50. How about not working 9-5? Lessons on creating healthy work cultures learned from 50 episodes
Episode 50 marks a major milestone for the Hard at Work podcast as host Ellen Whitlock Baker reflects on the critical takeaways from the show’s first year. Over the course of 50 episodes, the overarching lesson is clear: it is entirely possible to build high-performing, successful organizations without forcing employees to sacrifice their mental health, identity, or personal lives. Challenging rigid corporate conventions—such as mandatory 9-to-5 office presence, constant availability, and soul-crushing meeting loads—is not only necessary for employee well-being, but essential for modern organizational health.
Achieving sustainable work requires addressing both systemic structures and personal mindsets. On an individual level, workers must engage in deep unlearning to confront internal "shadow voices"—engrained beliefs often inherited from childhood or societal pressure that equate exhaustion with self-worth and professional dedication. Simultaneously, organizations must acknowledge that standard workplace systems were historically designed around outdated demographics and profit or mission-driven model demands rather than human well-being. True progress occurs when leaders move away from viewing staff merely as resources to be consumed and instead build cultures rooted in mutual trust and psychological safety.
Highlighting actionable solutions, the episode showcases real-world examples of human-centric cultures, such as Her First 100K, which thrives using policies like remote flexibility, comprehensive parental leave, and intentional leave options. Grounded in insights from previous guests like Lindsay Jackson, Erin Gallagher, Sarah Jaffe, Vu Le, Jodi-Ann Burey, and Minda Hart, this milestone episode serves as both a systemic critique and a hopeful roadmap. It reinforces that treating employees as humans first enables companies to remain profitable and effective while fostering healthier, more resilient teams.
00:00 – Introduction: Bringing Humanity Back to Work
00:33 – Celebrating 50 Episodes: Gratitude, Growth, and Podcast Realities
01:38 – Lesson 1: Reimagining Outdated Workplace Norms
04:14 – Lesson 2: The Internal Battle of Unlearning Toxic Productivity
07:05 – Overcoming the Fear of Unlearning (ft. Lindsay Jackson)
09:55 – Reclaiming Identity Outside of Work & Navigating Workplace Power Dynamics (ft. Erin Gallagher)
12:17 – Lesson 3: Confronting Systemic Exploitation & White-Collar Burnout (ft. Sarah Jaffe)
14:39 – Human Beings vs. Human Resources: Breaking Free from Extraction (ft. Vu Le)
17:00 – Questioning the Status Quo: Patriarchy, Capitalism, and the 9-to-5 Model
18:41 – Protecting Vulnerable Voices and Rejecting "Agents of the Status Quo" (ft. Jodi-Ann Burey)
20:30 – Proof of Concept: Building Human-Centric Companies (ft. Karina Patel & Minda Hart)
23:10 – Final Thoughts: Grounding in Better Work Cultures & Call to Action
Show Notes
In this landmark 50th episode of Hard at Work, host Ellen Whitlock Baker pauses to reflect on a year of transformative conversations, expert insights, and hard-earned lessons about making work better for everyone.
Throughout the first 50 episodes, one central truth has emerged: We do not have to give up our souls to earn a living. Ellen dives deep into both the internal unlearning required to break free from overfunctioning and the systemic changes needed to modernize workplace structures. Drawing on wisdom from past guests, this episode offers a compassionate yet clear-eyed roadmap for leaders and individuals ready to build sustainable, human-first work cultures.
Referenced Episodes & Guests:
Lindsay Jackson (Ep. 25) – On the skill sets required for deep unlearning.
Erin Gallagher (Ep. 29) – On workplace power dynamics and trusting your internal compass.
Sarah Jaffe (Ep. 33) – On systemic workplace exploitation.
Vu Le (Ep. 35) – On moving past the extractive "human resource" mindset.
Jodi-Ann Burey (Ep. 34) – On lawful workplace practices and agents of the status quo.
Karina Patel (Ep. 48 & 49) – On operationalizing human-centric culture at Her First 100K.
Minda Hart (Ep. 32) – Author of Talk to Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace.
