Employee burnout is a serious challenge. It’s been a growing problem for years, but it reached a new peak in the wake of the pandemic. If you’re a business owner, you probably have been looking for ways to help your employees overcome it.
What is Employee Burnout?
Burnout occurs when employees have exhausted all their emotional and/or physical energy. It’s usually the byproduct of prolonged and chronic stress and frustration with the job.
Burnout is most likely to occur in work environments that are either repetitive or that place consistently large amounts of pressure on staff.
Symptoms and negative byproducts of employee burnout include:
- Persistent irritability and frustration
- Feelings of apathy and indifference toward the work
- Physical and emotional exhaustion
- Increased expressions of sarcasm and anger
- Frequent argumentativeness
- High absenteeism
As the Harvard Business Review explains, burnout isn’t a “people” problem – it’s a “workplace” problem. In other words, you shouldn’t be asking how you can help your employees deal with burnout and address the undesired symptoms they’re experiencing.
You should be thinking about how to create change throughout your organization that cultivates a working environment which won’t burn people out.
Tips for Addressing Burnout Head-On
It’s imperative not to sit back and hope that burnout will alleviate itself. You have to change some of the fundamentals within your organization.
Here are several tips to help you address burnout proactively.
- Become More Flexible About Scheduling
We highly recommend that you be more flexible with scheduling. Give your workers more say over when they work by letting them set their own hours – within reason. Flexible start and end times make it easier for people to operate during the hours when they’re most productive.
One employee might choose to work 7 to 3, while another might prefer to perform from 11 to 7. By letting people choose, you give them greater control, which inevitably leads to higher levels of job satisfaction.
2. Provide the Right Support Tools
Think about how you can support your team with the better tools, processes, and technologies so they won’t feel excessive pressure and stress. Take your IT staff, for example.
If your team constantly feels as if it’s drowning in support tickets, the members are eventually going to experience burnout. (It becomes not a matter of if, but when.)
Investing in IT help desk software can streamline ticket management and automate some of the mundane, repetitive tasks that so often fill up your systems experts’ day.
3. Offer Rewards That Neutralize Burnout
We often set incentives in front of employees with the hope of making them work harder or accomplish more. It’s as if we’re dangling a carrot from a stick in front of their nose and telling them, “Work just a little harder for this!” When we are having more brain activity and focusing at workplace the brain circuits will get tired and need a rest with a diversion like Novibet online casino for fun and pause time. The online activity during the free time plays a reasonably good impact to reduce the work place burnout. Also, the focus on our mental health at work place need a break time and relax time to give a good productivity
But is this really the best approach? You can only prod someone so far before a reward no longer provides sufficient motivation. At some point, the result will be burnout.
Try switching your approach. Instead of offering nothing but perks and rewards based on performance, try offering rewards based on such elements as commitment, effort, and support. As for the rewards, select items that neutralize burnout, such as extra vacation time, half-days, extended breaks, or the opportunity to take a two-hour lunch.
4. Lead by Example
You can’t expect your team to feel like they’re in a good space mentally when you’re constantly frazzled and overworked. Make sure you address the behaviors you model for everyone else.
“If you’re running from meeting to meeting and don’t have enough time in the day to breathe, what message does that send? Set a good example by making downtime a priority,” suggests Susan David, author of Emotional Agility.
“Show your team that you don’t always operate in full-throttle mode at the office.”
This can be difficult to do, depending on your personality and the amount of work you have – or believe you must tackle – in front of you. But it’s an important skill worth cultivating.
Create room in each day to slow down, spend time with your team, and let them know that some downtime is okay (even in the midst of chaos).
Don’t Let Burnout Beat Your Business
Burnout will destroy your operation, if you let it. But that’s ultimately your choice. If you learn how to prevent burnout proactively (and neutralize it any time it rears its ugly head), you can keep your team one step ahead of the game.
In sum, keep in mind that burnout isn’t really about people – it’s about the workplace. By properly optimizing your company’s culture and approach to managing people, you can defeat burnout and ensure your team operates at maximum strength.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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