In this interview, CBC Vancouver news editor and announcer Susan McNamee discusses her passion for fostering a healthier workplace. She explains how she and a small group of colleagues have been gathering research, attending conferences, and soliciting employee input to address work‑life balance challenges, especially the constant pull of technology such as email, voicemail, and BlackBerry devices. Susan highlights the costs of unmanaged stress for both individuals and the corporation, noting rising stress‑related leave and prescription use. She describes CBC’s Employee Assistance Program and the importance of flexible work‑hour arrangements, advising staff to research options and submit a professional proposal. The conversation also touches on the unique pressures of broadcast media—tight deadlines, adrenaline‑driven environments, and the temptation to stay connected to work at home. Susan shares practical coping ideas contributed by employees, including reading aloud with children, mini‑retreats, short deep‑breathing breaks, and taking intentional downtime to avoid burnout. Throughout, she emphasizes self‑awareness, prioritisation, and small, sustainable changes to improve physical and emotional wellbeing for both staff and the organization.
Chapters
Hi Susan.
Hey Tod.
You are Susan McNamee, and what do you do here in CBC Vancouver?
I'm a news editor and announcer here in the Vancouver newsroom.
And you're also someone who's been working with the folks here in Vancouver about sort of health and wellness issues.
Yes, it's a little bit of a sideline. I'm really interested and quite passionate about the healthy workplace and how we can get to a healthier workplace. So we just had a session on work-life balance and how we can work at trying to juggle all the balls that we have. The bad news is I don't have any magic bullet, no solution, but what we did is we brought some employees together, we shared some of the research that I have come up with and read about and attended some conferences, and we looked to people to give us some of their solutions on what they're doing to cope. The problem is we're just so busy in our work life, we're so busy in our home life, and if you're not happy in one place, you're probably not happy in the other. So it's just about sort of getting your priorities priorities straight, trying to deal with all the technology. Speaking of technology, your inbox, your voicemail, your CrackBerry, your BlackBerry.
And it's not unique to CBC, like, I mean, everyone's going through this.
Absolutely not. Everybody is having a hard time juggling. People are spending less time with their families, less sit-down time at the dinner table. So the thing is, you have to recognize you're there. You have to realize you're in that struggle. And while you're trying to run and run and run to keep up, you need to just hit pause for a second and say, okay, where am I? I'm not handling it all very well. What am I gonna do? Make an attempt to try to come up with a bit of balance. Otherwise you risk crashing and burning, and that's not good for you, and it's not good for your corporation because companies are finding that they are paying big time for stress leave, for prescriptions for depression. And so the point is you try to come up with something before you get there for yourself personally to get better physically and emotionally, and for your company because, uh, Both people, both parties pay for it.
And the CBC has the Employee Assistance Program, which is very well— what sort of is that about?
Yeah, the Employee Assistance Program is there for people to go to if they're having some problems, some emotional problems. And CBC's come a long way. There's still a ways to go, but, you know, on flexible work hours, that's key for people. They want to find a way to something where something can give. So it's doing your homework, finding out what is available in the way of flex hours, figuring out if you can do it, and if you can, making a proposal in a professional way.
Is that the Is that the way to do it, like to write up sort of a—
Well, that's what I would recommend. But if you take some time to step back and think about it and find out what's available and come up with a proposal, then you have a much better chance of having it fly. And in the end, you could be happier, healthier, and a little more balanced on both fronts.
Do you think there's something unique about people in radio and TV where we, like, it just seems that we're like extraordinarily stressed out. What is it about that? Well, I mean— I mean, your job, I mean, I only got you because, I mean, you're minutes away from a newscast.
4 minutes, 4 minutes.
I know, and I promised you it would be 3 minutes I'm already blowing it.
You know what? This is the problem. Part of it is that we buzz on the adrenaline. We buzz, we rush, we embrace the sort of distraction of this happening, that happening. And so, you do that for so long until you start to trip and fall and say, you know what? Something's wrong with this picture.
Yeah.
And I'm running too hard and too fast. And to try to find a way that when you go home to not connect because, you know, we look at CBC Radio, CBC TV, we turn it on, we brought it home. Yeah. Or we're into our email or—
Or the BlackBerry or the VPN or——
and you know what, unless you take some downtime, you're going to pay for it.
It's funny, like, it just sort of invites that, you know, that sort of, "I have to check my email," and we're really not that important.
No, and yesterday at the session, some of the suggestions that came from employees, you know, Gloria Makarenko, who reads the TV news, talked about reading aloud with her kids every night, reading the Harry Potter books orally together. You know, people are doing exercise. I, the other morning, woke up and running around trying to get my kid to school, and, you know, we looked up I looked up at the moon and it was in the morning, it was a beautiful bright shining moon. So at the conference there were some experts that suggested taking some mini retreats, even if it's a magic moment that you have with your child, with yourself, your favorite walk in the park, your favorite hike, where can you go even in your workday to close your eyes, visit that spot, do some deep breathing even for a minute or two. I went to get coffee yesterday morning on my way to give this session, I asked for a dark coffee, they said it's going to take 2 minutes to brew. I said, "I don't have time. I'll take regular." Yeah. Like, how sick is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we just have to recognize that at some point we have to try to get off the treadmill and take some downtime. And I think we'll be better for it at work and at home.