Aiko Bethea – Author of Anchored, Aligned, and Accountable.
Transcript
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:00.462)
I'm Ellen Whitlock Baker, and I help leaders who want to bring humanity and integrity back to work and still have a life left over at the end of the day. After 20 years of navigating the ups and downs of the working world, I started hard at work to help us all build healthier workplaces. I'm here to help you challenge outdated corporate norms, protect your well-being, and give you practical tools to build better work cultures.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:33.39)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the 50th episode of the Hard at Work Podcast, which I can hardly believe I'm actually saying that. Starting a podcast has been something I've been wanting to do for a really long time. And I'm just kind of blown away that I actually did it. So we've been making the podcast for a little over a year, and here we are on episode 50. And I'm really proud. And also, it's so much more work than I realized it would be. but I've really just been so blown away by what I've been able to learn throughout the whole process and especially from these incredible guests that I've been lucky enough to have who've said yes and actually agreed to come and talk to this person who's never had a podcast before about the ways that we can make work work better for everyone. So lots of gratitude for those of you who've been listening, those of you who've been my guests. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I wanted to reflect a little today on some of the major themes that have come out of 50 episodes and what I've learned, and hopefully what you've learned as listeners, because it's been an incredibly rich experience. The first thing I've learned is that it is entirely possible to create workplace cultures that don't make people miserable. When I started this work, I was hoping to shine a light on the fact that our workplaces really don't work for many of us, or even most of us, to say out loud that these systems and these processes that we think are the way that it has to be can be changed and should be in many cases. So it felt really important to just say those words out loud because I wasn't hearing them a lot. And I often felt like maybe I was doing something wrong because I wasn't fitting into the way things were supposed to be. And we're talking about things like having to be at work every single day of the week in the office, working a strict nine to five schedule, having to tell your boss if you're just gonna be gone for an hour, not being able to pick up your kids from school at three o'clock because that falls before five PM when you're supposed to be done with work. You know, only being reviewed once a year and and
Ellen Whitlock Baker (02:56.684)
being surprised in that review, having it be normal to be in seven hours of meetings a day. I've just named a bunch of things that I thought were just normal. And the price you pay for having to work, which doesn't make sense when you say that out loud, but it's like, okay, well, you're getting paid. So you have to give your soul up in order to get paid. And what I've learned is that that's not true. And there are all these things that we just easily assume
Are the status quo, and the idea of changing them feels heavy and hard and maybe even wrong because that's what we've been taught. And especially we feel this way if we are the people who are most disadvantaged by the systems in place. Because we might already be feeling lucky, like to be employed at all, or just not wanting to rock the boat, or being told we shouldn't rock the boat.
Or honestly, of being so tired of fighting inequity that we just give up. So when I started hard at work, I just wanted to shout from the rooftops, we don't have to keep working like this. And I certainly still believe that. But what I've also realized is that we have a battle to fight within ourselves as well. So, not just against the system that was built by and still benefits the patriarchy, though that work is necessary.
And I say this really carefully because we're often blamed for not feeling like we're doing a good job in the workplaces that don't work for us. So, like if we're stressed or overwhelmed or even burned out, it's our fault somehow that we can't hack it. We should build resilience or just be quiet and do our jobs, right? Ugh. So I'm not saying in any way that I think we are to blame.
For not thriving in systems that are frankly not made for us to thrive. But I have realized that half, or sometimes even more than half, the battle is the internal one, where we're having to unlearn and confront really deeply held beliefs that are keeping us from working sustainably. So these are those shadow voices that are always whispering in your ear that you're weak if you get tired after your workday, that you should stay in the office until all the work is done.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (05:18.594)
That you should get it all done no matter what it takes. It's work first, you second. It's totally possible to do it all and grind and grind and grind. And those shadow voices are lying liars that lie. They are, but they're powerful often because they're rooted in things we learned as children. Our family of origin, from our teachers or coaches, or any other people of authority who were deeply influential on our development.
