Employee burnout is on the rise. Whether caused by a range of new pressures poured onto workers by the pandemic or wider anxieties around the gathering financial crisis, many people feel they’ve reached the limit of what they can achieve in their professions.
In fact, overworked employees are discussing the issue in great numbers. An analysis by job review website Glassdoor of more than 380,000 posts from the past year found negative discussions about burnout rose by 48% compared to the previous 12 months. Meanwhile, work platform Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index states 71% of employees are experiencing burnout.
There are consequences to team members being overloaded: seven in 10 leaders believe that poor decision-making results from having a workload that stretches employees to breaking point.
Clearly, this can’t go on. Organisations must make working lives better. Here are five ways that can happen.
- Give employees new tools to tackle burnout: Overcoming fear by adapting norms within the workplace is key. This means making changes that give both managers and employees the right tools to make them more creative and less stressed - operating in a psychologically safe environment. Consciously adapting certain mindsets and behaviours opens doors and provides support, so that everyone at an organisation can feel and work at their best.
- Resist cutting headcount to save money: Fear of a looming recession has previously seen businesses cut back on everything from their marketing budgets to staff wellbeing programmes. This is a false economy and puts businesses in a far worse position in the long term. What happens when finances pick up and they’ve let their best people go to save money? Tracking down talent can be far more costly than temporarily switching people’s roles.
- Reach for the training manual to reset behaviours: Engaging with change and training employees to cope with it can have a hugely positive effect on productivity. Adaptation and constant education around how to handle fear and stress creates a positive environment and happy employees. But the long-term benefits of this strategy also far outweigh any short-term financial gains seen from the alternative, namely sweeping problems under the rug.
- Don’t overlook the needs of middle management: Organisations are coming across issues they haven't encountered before, such as employees sharing that they are suffering from feeling anxious or have wide-ranging concerns. Middle management don’t necessarily have the behavioural skills to deal with these issues, and in the same vein lack support from their own leaders. Team leaders should be conscious and enlightened; ready to examine how employees impact each other in a professional environment. Businesses must decide what qualities and values they need in middle management, and seek to instil them.
- Innovate operations from top to bottom: Now more than ever, leaders need a growth mindset without being inflexible to change. They must innovate and transform, while knowing it’s okay to fail and try again. Any business coming out of the pandemic and trying to carry on as they were is missing out on a big opportunity to take its workforce on a collaborative journey.
Businesses that address burnout, and in fact all of their employees’ diverse mental health and wellbeing needs, on an individual basis are more likely to get the best performance from every team member. Creating an environment of psychological security - even joy - in the work community, every single day, is paramount. This is what gets people performing at their best, and will make all the difference as businesses target success in the post-pandemic era.
