The pandemic has forced many of us to rapidly adjust our ways of working, and quite frankly, this has taken its toll, with research by Indeed finding that more than half of employees are feeling burned out.
Burnout has become such a problem, that the World Health Organisation (WHO) classified it as a globally recognised occupational syndrome in 2020 and describes the following symptoms:
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- Increased mental distance from one’s job;
- Feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- A sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.
Burnout erodes an employee’s bandwidth to perform, leaving colleagues to absorb the slack. This affects not just an organisation’s productivity but can also lead to higher staff turnover.
In this article, we discuss five ways that businesses can reduce burnout.
- Promote health and wellbeing
61% of UK CEO’s are concerned about the declining wellbeing of their people, according to the latest CEO survey by PwC, and evidence shows that a healthy workforce experiences lower absenteeism and higher levels of resilience, engagement, and productivity. Good levels of wellbeing can therefore provide a powerful defence against burnout.
‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ By empowering your people to prioritise their own health and wellbeing, employees will be better able to recognise and react to early signs of burnout and stress before it becomes a problem.
Some ways to achieve this include reminding staff of any wellbeing benefits and support you offer. Regularly sharing insight with your people about health and wellbeing and sponsoring mental health training can also arm your employees with the tools they need to be proactive.
- Work smarter, not harder
If employees are saying that they ‘get applauded when working longer hours’, then your organisation may be placing too much value on the amount of voluntary time worked.
Smaller organisations and start-ups are particularly vulnerable, especially when the workload is shared across a smaller team. And although extra time can show dedication, if employees are becoming burned out or seeing their wellbeing suffer, then those extra hours will contribute little in the way of additional productivity.
What’s important is that leaders learn when to put their foot on the gas and when to apply the brakes. Employees need time to recover, so that they’re ready for the next challenge.
- Encourage staff to take breaks
Around three quarters of employees don’t always take their breaks. And research by Staffordshire University, suggests that feelings of guilt are a leading cause. We can feel guilty for a few reasons, but the behaviour of other colleagues is shown to be a key influence. If colleagues aren’t taking breaks, then you’re less likely to as well.
So, how can leaders encourage employees to switch-off? The most effective way is to lead by example. If leaders show that taking breaks are acceptable, then this will cascade across the organisation.
Employees should be encouraged to take short breaks throughout the day. Five-minute ‘microbreaks’ are shown to help employees bounce back from fatigue and therefore be more productive.
Sometimes breaks aren’t enough, and employees need to recharge for longer. Holiday take-up should be encouraged throughout the year, particularly after periods of high workload.
In the fight against burnout, it was recently announced that London-based FinCapp, a stockbroker, will offer its employees ‘unlimited’ holidays. However, such schemes can cause anxiety and that’s why the firm also asks employees to take at least four weeks’ holiday a year and two or three days a quarter.
- Give notice of schedule changes and use forward rotations
Research by the Retail Trust earlier this year found that employees working in retail, distribution and warehouses were most likely to score low when it comes to mental health – with the majority saying that they rarely, or never have ‘energy to spare’. This suggests that when it comes to burnout, shift workers have been hit particularly hard.
And although labour shortages and coronavirus isolation have presented leaders with unique challenges over the past two years, there are several scheduling tips that can help staff feel well rested:
- Give staff as much notice as possible when it comes to announcing the schedule and making changes. This helps them to plan their social life and rest time around work in a way that’s manageable.
- If a staff member is consistently picking-up extra shifts, check-in with them to assess whether they are getting sufficient rest.
- Where there are morning, evening and night shifts, consider forward rotation. Forward rotation can decrease disruption of our body clock, also known as circadian rhythm. This type of shift system first moves from a morning shift to an evening shift and then to a night shift. Conversely, backwards rotation is shown to be detrimental to mental health.
- You can’t manage what you don’t measure
Even though society is increasingly open about health and wellbeing issues, people are still less likely to speak up about it, making it difficult for leaders to truly understand the health of their employees.
That’s why our final recommendation is to put in place a process that regularly captures anonymous employee feedback. Real-time feedback helps to develop a rich vein of insight that far outweighs a ‘point in time’ approach that may already be out of date by the time it’s discussed and analysed.
Key takeaways
Burnout is the enemy of productivity, and the effects of the pandemic mean that more employees are experiencing it than ever before. A recent survey by Oracle found that for 70% of employees, last year was the most stressful of their working lives.
Burnout can lead to a higher incidence of errors, absenteeism, and turnover of staff. Leaders that are therefore able to re-energise their workforce will ultimately build stronger businesses.
Nate Harwood is the Founder of New Possible, an employee insight platform that aims to build healthier businesses.