So if your parents taught you or even showed you through their actions that they would do whatever it takes, work three jobs, work the graveyard shift, say yes to everything in order to provide for you and the family, then that is deeply ingrained in your psyche. That that's what it means to work hard. So in your world now.
Where maybe you don't have to work that hard in order to keep everything running and provide for your family because you're in a different kind of job or it's just a different time. Taking an afternoon off to rest when you're feeling really exhausted from your desk job can feel like something that's just silly when you have in your mind this memory of hard work being working three jobs and at night and doing more and more and more. So
In addition to calling attention to the fact that the workplace truly doesn't work for many of us and trying to be another voice who normalizes that, I've also realized the importance of unlearning. It's just as important as the learning, but we don't have a lot of examples of how to do it. So if you've ever been to therapy or even had a coach, you're definitely more prepared to do the hard work of unlearning these things that you thought were true.
But our learning maybe aren't. And that turns your whole world upside down. But it can be really, really hard to lead yourself through that process. So back in episode 25, Lindsay Jackson said so beautifully, she said, I would say what's difficult is not the desire for unlearning. Most people I meet have the desire. What they lack is the skill set. And then in the absence of the skill set, there's a lot of fear of being found out.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:37.56)
You have to go through the work of dismantling the character to figure out who I am. And wow, when I went back and read that, I was like, my God, like that's exactly she's describing it so perfectly. And I see this in practice every day as I'm coaching leaders. We have this like really rigid understanding of what we are supposed to do. You know, I say it all the time. We're shooting all over ourselves. We should do this. We should do that.
We're supposed to want to exceed expectations, to get the promotion, to be the one everyone counts on at work. And that is especially true for us that are people-pleasing perfectionists. And it is so rare that we question why we think that is the way. But once we do, there's this inevitably kind of falling apart of everything we thought we knew to be true, which is scary and chaotic and weird. But on the other side, just like Lindsay says.
You can finally figure out who you are. And who you are is not your job. Your job is something you do, but it's not your whole identity. And so many of us grew up in a time or with pressures, or just in a way that made us feel like our job had to be our whole identity in order for us to succeed at our job. And thus it feels unsafe to us.
To not be grinding all the time, not work as hard as we think we should work. And that feeling of not being safe is what keeps us from actually making the changes that we need to make in order to work in a more sustainable way. So that is a huge learning moment from 50 episodes for me, that our shoulds are not always rooted in truth.
Or in any sort of desire we actually personally feel. The desire to work late every night might come from what you saw your parents do, not what you personally want to do. So the trick of unlearning that and going through the darkness to get to the truth of your own personal values and convictions is super hard, but it is the best thing you can do for yourself.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (09:57.186)
And that makes me think about the power that we can let people have over us, especially people in positions of power in our work or life. And power can mean someone who's a boss, or power can be somebody who is in the in group if you're not part of that group. Erin Gallagher talked about this through the lens of mean girls at work in episode twenty nine. She said, I took their criticism as direction.
You stop believing that what your instinct is telling you, what your gut says about how you feel about a person or a situation, you stop believing that you're right because you're told so often, that's not what I meant. That's not, you're too sensitive. You took it the wrong way. You're all of that, though. So another big learning moment for me, for some of us, and I might argue many of us, there is a lot of old crap built up that is telling us we have to do things in a
Very specific way, in order to not only do our work or live our life the right way, but also to fit in. And fitting in is so important to us as humans, as people who thrive in communities. It goes back to when we were hunter-gatherers, you know, we we needed to create community and band together so that we could have all of our needs met. It's
It's a biological need in us to fit in. And one of my core values is belonging. So for me, it's truly extra important. And I really know firsthand what it's like to not be in the in group. And I've realized throughout these episodes and reading the books from the people who were guests and just opening my mind and learning that sometimes our desire to fit in supersedes.
