Sophia Bera began her career as a traditional planner, spending five years working face-to-face with clients at two Minneapolis firms. Then, deciding it was time for a change, she accepted a position with New York-based fintech firm, a job that entailed working remotely from home.
It was an experience that taught her volumes about what she didn’t want her work life to look like.
“I was expected to be in front of my computer for 50 to 60 hours per week at all times of day,” Bera recalls.
She got vocal nodes from talking to clients all day on the phone, developed back problems and gained weight.
“I was exhausted and miserable," Bera says. "When I wasn’t working, I wanted to sleep.”
The overall result: Burnout. “I had no life left.”
As soon as her stock in the startup began to vest, Bera quit and started an RIA, Gen Y Planning in Austin, Texas, and a new life.
“I designed the lifestyle I wanted and built a business to support that life, instead of trying to squeeze my life in around a job,” Bera says. Now, “I work an average of 30 hours a week, I'm 10 pounds thinner, and I've worn a bikini more in my 30s than I ever did in my 20s, which speaks to the amount of vacation time and sunshine I'm finally getting.”
Bera’s experience is far from unique. According to a 2017 survey by Kronos, a workforce management software firm, 95% of human resource professionals say employee burnout is sabotaging workforce retention.
Let’s define our terms: Burnout isn’t just a bad day, or even a string of bad days. It’s chronic stress that leaves workers feeling as though they have nothing left to give. Dealing with it typically involves restructuring work so that it occupies less time or is more satisfying.
Boredom can be a big contributing factor to burnout — it was for Danny Kenny, founder of FI-nancial Planner in Sterling, Virginia.
“You get to a point where, if you haven’t learned anything new in six months or a year, you’re kind of treading water,” he says. Because Kenny was already working for some of the most complex clients, there wasn’t a lot his employer could do to resolve his ennui.
His solution was to start his own financial planning practice, which let him adjust his work in directions that are more interesting to him. Kenny is no longer working with ultrahigh-net-worth clients.
“Trying to save $20 for someone who has $20 million isn’t so exciting,” he says. “Now I’m working with people who don’t have so much of a cushion.”
"I've worn a bikini more in my 30s than I ever did in my 20s, which speaks to the amount of vacation time and sunshine I'm finally getting.”
Getting help and limiting your practice to the activities you enjoy are other ways to make your work life more engaging. “Burnout often happens when people repeat things that they don’t enjoy,” says Matthew Gaffey, senior wealth manager at Corbett Road Wealth Management in Potomac Falls, Virginia.
The fix, Gaffey says, is to identify the specific tasks that you don’t like and eliminate them.
“Maybe you’re strong on investments but not so strong on planning, for instance,” so you find someone who is strong on planning and weak on investments and partner with or hire that person.
“That frees your time to do what you like, and that will either keep you from getting burned out or solve your burnout,” Gaffey says. “You can also say, ‘I don’t like it so we don’t do it.’"
Unsurprisingly, working too much is a leading cause of burnout. The 70 to 80 hours a week Kenny spent in his accounting job took a toll on his time with his wife and young children. He recalls the contrast between a family vacation and his job. “I spent a week and a half or two weeks having fun with the family at Acadia National Park. It was really tough to go back to seeing my daughter, who was about a year old, for maybe half an hour a day.”
If you work for someone else, your employer might be willing to adjust your hours, as Kenny’s offered to do, or let you work from home to eliminate commuting time. If you run your own firm, consider working from home at least some of the time.
Getting more time efficient is another option. Bera has reduced her workweeks by nearly half since the days she worked for the fintech. To do that, she’s gotten better at prioritizing the work that will move her business forward. She strives to be efficient and focused. “When I’m on, I’m on,” Bera says.
Even something as simple as setting aside time to be deliberately unavailable to clients can insulate a planner from burnout. T. J. van Gerven, owner of Modern Wealth Builders in Woburn, Massachusetts, relies on technology to be “extremely accessible” to his wide-flung clientele. “I feel as though I’m constantly on call,” he says.
To avoid burnout, van Gerven has carved out at least an hour every day when he has no access to his phone or computer. He walks around a pond near his house, plays basketball, goes for a drive or goes out for something to eat.
Who knows, he muses, “I might like to expand my unavailable time to the weekends eventually.”
