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Venture Zero's mental health lead, Clare Blunt, explains how time away from work should be embraced as an exercise in work–life balance, as well as an opportunity to improve productivity over the course of the working year.
When it comes to physical health, virtually everyone knows that the secret to any training regime is about knowing when to put in the hard yards and when to rest for the good of the body. To take the analogy one step further, at the end of any tough training block – preparing for a race perhaps – athletes are encouraged to taper or take time off from training. The theory is, of course, that incorporating ample recovery time actually allows one to perform better in the long term.
Isn't it surprising then that so many of us don't apply the same rationale to our work lives? Instead of appreciating that our minds need the same blend of intense strain and prescribed downtime, many of us feel guilt whenever we aren't at our desks and allow anxiety to creep into our relaxation time.
Speaking to colleagues and clients, it's obvious that the summer holiday season is one of these periods. While many workers use the months of July and August to get some much-needed time away from the grind of the day job, it’s not always easy to unwind and get work off the brain. I know this is particularly true of business owners and it’s a challenge that both Claire and I are familiar with.
With school-age children to look after during the summer, we both realise that there are times to go full throttle at work and there are times to try to simply be present with the family. As small business owners we are fortunate to be able to scale our workload in line with our personal lives – that being said, we still fight with our own unease at the thought of not always being focused on growing our business 24/7.
During these holidays, we try to remind ourselves that it’s important to use recreational time to to recharge and relax as much as possible because when September and October comes, we’ll be working long days, diving into events and juggling those daily pressures. Crucially, though, we are more likely to have the energy and mental resilience to do so because we’ve given our minds that all-important break.
We only need to look at the correlation between stress and lost productivity to see that this is true.
For example, the World Health Organisation estimates that $1 trillion is lost annually in productivity worldwide due to depression and anxiety, with work-related stress identified as either a cause or contributing factor. The UK Health and Safety Executive add more context to this trend, reporting that stress, depression and anxiety accounted for 49% of all work-related ill-health cases and were responsible for 54% of all working days lost to ill health in 2023/24.
What this data doesn’t capture is the lost productivity from presenteeism – continuing to work while unwell or unable to focus through partial burn-out.
What I would say to anyone who struggles to find that balance between personal and professional time – particularly during the holiday seasons – is to consider the bigger picture. Think about the working year as a whole.
The aim for commercial organisations is, surely, to be productive and profitable over the course of 12 months. Or, to come back to my earlier analogy, it’s a marathon not a sprint to make each business year a success!
So, my advice is this: make the most of rest and recovery time when it comes in order to de-stress, combat burn-out and reset the balance. Then, give it everything you’ve got during those key productivity periods because that’s how you’ll really see those career gains!
Want to ensure that your business is equipped to identify mental health issues in the workplace and provide meaningful support where necessary? Let’s talk
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