Dr. Gilmartin: Public sector employees need balance

Public sector employees are often dealt a negative hand at work, notes Dr. Kevin Gilmartin, a behavioral scientist and management consultant. Calls mostly come when things go wrong, and every day brings new and potentially dangerous incidents. If work strains are not addressed, he says, employees’ lives can fall out of balance and minor workplace disputes can become litigious.

Gilmartin, who has 20 years of experience in law enforcement, made these observations at an April 18 joint meeting of the Massachusetts Municipal Management Association and Massachusetts Municipal Personnel Association in Sutton, where he spoke about “emotional survival” – the need for public employees to balance professional survival with personal wellbeing.

He shared a story of how a police department’s new hat policy ended up in court. In his view, such frivolous litigation occurs more often in the public sector because employees get thrown off balance by an incredibly stressful work environment.

Public sector employees are more likely than others to become “overinvested” in work, he said. The high-stress environment drains public employees and causes isolation at home. When people begin to detach from hobbies, sports and family, their sense of self merges with their professional identity. Without balanced lives, he said, minor policy changes can feel to employees like highly personal attacks.

Gilmartin said there is long-term exposure to potential risks in the public sector. Police wear bulletproof vests, EMTs wear protective gloves, and local leaders focus on emergency procedures – not because something bad happens every day, but because something bad could happen on any day. Gilmartin emphasized this vigilance to a worst-case scenario is vital to the safety of public employees.

The danger, Gilmartin said, is ignoring the long-term psychological and physiological effects of spending every day at a heightened level of alertness. It is vital for employees to learn how to dial back their alert state with hobbies, sports and low-stress out-of-work activities. Otherwise, “hyper-alert” employees will ride a biological rollercoaster that ends in a tired, detached, isolated, and apathetic state.

“Leave tired to the people who do physical labor,” he said.

Those who find ways to balance their stressful work lives with relaxing out-of-work activities “should not feel tired,” said Gilmartin, who just two days before ran the Boston Marathon in time of 4 hours and 7 minutes.

Gilmartin challenged the audience to break out of a negative paradigm. Instead thinking of “things I would do if I was not so tired,” he urged the audience to think of “things I can do, so that I feel less tired.”

In addition to a work calendar, he challenged the audience to keep a fishing calendar, a basketball calendar, and a family calendar. Anyone with a healthy balance on his or her calendar will not become litigious over at hat policy at work, he said.

More than 100 members of the MMPA and MMMA, and several members of the public safety community, attended the training, which was sponsored by MIIA.