Our personal values and how we want to act and feel. But I'm not going to let the workplace off the hook here. So, yes, we've learned that we all have a lot of unlearning and personal growth and reflection to do, and that we don't have great examples of how to do it or tools to do it. But that's truly the very first step in unraveling yourself from a miserable work experience is to look inside yourself. But the workplace is also very screwed up.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:17.802)
And it's been really therapeutic for me to talk about it here, especially with such amazing experts and thought leaders who were kind enough to join me. Because there's this realization moment that you have to go through before you're able to continue with the work of both unlearning your own toxic understanding of work and productivity that isn't serving you, but also in saying out loud that the systems that we work under are honestly not designed to support us as workers.
And that can be a really hard pill to swallow because we grew up thinking work was supposed to be the way work is. And Sarah Jaffey who said something during her episode 33 that has really stayed with me. She said, it's not your inability to work hard enough or to love your job enough that makes your job suck. It's the structures of exploitation that make your job suck. And even if your boss is like,
A decent person who wants you to enjoy your job, it still sucks sometimes because the pressures of the job are not ultimately designed to make us happy. They're designed to make somebody money. And that has really, really changed the way I talk about work, especially as someone from a nonprofit public service background where
We were taught to work hard to support the mission. It wasn't necessarily about making a lot of money, but it was about supporting the mission. And if you don't work hard, you're not doing a good enough job supporting the mission and you're letting down the people that your organization serves. And like believing deeply in the mission is something you have to do, or you're not a good employee. You can't just like do your job and come home. You have to like give your soul to your job as well.
And that's the one place where we're truly getting ourselves into trouble. I'm not saying don't love your job. I'm not saying the mission isn't important. I'm not saying you believing in the mission and wanting to work hard to support that mission isn't a good thing. That's all wonderful. But it's the working to support your job, your goals, your KPIs, the mission, the people you're serving, all of those things at the expense.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (14:39.086)
Of your own health and well-being, that's the problem. Because that does nobody any good. And yet we've been taught that that's the way a really good employee does it. They give it all. So Vu Le said in episode 35: I love Vu so much. And his book on how we could maybe make nonprofits and philanthropy better places to work. And
Work better as a whole is a must read. But he said, I think capitalism has kind of trained us to see workers as only like, I mean, we even call it human resource. I mean, if we think about it, that's a very shit term, you know, like these are people, these are people who are in a community together, trying to do something awesome together, hopefully, you know? And so we think of them as like fuel to kind of power this one organization or this one mission and so on.
And when you think of people that way, then it doesn't matter if they burn out. It doesn't matter if they're underpaid. You know, don't need to listen to them because as soon as they're underpaid and they're burning out and they leave you, just find someone else to do it. Man, such a good quote. And it's bleak when you think of it that way, but it also feels really good to say it out loud. The systems that support our workplaces are not great systems for the most part.
There's systems that were created to make the most money for the people who own the business. And in the nonprofit, public sector, non-money-making business, there's systems that are created to make the most money to support the people that we are trying to support through the mission. There are these systems, and I say this.
Just because it's truth, not because I'm against white men and think that they're terrible, but the systems that were created were created coming off of factory worker hours, where you were there nine to five, and the people who did the work in a lot of ways, especially as we transitioned into office work, were the people who could afford to leave their families at home.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:00.994)
Because they had a spouse there looking after them and give everything they needed to give to work, who which were mostly men and mostly white men. So the workplace is still designed to work best in that scenario for the people who benefit from that scenario. And we haven't re-evaluated it in hundreds of years. So maybe it's time to think about questioning the nine to five.
Do we really have to be butt in seat, nine to five every day? Is that how we're going to get our best work out of everybody? So when you can hear things like that, like what I just said, and think, yeah, you know what, that is factually true without feeling defensive, then I think we're getting somewhere. Because those are true facts, and you can decide how you feel about those facts.
Maybe you feel like business owners should be focused solely on profit and the well-being of their employees is secondary because that's how it works. Okay, that's your opinion. But I think we all have to stop being afraid of using words like capitalism and patriarchy, which are just merely descriptions of how our workplaces and society are fashioned and how, in many ways, they still work. So it was incredibly powerful for me to say on this podcast out loud.
