I think that it's really there. Just for the culture and
Mike Holt: it's really important for the culture. I think that people need to just talk with each other about this stuff, and you know, talk with your coworkers. Talk with the people in your department. It can be difficult, but I would say that you know
Mike Holt: that graceful
Mike Holt: stuff, you know, having grace for each other, not just getting mad because somebody has a problem, I think, using it as the opportunity to see where you can work together to like bridge that gap, and taking that attitude towards it is often a little bit better. So
Mike Holt: that's kind of the ways we can just
Mike Holt: try and move the conversation forward.
Mike Holt: So I'm gonna go to the next one.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Sorry about okay. First quote.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I think, having a flexible work schedule really improved my emotional well-being while increasing my productivity.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Second, they allow flexible time. So you never have to feel like you should choose between your home life and your personal life.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Third, quote.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): few people within my profession are parents, and do not understand the continual demands I experience accommodations have been made, thanks to my supervisor rather than official policy.
Mike Holt: Yeah. So, although our research focused exclusively on parenting, flexibility and compassion can go a long way for any employee. We aren't obligated to tell our supervisors what's going on in our life.
Mike Holt: but that doesn't mean grace can't be extended. Many of us may experience the need to be caretakers to older relatives or parents in general, having flexibility allows people to live their lives without judgment, because things happen all the time.
Mike Holt: and these policies not only benefit those with older family members and children, but every other employee gets extended the same grace. And you know, a commenter just said, instead of pitting parents versus non parents we should be just manually late stage capitalism, and absolutely. But and but yeah, I think that you know, just while we're stuck in late stage capitalism, I think that the important thing is to focus on
Mike Holt: you know how we can work within that and how we, you know. I don't want to put pit like parents versus non parents. I want for sure. It to be for everybody like. I think that, you know I think we.
Mike Holt: the the goal of it all, should be very much inclusive design for all this stuff or universal design, so that it benefits literally everybody. I don't care what your situation is if you need to define a boundary. Then I will. 100% stand by it, because at the end of the day I want you to finish your career. Not a smouldering husk of a person. And I just want everybody to thrive.
Mike Holt: So
Mike Holt: I'm gonna go to the next one. Yeah.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): right before we get to final thoughts. I just do wanna make a reminder that our survey results do include a lot of quotes about parents, because that was what we were for focusing our research on
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): but we did find, while we were doing this, that a lot of the things that would have helped parents in their work environments in academic librarians are things that will help everybody having compassion for your coworkers, and grace and understanding for what they need to leave for regardless if it's a child, or if it's themselves, or
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): you know, whatever the situation is, just because you're at work doesn't mean that all your co-workers need to know every detail of your private life. If you need to leave, you need to leave. If you're having a bad mental day.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): they don't need to know the details necessarily of why and they they don't always have that right to
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): So I just wanted to throw that small reminder that that's the only reason it's so parent-heavy is. That's where our research focus was for the purpose of the project. But for the the solutions we do feel like it, it pulls everyone up.
Mike Holt: Yep.
Mike Holt: so give it to Jessica for the final thoughts.
Jessica Lee: sorry. The sun's getting into my eyes. My, that's a final thought.
Jessica Lee: I wanted to read this quote, I find myself returning to one of the best pieces of advice I've received about how to actually reduce burnout.
Jessica Lee: Think not just about how to reduce your own, but how your own actions are sparring and fanning burnout in others.
Jessica Lee: On our last 2 present presentations on this topic I've ended this quote, that I found in the book by Anne Helen Peterson.
Jessica Lee: To me it captures. Why discussing burnout is so important
Jessica Lee: we don't live or work in complete silos.
Jessica Lee: We also need to create equal opportunities for frontline staff, like those who work in patron-centered areas like reference and circulation, to have opportunities to work from home, or just have flexible scheduling in general.
Jessica Lee: Like, we said. But as budget cuts keep coming, there's less staff to do.
Jessica Lee: there's less staff to do stuff. There's less stuff around to do things like. For instance, we recently.
Jessica Lee: over the summer closed on Saturday, which wasn't a big deal in this in in the in the summer, but in the fall there's been a lot of complaints.
Jessica Lee: But we looked at statistics, and there weren't that many people coming in. And and we could. We could technically have the building open on Saturday. But then, if somebody is out Monday through Friday.
Jessica Lee: then we would be. We would have to ask somebody from another department to work the circulation desk. We just didn't have enough people to really work be open on Saturdays.
Jessica Lee: but
Jessica Lee: there needs to be like. So like, I was saying, there needs to be natural consequences, like service hours
Jessica Lee: being reduced to accommodate the lives of people who work there. If there are just not enough people to do the work that needs to be done.
