| | SEPTEMBER 2024MANAGEHRMAGAZINE.COM8By Andrea Mead, Director Talent Management, Woodbine EntertainmentTake a moment and see if you can relate to this experience. You're in a grocery store, and you can't find one of the items on your grocery list. You find an employee and start describing what you're looking for, but before you're finished, they have already walked away from you. They look back, and you realize they are expecting you to follow, so you quickly catch up and realize that they have taken you to the wrong item. You let them know that it's not what you are looking for, and before you can start sharing the bit of information that's integral in finding the right item, they're already gone. Or how about this one? You're in a restaurant, and you can tell the staff is busy and likely short a person or two. Being the kind person you are, you demonstrate your patience and are happy to wait. Eventually, the server comes and takes everyone's order. When the food arrives, you receive the incorrect meal. You voice this to your server, and they begin to tell you that you're wrong and you ordered exactly what you received. You turn to the people at your table and ask, "Did I?" To which they reply, "No, you ordered something different." Regardless, you eat what you were given because if you put up a fight, you might break your server.These examples, plus many others, are quite common for me these days. It's been years since I worked in operations serving the public, but I can still appreciate the challenges that have always been there and the new challenges that present themselves in a post-pandemic world.As an L&D professional, I enjoy looking at my experiences as new data points to help create or deliver new and useful content. Observing humanity, interactions between employees and customers, trying to find the manager and see how they're interacting with their staff, contemplating why I'm experiencing what I am, and then trying to determine the root issues. To me, life is a fascinating human experiment!What I'm finding post-pandemic is that, for the most part, humans are struggling. For anyone who worked during the lockdown, you likely were working with minimal human and financial resources, learning to be more resilient and resourceful yourself. Once the world started to reopen, people had gotten used to literally running in order to accomplish everything that needed to be done. Running directly into one of the most common expressions and, unfortunately states of being today, burnout.The examples I gave above aren't unusual situations. Quite common, actually. But the reaction from the employee had all the same calling cards, aka stress response ­ fight or flight. When a person feels threatened, their body releases the stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin. This gets your body ready to fight or run like hell. But when you're working, those two ADDRESSING THE STRESS RESPONSE THROUGH CONTENT CREATIONAndrea MeadIn MyOpinion
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