Prevent and Manage Employee Burnout in 4 Simple Steps

Employee burnout is a serious, prevalent problem that has disastrous effects not only for employees, but also for your organization and your business. In this blog post your will learn how to recognize, prevent and manage employee burnout in 4 simple steps.

Why is it important to prevent and manage employee burnout?

Employee burnout is a serious, prevalent problem that has disastrous effects not only for employees, but also for your organization and your business.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC):

• 40% of employees report their job is very or extremely stressful
• 25% of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives
• 75% of employees believe the worker has more on-the-job stress than a generation ago
• Problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor-more so than even financial problems or family problems

Employee burnout can increase errors on the job, lower the productivity of your employees, create interpersonal conflicts, increase absenteeism from work and cause high turnover.

A survey of 614 HR professionals found that 95 percent of HR leaders said employee burnout was sabotaging workforce retention. 😲

In order to recognize, prevent and manage, HR professionals and managers must have a good knowledge about burnouts, its symptoms, causes and effective ways to prevent it.

Employee burnout: Definition, causes and symptoms

Definition

Employee burnout is the state of physical, emotional or mental exhaustion in employees.

Causes

The cause of the employee burnout is a prolonged period of stress at work.

This stress is usually the consequence of a number of different factors such as:

• constant excessive workload
• tight deadlines
• Overtime
• problematic work relationships
• low salaries
• lack of job security, etc.

Symptoms

Burnout symptoms usually develop slowly over a prolonged period of time.
These symptoms usually start as an occasional, minor nuisance.
However, if these early symptoms aren’t recognized and properly managed, they can turn into more serious physical, mental and emotional difficulties.

Prevent and manage employee burnout in 4 simple steps

Here is how to recognize, prevent and manage employee burnout in 4 simple steps:

1. Recognize the early burnout signs

If you want to avoid employee burnout, you must recognize it in its early phase.

• Pay attention to your employees and be observant.
• Educate your managers, team leaders and employees about burnout symptoms and causes.
• Conduct online employee stress survey regularly.

2. Determine the burnout causes

If you are an HR manager who has noticed burnout symptoms in your employees, you should proceed by determining the burnout causes.

• Identify the burnout causes through discussion with the affected individual (or the group).
• Invite burnt out employees for an informal meeting outside of your office to prevent interruptions, ensure privacy and ensure a more relaxed atmosphere.
• Try to find out if there is something your employees have difficulties coping with and give them an opportunity to explain what they are experiencing.

3. Provide support

Before you jump right into solving the problem, stop for a second and focus on the burnt out employees in front of you.

• Burnt out employees probably feel ashamed, disappointed in themselves, lonely and isolated.
• Remind them that they are valued and cared for by their team and company.
• Ask them what they need to recover as soon as possible.

4. Take action

In order to manage employee burnout at your company successfully, you have to analyze the problem, devise a solution and act.

• Discern whether you are dealing with an issue that is problematic for this one particular employee or an organizational issue which can negatively affect your other employees too.
• Devise an actionable plan with appropriate solutions, such as planning time management seminar, etc.
• Make sure you are addressing the real underlying cause of the problem, not just with its visible symptoms.

Hopefully these tips will help you recognize, prevent and manage employee burnout in order to maintain a positive work environment and keep your employees happy, engaged and productive.