Jessica Lee: I will say doing this. Research has made me realize that everyone as much as you can, because I know every supervisor is different. Every person is different. You should practice advocating for yourself and setting your boundaries.
Jessica Lee: especially if you're a tenure track, and you have not gotten tenure yet, or you're going up for promotion. It's really hard to say no, because you want to make yourself
Jessica Lee: look good on your dossier, especially if you work in an institution where your faculty but teaching faculty don't understand why your faculty, it can feel even harder to say No.
Jessica Lee: I will say this. So managers, colleagues, and Admins, should show a measure of compassion and grace for the lives of others in the mistakes that occur in life and work
Jessica Lee: with each increasing step up in leadership. There should also be
Jessica Lee: an additional level of responsibility on the part of the leader to extend understanding and set the example.
Jessica Lee: Administrators often overlook toxic workplace behaviors that have a real life, negative impact on people.
Jessica Lee: but will immediately, but sometimes those people will also immediately shame. Minor mistakes made in everyday instances.
Jessica Lee: setting transparent realistic expectations. communicating openly.
Jessica Lee: and while also listening attentively to employee concerns can make a huge difference, increasing morale and reducing burnout
Jessica Lee: when trust, grace, and communication, aren't there? People can be defensive, and on the attack when things go wrong, we should all be understanding when mistakes happen. We are all, in fact, human. For now.
Jessica Lee: just kidding all these ideas should be implemented for everyone, because this can breed the lives of anyone who's a caregiver
Jessica Lee: has health issues or has any other kind of complicated aspect of their daily lives. I
Jessica Lee: the that is the one thing that I hope that everybody takes away from this, that we're just saying.
Jessica Lee: just show compassion and and treat people like the the human beings they are. And I hope that
Jessica Lee: you all learned something from our presentations.
Jessica Lee: So next slide.
Jessica Lee: So when we were presenting at Acr, I made this.
Jessica Lee: that's okay.
Jessica Lee: Let me see if I can. II can't get it to go back, but I'll drop the link in the chat.
Jessica Lee: A resource document where it showed it has links to our book chapter in A. Cr. The article that Robert and I wrote, and a lot of the other resources that we found that were really interesting about dealing with burnout and morale. So if you're interested in learning more about this topic, I suggest looking at our document.
Jessica Lee: And now thank you for listening to our presentation. If please let us know if you have any questions or we're ready for questions.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, Jessica, Mike and Robert, I really appreciate it. You're already having some great comments in the chat, and there have been some questions. That have come in one of them, or has been, what do you do when you or do you have advice for people whose supervisors don't hold boundaries, think that everything is an emergency in a library. Any tips for for people
Mike Holt: my, my thing would be to
Mike Holt: my thing would would be to just
find.
Mike Holt: find the areas where you can establish those boundaries like there are things that I do as a manager within my department.
Mike Holt: That are not necessarily like library-wide policies or anything.
Mike Holt: I try and just
Mike Holt: I try and bend things but not break them, you know. For for one thing you know, we probably have the most even though work from home is technically like library wide policy. We probably have the most use of it here.
Mike Holt: And the the library. Wide policy for flexible scheduling was done without direction from
Mike Holt: higher ups in the University. We just did it in absence of stuff from that. So I would say, find
Mike Holt: find areas where you can, and make your boundaries there. I would even
Mike Holt: even say that, especially like
Mike Holt: especially when it comes to like your boss, or whatever if if they are
Mike Holt: thinking that everything's an emergency and has to be done now. Now? No, no, no, no, no! you know I would. Maybe you know
Mike Holt: slowly back up the time that I want to like. Give them to respond and get them used to having to wait a little bit.
Mike Holt: That might work. But I'm interested to see what others have to say, Jessica Robert.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Sometimes there are no good choices for you when you've got a supervisor like that.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Sometimes you have to find either
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): ways, people that you can vent to to help you cope with it. and sometimes you have to step away from the situation completely and find a new one.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): And
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): if you're a disadvantaged person for a variety of reasons.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): and I could speak this from personal experience, it's not always easy to
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): make your new way in the world. But there are sometimes things that are worth more than sacrificing your mental health in that way.
Mike Holt: And I think that, Robert, you're a perfect example of that. You found out that your boundaries were more important than the work, and you stepped away. And you know sometimes that is the ultimate decision that has to be made.
Mike Holt: And you know I would say that having those venting friends is great to help you. get into
Mike Holt: your you know ideas about where to go next or clarify your ideas, or whether or not you're making the right decision so great point
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): definitely try to surround yourself with people that you can talk to.
Julie Edwards: Thank you all so much. I there's an interesting flip side to this question that someone brought up that II think is really worth looking at.
