Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
About This EpisodeÂ
In this special Expert Insights edition of The Future of Work® Podcast, we dive deep into the evolving world of workplace wellness. Angela R. Howard, an equity-centered culture strategist and founder of Call for Culture, explains why the workplace must shift from extraction to enrichment — or risk irrelevance. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a physician and burnout researcher, demystifies clinical burnout and the warning signs leaders often miss. Peggy Van de Plassche, entrepreneur and founder of The Microdose Diet, explores how microdosing and alternative wellness tools are reshaping focus, empathy, and emotional connection in the workplace. Together, these voices offer a compelling roadmap for reimagining work-life balance, preventing burnout, and building cultures that help people thrive.
About Angela R. Howard
Angela R. Howard is a leading voice in equity-centered workplace transformation. As the Founder of Call for Culture, she advises organizations on building people-first cultures that prioritize well-being, inclusion, and long-term impact. With a background in organizational psychology and executive leadership, Angela brings firsthand experience navigating complex culture shifts and exposing the limits of outdated systems. Through her work, she empowers companies to move from extractive practices to sustainable, human-centered strategies that align with broader societal change. She also leads the Culture Impact Lab, a global conference for workplace changemakers.
About Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith is a board-certified internal medicine physician and internationally recognized well-being expert. She is the author of Sacred Rest and the creator of the popular RestQuiz.com, used by over 250,000 people to assess burnout and rest deficits. With a focus on the science of recovery, she has been featured on TED.com, CNN Health, MSNBC, Psychology Today, and more. Her research into the seven types of rest has helped leaders, teams, and organizations rethink productivity, performance, and mental health. Dr. Dalton-Smith’s insights reveal how burnout is not just a personal issue—it’s a structural problem tied to how work is designed.
About Peggy Van de Plassche
Peggy Van de Plassche is a former financial executive turned wellness entrepreneur and founder of The Microdose Diet, a pioneering protocol that integrates alternative medicine—especially psilocybin microdosing—into professional life. With 20 years of experience across fintech, venture capital, and advisory roles with firms like BMO and Invest in Canada, Peggy now focuses on enhancing brain health, focus, and emotional intelligence in the workplace. She recently launched The Brain Power Microdose product line and an online course designed to elevate career growth through mental wellness. Her work bridges neuroscience, performance, and holistic wellbeing—offering innovative strategies for thriving in today’s demanding work environments. Â
What You’ll LearnÂ
Angela R. HowardÂ
- Why outdated workplace systems are causing systemic burnoutÂ
- How extractive cultures drive high turnover and attritionÂ
- What it means to truly build people-first workplacesÂ
- Why culture transformation must align with social impactÂ
Dr. Saundra Dalton-SmithÂ
- The 3 clinical signs of burnout recognized by the WHOÂ
- Why most people overlook early burnout symptomsÂ
- How exhaustion becomes emotional depletion — not just tirednessÂ
- Why rest alone won’t fix poor workplace designÂ
Peggy Van de PlasscheÂ
- How microdosing calms the nervous system and reduces anxietyÂ
- Why empathy and connection matter more in hybrid work culturesÂ
- The link between focus, creativity, and emotional wellnessÂ
- How alternative wellness tools improve both work and lifeÂ
Transcript
Host [00:00:00] Welcome to the Future of Work podcast, where we explore what’s next in work, workplace, and the human experience. You’re listening to a future of work expert insights, a special format where we bring together the most thought-provoking insights from our top guests around a single topic shaping the future of Work. In this episode, the topic is work-life balance, exploring how organizations can better support mental health, prevent burnout, and create environments where people can truly thrive. From emotional resilience and work-life balance to the role of innovative tools and strategies, our experts share insights shaping the future of employee wellbeing in a rapidly evolving world of work. We’ve curated conversations with three of the sharpest minds in work- life balance. Each offering unique insights into emotional resilience, work-life balance, and innovative approaches to employee wellbeing in the future of work. Let’s begin. In today’s always-on world, stress, exhaustion, and burnout are at an all-time high. Wellness is no longer optional. It’s essential to thriving workplaces. In this episode, we explore how experts are redefining mental health, balance, and performance in the future of work. Our first guest is Angela R. Howard, organizational psychologist and the CEO of Call for Culture, a cultural consultancy that helps companies rebuild from the inside out. She explains why clinging to outdated systems is no longer a viable option, and why the real future of work is about building cultures that enrich rather than exploit. What happens when outdated work systems collide with rising demands for well-being and balance? Are we evolving or already in revolution?
Angela R. Howard [00:01:47] I wanna say it’s more of the latter. So I think that it is going to be this slow-ish revolution, but I think we’re going through it now. I think the water has been hot for a while and we’re now starting to feel it bubbling over. And that’s where that tension is happening. And I’ll be honest with you, I do think organizations are going to fail if they continue to trust in paradigms that are no longer working, or they’re using tactics around, I use the word exploitation, I know it’s a really intense word, but truly that’s kind of what our system has been built in, is how do we exploit people as much as possible? How do we suck as much productivity out of them as possible, versus how do we create structures and processes? And systems and leadership that ensure that people don’t burn out, that we’re not just sucking out of them, we’re also creating a partnership where we’re enriching them, we’re ensuring that our responsibility around their experience is tied back to the person, not just the work. So I do think organizations who don’t get on this revolution are going to fail. And we’re already seeing organizations fail and people leave and turnover is increasing. And now toxic cultures, I think I read an article that they’re 10 times more likely to cause attrition than like any other factor within an organization. So people are fed up, they’re over it. The revolution has happened.
