These days, it’s no surprise that many people are facing burnout in their careers. However, as an employer, this can impact not only your team but also your company’s productivity and bottom-line results. It’s why understanding burnout and what to do about it is so important. This will help you to recognize employee burnout before it becomes a problem and help your people overcome it.
How to Help Your Employees From Burnout
Five Stages of Employee Burnout
Generally speaking, there are five stages of burnout:
- The honeymoon phase is when an employee is first starting out at work and might feel some stress. However, they have a lot of energy and drive, so can cope with it in a healthy way.
- The balancing act stage happens when an employee is deep into the work and starting to feel the strain. You might begin to notice a few signs of burnout here, including more inefficiencies and fatigue.
- The next stage involves chronic symptoms. Symptoms are escalating to the point where your employee might show signs of irritation, anger, aggression, and depression. This can manifest itself into higher rates of absenteeism, unpreparedness, and mistakes.
- The crisis stage is the breaking point when things start to fall apart. The physical and emotional changes will be noticeable at this point with your employee, including a lack of engagement and a sense of detachment.
- The enmeshment stage is when the employee makes a radical change, like quitting. It’s why dealing with burnout before this stage is important.
How Can Employers Help With Burnout?
If you’re noticing an employee is starting to change in their attitude or mood toward work, it’s a red flag. If they were once a go-getter and are now barely getting by and mentally distant, then these are all signs burnout is becoming an issue. How can you help? Here are some tips:
Talk about burnout
Don’t brush it under the rug. Assume every employee is one of the stages of burnout and make well-being and a good work-life balance a part of your culture.
Set reasonable goals
If goals or expectations aren’t reasonable and are putting too much pressure on your team, burnout can become a real problem for everyone. Make sure that every employee’s workload is manageable and reasonable. If it’s not, then talk to them about how to address it.
Encourage time off
Encourage your employees to take their vacation days and also take lunch breaks and other small breaks during the day. This gives them an important chance to recharge and stay energized.
Design a healthier work environment
Everything from more natural light or low artificial light to comfortable furniture and breakrooms stocked with healthy snacks can go a long way in helping employees stay healthy and balanced.
Make boundaries clear
If employees are emailing and texting each other outside of work hours, it can lead to burnout. Unless there’s an emergency, encourage boundaries and respect personal time.
Are your people overworked and burned out?
Let Future Force help. As one of Orlando, FL’s award-winning staffing agencies, we can find the skilled workers you need to add to your team, whether on a temporary or full-time basis. We’ll ensure your core staff can stay focused on key priorities and maintain a healthy work-life balance, without getting burned out. At the same time, your projects will get completed thanks to more manpower in place. Contact us today to learn more.