Julie Edwards: This person is saying as a supervisor.
Julie Edwards: what can I do to model and mentor boundary setting, especially for new librarians? I remind them not to work past scheduled hours, take their vacation and sick time. But what else can I be doing to teach them to set those boundaries for the future love this question. II am doing this, and this is, you know, the first time I supervise 13 folks, and during my time here I have hired almost half of that.
Mike Holt: Yeah. Somebody's asking about links for toxic coworkers.
Oh, God, I don't like it would just be a matter of finding things out there. I don't have any links at the moment. I mainly worked with my university ombudsman. On that or actually, it's university ombuds now. So.
Mike Holt: But anyway,
Mike Holt: yes, management I stress those things for from the word go with employees that like, you know, my goal here is to make you thrive. I try to demonstrate things that build trust with people.
Mike Holt: you know, like, I want people to know that like it doesn't matter what it is. I am not out to get you. I want to, you know. I want you to thrive. And you know, like slowly, I think I've built up that confidence to people a lot of whom we're coming into their first academic academic jobs.
And
Mike Holt: you know I
Mike Holt: I do everything I can to, you know. Lead the proverbial horse to water. You know. Often times I cannot make them drink but I can set up all of the tools and make sure that they know
Mike Holt: unequivocally that they have this option, these flexible things, and that like, I do not want them to get burned out. It's very, very tough early on, because new librarians have an energy.
Mike Holt: it's it's yeah. I mean, it's it's tough to tell them. No. So
Jessica Lee: yeah. And I mean, go ahead, Jessica. Okay, I wanted to add, so I don't supervise as many people as Mike, but I found that
Jessica Lee: for me as a supervisor, if they're sometimes still hesitant to put boundaries.
Jessica Lee: I found that, like leading with
Jessica Lee: positive feedback, like getting them to understand that you're on their side, that you do want them to succeed. I found that was my way of breaking down
Jessica Lee: their resistance to taking care of themselves.
Jessica Lee: because I had an employee that would always ask for permission and like it's your lead. You can use it as you want to. And so I found that as I communicated with them and gave them positive feedback, it helped kind of
Jessica Lee: it allowed them to be more comfortable, taking those opportunities that they needed for their own boundaries, or whatever they needed for their self-care.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): And I think the only thing I want to add to that is that it's not a quick process either. It's something that's going to take a long time.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): and you might feel discouraged or like it's not working, but
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): in my own experience as well, you'll see those you'll start to see those little signs of when it's working, and if you're watching the the person carefully enough, you'll you'll start notice whenever they've started to finally internalize that
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): they can set those boundaries with you, or they can come to you when they've got a concern, and you're going to listen with compassion and not with judgment, or whatever the case may be. But it's not a quick process.
Julie Edwards: Thank you all so much. And I just wanna highlight something Amy wrote in the chat, because it's something that I was thinking about that I've I've had experience when your supervisor supervisor models boundaries like, I'm not checking my email after I leave for the day. I'm going on vacation. That is a huge, you know, green light for everybody else to do the same. So thank you for surfacing that, Amy.
Julie Edwards: There are some really great questions in here. We'll get to as many as we can. This one, I think, sort of hits on, maybe. What a lot of people experience. What do you recommend? We do once we hit burnout. The biggest thing I'm afraid of is slowing down and having supervisors be mad, since I'm not moving at the same pace.
Jessica Lee: I'll take this one. So
Jessica Lee: I
Jessica Lee: I my personality is I'm a people pleaser, and I don't like to say no. And I realized when we were doing this research that I was very burnt out, and
Jessica Lee: to be
Jessica Lee: to be honest, what I've done with my own supervisor is, he'll say, or he will say to me.
Jessica Lee: Jessica, I want you on this committee, and I'll say No, thank you. I do not want to be on this committee, because I have XY and Z. And these are very time consuming. And so I just found that II have to like I have been doing things where
Jessica Lee: I, you know, vice chair of several committees, and
Jessica Lee: currently, right now where? I'm in charge of our migration to folio from Alma, and so I told my supervisor I am dropping XY and Z to accommodate for the amount of extra work I'm going to need to do. And so it's taking me
Jessica Lee: about 10 years to get there. But recognizing that
Jessica Lee: my mental well-being is more important than beefing up my resume, I feel like that. You just have to kind of come to terms with.
Jessica Lee: It's okay to say no, because again, you know how big helpful your plate is, and I would like to say that as of right now, our migration isn't very far along. But I'm not
Jessica Lee: stressing about it. I'm just whatever happens happens and whatever we clean up great. If not, that's okay.
Mike Holt: Yeah. And it's it is such. It is such a process.
