Work smarter, not harder to keep burnout at bay
Are your star employees running on fumes, their motivation waning, and their once bright enthusiasm dimming? They might be experiencing burnout.
These days, the pressure to ‘do more with less’ can feel overwhelming. But the cost of ignoring burnout is far greater than the time or resources it takes to prevent it. The good news? You can flip the script.
Let’s explore practical ways to manage stress in your workforce, before it inevitably leads to burnout.
What is burnout?
The World Health Organisation defines burnout as a syndrome that results in from chronic workplace stress that has been left unsuccessfully managed. This can be characterised by:
- Reduced professional efficiency.
- Exhaustion or feelings of low energy
- Feelings of negativity or cynicism related to one’s work or becoming mentally distance from their work.
What causes workers to burnout?
Namely, stress.
However, it’s important to understand that stress is not the same as pressure. Although the two terms are frequently used interchangeably, this can hinder efforts to prevent and remove stress. Positive pressure, by way of challenging but achievable goals can be a good thing, as it motivates and allows employees to feel a sense of achievement and growth. However, stress occurs when pressure becomes overwhelming or relentless.
An employee experiences stress when they feel their capacity to cope is being exceeded by demands and this can result in burnout. At the other end of the spectrum, where stress results from apathy or boredom cause by the role not being demanding enough or because the employee doesn’t feel valued, this is known as ‘rust out’.
Burnout can be an early sign that an employee is experiencing mental health impacts, and the main causes can be:
- Unfair treatment at work.
- Not feeling appreciated.
- Long working hours.
- Unclear communications from managers or of what is expected of them.
- Lack of management support.
- Unmanageable workloads and/or unreasonable time pressures.
- Toxic work environment (e.g. highly competitive, gossip, favouritism etc).
This is not an exhaustive list as the main cause will vary from person to person. Over time workplace burnout can start impacting their personal life too, especially where the employee works from home, the line between work and home can very quickly become blurred, removing the opportunity for the employee to take a step back and take a much-needed break.
How can I spot the signs of burnout?
As well have the impact burnout can have on mental health and can also affect physical health such as increased risk to insomnia, heart disease, high blood pressure and generally an increased vulnerability to illness, with those experiencing burnout 63% more likely to take a sick day. There is an important role for those with the most direct interaction with staff, such as supervisors and managers, to be able to recognise signs of burnout. Feelings of burnout can manifest in a number of ways such as:
- Showing up late or calling in sick more frequently.
- Change in attitude (i.e. flippant, sarcastic or negative attitude).
- Reluctance or unwillingness to help.
- Increase in small mistakes/errors.
The main thing to look out for is a noticeable change in the employee’s behaviour/personality, especially when their past performance and behaviour has been good. Noticing the new behaviours should set off alarm bells and trigger managers to act.
What can I do to prevent burnout?
It’s tempting to take direct action such managing the decline in performance with a performance improvement plan or taking disciplinary action for the rude and objectionable behaviour. However, this won’t do anything to alleviate the feeling of burnout, it just feeds into the employee’s disillusionment becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This will likely result in the employee going on long term sick or the relationship permanently breaking down, resulting in the loss of a good employee. This can sometimes come at a great cost to the business if the employee claims constructive dismissal, or leaves under a settlement agreement.
Initially, it is better to take a more indirect approach and to avoid making assumptions based on recent observations. Instead in a private setting, interact and get feedback from the employee allowing them to feel heard, supported and valued. These conversations can make the employee feels seen and shows that you are genuinely interested in supporting them. You should be sympathetic and proactive, but avoid declarative statements such as ‘You seem stress/depressed’ instead by asking open questions such as ‘Is everything ok?’, ‘Is there anything I can help with?’, instead ask open questions such as ‘Is everything ok?’, ‘Is there anything I can help with?’, ‘how you are finding your workload’.
Once you have a better understanding of what has caused the employee to feel burnt out, you can now discuss strategies that you can put in place to support them, agree regular check ins and encourage them to seek support for your employee assistance program (EAP) or their GP.
Top tips for preventing burnout
- Management training – specifically with communicating effectively, fostering a positive and supportive work environment, ensuring development opportunities, balancing workloads and removing barriers to ensure team success.
- Reasonable and realistic workloads and deadline – ensuring expectations and objectives are manageable and engaging to help foster a sense of purpose increasing employee engagement.
- Teamwork and shared accountability – allows employees to support each other, divide workload and work together to solve problems and meet goals. This will remove any sense of disconnection.
- Safe work environment – allow employees to have some autonomy and control over their work, to allow them to step away for a quiet break, to gather for a meeting or socialise. Create a work environment that allows employees to feel comfortable being themselves and express their needs.
- Incorporate wellbeing into your workplace culture – help employees align and balance their physical/mental health, wellness, family/social relationships with their careers.
Wrapping up
Finally, ongoing communication is a good way to ensure employees know where they can seek assistance. Managers should be encouraged to have regular discussions with their employees, reminding them that it is better to raise any concerns or ask for help before deadlines get missed or a problem develops.
Most importantly, managers need to listen to their employees and create an inclusive and safe space.