The workplace doesn't work that well for me. And we know I have a ton of privilege as a white woman. So it's certainly working better for me than it is for many others. And we have to say that out loud too. We have to be honest. We can't hide behind toxic positivity. This, this naming of the things that don't work, I've learned this is so critically important in our work in trying to make work less miserable for people.
And as Jodi Ann Burey talked about in episode thirty-four, the onus of making changes in the workplace is so often placed, unfairly and dangerously, on those that are not the in-group at the office. She said, We're really actually just talking about like lawful workplace practices. We're talking about labor practices, you know, the ability for people of color, queer folks, women, people with disabilities should have equity within the workplace.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (19:22.978)
That they should not experience work differently because of their identities. These are protected classes for a reason. And so then what agents of the status quo say is that, well, if you want protection, then you need to expose yourself. You need to do all of these different things, and then we will protect you. But that's just not how it works. So another big truth in learning from 50 episodes of exploring how our workplaces aren't working and what we can do about them.
There are a lot of us who actually function as agents of the status quo, as Jodi Ann calls them. And we do this because it's safer for us to go along with the way things are supposed to be than it is to question them. And just like we were talking about before, about our learned identities and and what we think we have to do to be a good worker, to keep our jobs, it's safer to live in the world that has been constructed for us without questioning things because it's hard and it can hurt.
Once we start doing that. But it is so not all hope is lost. I've learned in 50 episodes that we can change things. And like I said, it kind of starts from changing yourself into someone who knows your own core values and operates from them, which can be easier said than done. But when you're operating from that place and are anchored, aligned, and accountable, as the incredible Aiko Bethea talks about in her book.
Of the same name that I've mentioned many times, you can then start to pick your head up and look around and say, you know what? We can do better. And I hope you caught my last two episodes with Karina Patel, the COO of her first 100K, a company that has created an incredibly human-centric way of working. Like fully remote, unlimited PTO, four months of paid parental leave, and menstrual leave. Menstrual leave.
And this was such a heartening conversation with Karina because it proves that it can be done. Her first 100K is an incredibly successful company, not only financially, but also because it's changing the lives of millions of women by helping them understand the often mail-coded ways of managing money to make yourself wealthier, which gives everybody a leg up. And Karina gave us the literal playbook on how to create workplace policies that come from the mutual trust.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (21:45.41)
Between the employee and the employer, which is earned, not freely given. As Minda Hart said in episode 32, I just think that leaders cannot function in an old world. They have to be open-minded. They have to be, dare I say, realize that people are humans first and employees second, right? And Minda's awesome book, Talk to Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace, is an
Excellent way to learn how to do this, how to build this trust and earn this trust within your team. And I've been so happy to see how many places are having Minda come out and teach this way of working to them, how many keynotes she's doing, how many books she's selling. She just her book just came out in paperback. Go buy it. It's amazing. It just gives me so much hope to see that people are listening to people like Minda.
Who is saying these really important things that will help us build better workplaces? Just like talking to Karina gives me hope.
And I have some really exciting interviews that I've already recorded that keep up that hope that will help me continue to tell stories about and share practical ways to start to change both the shadow voices in yourself and the ways of the workplace that are no longer serving us. It is an incredible joy and privilege to get to do this work, both on this podcast, but also out in the world where I work with clients as their coach. I facilitate retreats, I give keynotes.
All to help people understand that we can approach work in a way that doesn't deplete us, make us sad, make us mad, take over our lives. There's so much to learn and unlearn to help us all ground in a better future. And I honestly can't believe I get to learn all about it on hard at work and am so grateful for this platform. So I can share it with you all too. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for wanting to learn with me.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (23:45.662)
And as a present for me and the 50th episode, I love it if you could go onto your podcast platform of choice and leave a review, subscribe, or share the show with a friend. It truly, truly makes a difference and allows more folks to hear the experts that have been kind enough to join me here on Hard at Work and maybe actually teach more people that we don't have to give our souls to work.
And we can still be profitable and efficient and effective and do good things and do good work without it being our whole life. So thank you so much for listening. Take care of yourselves, and I'll see ya on the other side of 50.