Mike Holt: And I think that it is forever ongoing. You know
Mike Holt: II just try to have like grace for myself, Grace, for all of the other employees, and like I try. And in the
Mike Holt: oh, yes, I just saw a comment that I liked. It was. If you want me to work on that new project, I'll do that. So which of these other 4 priority tasks should be passed along or set aside. You gang right? I 100% support that
Mike Holt: I make sure. I tell everybody that they can tell me no, and not expect to have any consequences for it, because I don't know their full world.
Mike Holt: and what's going on with them. So all they have to do is say no, and or you know what they want to
Mike Holt: put aside or move somewhere else, II really really want that. And then, when they do finally say no to me, being sure that it is very clear that they are receiving no consequences for that. So yeah, it's it's important. And it's going to take a change in philosophy from management, and I know that's going to take a while. I'm so sorry.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): and I think one of the things is having grace for yourself as much as you try to have for other people.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): You you do have to give yourself grace. Yeah, nobody's perfect. Take care of yourself.
Mike Holt: Yeah. And it helps us acknowledge that we've made mistakes too. And you know, there, there are times when things that I do could contribute to somebody's burnout, and I have to be open to hearing that.
Julie Edwards: Thank you.
Julie Edwards: So this is an interesting question, because so many libraries are multi-generational workplaces. Someone says, I feel like sometimes new librarians that come in with Co. UN quote puppy energy, are often weaponized against senior librarians who have more responsibilities at work and at home, or who have may been, may have been keeping up with this for years. Any thoughts did anything surface in your research about time and service or new graduates for versus people who had been in the profession for a while.
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I think that it. One thing that's interesting about our research is that
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): compare. We are one of those sort of, I guess, broad ranging, like
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): Mike's been in the profession much longer than I have. I was a much newer professional, and I think that the people there's a shift it seems, in how people are approaching work, even in the younger generation, that I'm not sure if
Robert Griggs-Taylor (They/Them): I don't know, Mike. Maybe you could be more articulate than I am.
Jessica Lee: I would say, oh, go ahead, Jessica, you first. Okay, I just one quick thing. So
Jessica Lee: so the multigenerational thing. So when I first started 10 years ago, I kind of latched on to librarians that had institutional knowledge so that way I could understand how the library functions and everything. And now.
Jessica Lee: since Mike is gone and I'm I'm a tenured faculty member who's going up for full next year. I've made it my job that, like these new librarians.
Jessica Lee: I just
Jessica Lee: meet with them and try and uplift them as much as possible. And so. Yes, they have this puppy dog energy, but I try and tell them things that I wish someone had told me, and also try and make sure that they're on the right path, because that's what people did for me. They made sure when I started that I started doing presentations and publications and and were on committees, so I could get tenure and promotion. And so I try and do the same thing for junior faculty, just to make sure that
Jessica Lee: they do have this puppy energy. But let's harness it in a productive way.
Mike Holt: Yeah. And I would say that I don't know that we really found much, although I will say that lower or longer people in the profession, at least in the research tended to have less burnout. I know that I hit a point. And I caught
Mike Holt: the fact that I was burnt out by noticing an extreme uptake in my absolute cynicism about everything. And that was kind of my sign. I think that like maybe, like mid career is probably where the burnout starts to get heaviest.
Mike Holt: Because, you know you will have seen a lot of like failures, and you will have seen a lot of like how the sausage gets made. And it's really ugly. A lot of the times in academia
Mike Holt: and that's a really difficult thing to push past. I find a lot of new folks. don't quite have that yet. Although if they're coming from somewhere else, they may have that, and they may bring the baggage of a former toxic workplace to the new place. You never! You never know.
Mike Holt: I do want to say, since we are coming up against the hour that if anybody has any questions that did not get answered. Especially like the people who are. We're looking for stuff on managing like are dealing with like toxic Co workers and stuff. Please email me after this or email, any of us? And if you have questions that were answered today, and I'll try and make sure that I round up some. I get a lot of like great webinars
Mike Holt: in my inbox for dealing with toxic Co workers, and I have a recording of a great one about communication strategies that I would be happy to share with you. So just talk to me or any of us.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, Mike, Robert and Jessica. We are right up against the top of the hour. You're getting so many. Thank you. In in the in the chat. Thank you for making this space for us. We really appreciate it.
Mike Holt: Thank you all for joining us. Thank you. Everybody. Y'all are all awesome.
Julie Edwards: Yeah, we appreciate your presence. Thank you so much. Everyone for joining us. We we really are happy to have you in this webinar so great to see so many of you.
Julie Edwards: hope to see you at the next webinar. Thanks again to our presenters, and have a great rest of the week. Everybody.