Host [00:03:27] Angela R. Howard makes it clear. We’re not just evolving, we’re in a slow revolution. One where outdated systems and extractive cultures are reaching a breaking point. But what happens when that pressure pushes people past their limits? If burnout is real, how do we know when we’ve crossed the line from tired to unwell? As we think about creating healthier workplaces, there’s another reality we can’t ignore. Stress and exhaustion are quietly reshaping how people show up at work and at home. But when does ordinary fatigue cross the line into something deeper? Our next guest, Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith, a physician and burnout researcher, helps us recognize the moment when exhaustion stops being just a feeling and becomes a diagnosable crisis. Dr. Sondra helps us understand the moment when imbalance becomes burnout and what leaders can do to protect both performance and wellbeing. When work-life balance breaks down, how can we tell if it’s just stress or if exhaustion has crossed the line into clinical burnout?
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Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith [00:04:30] Yes, they’re categories as far as their DMVs. They’re categories that they’re using to determine real diseases basically. And so one of the things I think that we have to keep in mind that because it now does have a disease category attached to it, we do need to realize that there are specific, just like there’s ways I diagnose someone with diabetes. There’s ways you diagnose someone with major depression. There’s ways of diagnosing someone with burnout. However, a lot of us can be on the verge of something without having the actual diagnosis of it. And I feel like sometimes being on the verge of it is what kind of is bringing it so much to the forefront. Some of those statistics you state, they vary based on really the profession. Some professions have a much higher rate of people going into burnout, particularly those that have a very high stress. Related aspect to their job, high change aspect to their job culture, they tend to be at higher risk and be at a higher likelihood, relevance of being someone who’s gonna burn out. With the World Health Organization, they primarily narrow it down to three categories that have to be checked, three boxes, so to speak, that have be checked for them to say someone has burnout and to simplify those boxes, the first box is that someone has fatigue. They’re tired all the time. It’s not a fatigue that necessarily is related to like a medical condition. So you can’t quantify why this person is necessarily tired all of the time, but they are. Number two is that they no longer find pleasure in the work that they do. And so most of us, you know, you get started with a job or a career, chances are you actually liked that profession. It’s something that you chose. You want it to do. You weren’t coerced into it. And when you start noticing that, you know, let’s say for myself, you’re a physician and all of a sudden you don’t like patients anymore. You don’t liked being around people or you don’t like the job. That’s another sign that they say kind of checks that box off. And then the last one’s a little bit more subjective, but I think people who are experienced and understand this for themselves is that the work you’re producing is not even at the level of what you’re capable of producing. I often see it like this. You’re producing from your emptiness. It’s like you’re showing up every day. You’re present, but you are not actually passionate and engaged in the work in such a way that you’re giving your best self in the process. And so I feel like a lot of people relate with one or all of those symptoms to some degree. Now with true burnout, it becomes those three symptoms get to a place where they are debilitating. Same with depression, you can be down and blue for a moment, but we don’t call that major depression because it’s not really affecting your life, your relationships, the way you show up in the world. You just have those symptoms and hopefully you get some treatment before it gets any worse than that. Well, that’s where a lot of people are. Those three things, they recognize, I’m tired, I don’t, I am not happy. And I’m just putting the hours in just to get a paycheck. I’m not really enthusiastic about this career, but for a lot of people, it’s not necessarily changing, kind of having that severe effect on their life. It’s not debilitating in any way at that point.
Host [00:08:00] Burnout isn’t just about sleep or self-care, it’s structural. Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith reminds us, if we ignore those early signs, we’re not just tired, we’re on the edge of breakdown. Shows us how burnout begins, when exhaustion, lack of joy, and dwindling effectiveness take over. But what happens when traditional solutions like rest and vacation aren’t enough to restore balance? As we look for new ways to protect our wellbeing, Some leaders are challenging traditional ideas of what workplace wellness can look like. One approach, gaining attention, focuses on improving mental clarity, emotional connection, and balance from the inside out. Peggy Van de Plas believes the future of work demands more innovative approaches to mental wellness. In this next segment, she explains how microdosing is helping some professionals reduce stress, improve focus, and reconnect with themselves and their teams. In a world where stress and burnout are on the rise, how can innovative approaches, like microdosing, help professionals improve focus, connection, and overall work-life well-being?
Peggy Van de Plassche [00:09:08] And so that’s great that you experience it first hand, because here we can see the three type of benefits I see usually with microlosing. So the first one is what you mentioned with mental wellness. Reduction in anxiety, reduction of stress, reduction for some people of signs of depression. So it really really helps you to boost your mood and you know remove these maybe dark glasses that some people have, that I used to have and it calms your nervous system. So that is exactly what you’re saying with why stress. Because your nervous system is quiet. So that is really a huge, huge benefit. The second type of benefit is connection. Connection to yourself and connection to others. So that increased empathy, increased connection, really help with your communication. So in the context of work, obviously, working with your colleague, your employees, your boss, it’s really, really helpful to have, I would say, a very mindful leadership. And the third type of benefits, and you haven’t touched on it, but we will touch on it later, it’s real performance. And it’s this increased focus, this increased attention, this increased presence and creativity. So you can see all these three buckets, whether less anxiety, less stress, better connection to others, and increased focus and attention can have a massive impact on people at the office, but also at home and everywhere in between, yeah.
Host [00:10:53] Peggy explains how microdosing supports mental wellness by reducing stress and calming the nervous system. It also enhances empathy and collaboration, strengthening workplace relationships. Finally, it boosts focus, creativity, and presence, helping employees thrive at work and in life. Thanks for listening to this Expert Insights episode of the Future of Work podcast. If you found it insightful, share it with a colleague. Leave us a review, or check out our show notes for links to each guest’s full interview. Until next time, keep asking not just where we work, but how we work better together.
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