Dec 19

Dec 19 5 Steps Essential to Fighting Burnout in Financial Capability Professionals

Essential Steps, Professional Issues, The Big Picture

To ensure that financial capability professionals will be there for their clients for the long term, you need to consider how to best take care of your mind, body, and professional life today.

“How are you?” I ask the people I see at work meetings and networking events. “You know, busy,” is the response that I receive time and time again.

Do you hear this refrain too? Is this your automatic answer when someone asks you how you are?

It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I used to feel fine…)

In my fair city of Boston – and I bet in many locales across the nation – fatigue and burnout have become the norm for working professionals. And for you, my dear financial capability darlings, this includes you. I remember back in the dark ages when I began my career (i.e. the 90’s). Part of my motivation to entering the nonprofit field (other than that whole “save the world” part) was my belief that by working in a social service agency, in exchange for lower pay I would experience greater work life balance.

Are you laughing?

Well, I am going to tell you something: For a while it was true. I worked a 40-hour work week, I had nights and weekends to pursue hobbies and other leisure activities, and while I was making very little as far as wages go, I was a kick-ass frugalista; I lived in a 5-bedroom rental with 4 roommates, mismatched furniture, and a chore chart; and I had my savings on auto pilot so I didn’t even notice when they came out of my paycheck.

As well, life was easier in the good ol’ days of the late 20th century. My undergrad/graduate student loans added up to less than my first year’s salary after graduate school. My rent was (…wait for it…) $300 a month and I spent about $25 a week on groceries. Also, my commute via express bus to downtown was 30 minutes, meaning that on most days I was home from work before 6:00 pm.

I know, even for me it sounds like a dream…and I lived it.

Nowadays the way that we live our lives – regardless of the decisions that we make – are so different. Student debt is sky high, as are rents. Whether or not you live close to your job, workers in metropolitan areas frequently face daily commutes twice the length that I experienced early in my career. And as productivity is at an all-time high, so is burnout. Those job descriptions that list a 40-hour workweek? We all know that they are kidding, right?

Solving Poverty and Kicking A**

And then there is the field of financial capability, the field that I chose all those years ago and the one that I am still proud to be a member of today. In the 90’s we were fighting the good fight with a new-fangled tool called the Individual Development Account (IDA), invented by my dear grad school adviser, Dr. Michael Sherraden.

Back in the early aught’s I had the privilege of administering an Office of Refugee Resettlement-funded IDA program. In this program we were able to serve 350 households over 5 years, and generated over $2 million in combined assets that enabled these new Americans to gain a foothold in the United States economic structure. And I loved the work. My clients on the whole were motivated and did their part to save and invest in tangible assets. I had great relationships with them. It was a fulfilling job.

The financial capability professionals that I serve in my role as a consultant and trainer seem to have it much harder today. On the surface they have what looks like overwhelming caseloads, yet many struggle to coax their clients to come to their appointments. They work valiantly to help their clients achieve metrics required by their funders like:

Identifying a financial goal/creating a financial plan
Executing that financial plan so that the financial goal is achieved
Setting up a rainy day or emergency fund and making regular deposits to it
Paying bills on time/amassing fewer late fees
Experiencing an increase in credit score

Do these metrics look familiar to you? While the field is hot on the concept of financial coaching (you can find my posts on financial coaching here) funder reports still tend to ask for easy-to-measure and hard-to-achieve metrics on increased savings and reduced debt.

Where does that leave you? Chasing clients to have them meet with you. Running through budgeting exercises to find spending leaks and opportunities to save. Encouraging those savings. And scouring through credit reports with the sheer focus of Sherlock Holmes to clean up derogatory information and set your clients up on a path towards success.

All while your clients are making little in the way of income, have jobs with unpredictable schedules and meager (if any) employee benefits, and are facing the myriad challenges of running households with few resources.

And then there are your own student debts, unaffordable rents, and soul-crushing commutes as I mentioned earlier.

Too much?

Self-Care for Survival of the Financial Capability Profession

So what’s an idealistic “make the world a better place” professional to do? As is said frequently and often, “please put on your oxygen mask before assisting others.” Here are five steps essential to developing your resiliency for the long haul of serving others in financial capability:

Exercise on the regular, and treat your body like the temple that it is: Financial capability professionals absorb a lot of stress each day while working side-by-side with their clients to help them to overcome obstacles and realize their goals. After time this stress builds up in your system leading to an array of physical and emotional ailments.
Developing a habit of exercise and mindfulness practice gives your body the opportunity to release this stress in a constructive way; and exercise gives you a release of endorphins that makes you feel better instantly. Finally, increasing your intake of fruits, vegetables, and water, and increasing the amount of sleep that you get each night will make you feel better overall.
Use your daily lunch break and Paid Time Off to recharge your batteries: How often do you work through lunch, leftovers at your side, while squeezing in one more meeting or reading one more email? How often do you reach the end of your agency’s fiscal year to discover that you haven’t taken enough time off because “there was just too much work to do”?
Taking daily breaks and utilizing your earned vacation time helps moderate the stress that accumulates in your body, leaving you better equipped to perform your job.
Set boundaries: In this era of reduced funding sources and heightened productivity it is easy (and even expected) for financial capability professionals to say “yes” whenever a new request is made of them. After all, the work needs to get done, right? I would contend that piling on extra work has detrimental effects leading to reduced productivity in all aspects of your job.
When asked to take on extra duties, take the time to consider how they will impact your existing roles. Ask to meet with your supervisor to review your priorities. It might be that you take on this new task, but then delegate an existing task to another member of your team. Taking the time to consider your workload will better equip you in the long run.
Join a community of like-minded folks: Many financial capability professionals are the only ones of their type in their organizations, as was the case for me when I worked at the International Institute of Boston (now the International Institute of New England).
What gave me the comradery and professional relationships that I craved was belonging to the Midas Collaborative, the Massachusetts statewide collaborative of financial capability providers (you can find other groups like this one on Prosperity Now’s website). Not only did I get to talk shop over coffee and pastries with other like-minded professionals, it also gave me leadership experience through serving on its board and the opportunity to work to promote just and fair social policy at the state level.
Create and follow your own professional development plan: I like to think of managing your career as having some parallels to managing a small business. Think of yourself as You, Incorporated. What are your core beliefs? What is your mission and vision for your role in the field? What knowledge and skills do you need to fulfill your commitment to your work?
Creating and following through on a professional development plan gives you the opportunity to practice “beginner’s mind” and gives you that sense of excitement when studying something new. I will attest that pursuing my Accredited Financial Counselor ® and Financial Fitness Coach® credentials through AFCPE stretched my mind and gave me renewed energy to put back into my work.