Can you recognise if an employee is burned out? And if so, do you know how to help them?
Here are some signs that your employees may be burned out, and what to do to help them lessen the burden.
Some signs that an employee may be experiencing the physical and emotional strain of burnout include:
- Unjustified absences from work
- Arriving late for work/leaving early
- Decreased productivity
- Apparent frustration
- Deterioration of health
- Isolation
When an employee experiences burnout for one reason or another over a prolonged period of time, it usually leads him or her to leave the company for another opportunity .
As a leader in your organisation, there are ways to help burned-out employees not only to lessen their burden, but also to retain them.
Here we explore three tactics to achieve this:
- Offers rewards for no reason
While people like incentives, the continuous pressure to work even harder can often be a contributing factor to burnout.
Whether it's a gift card, extra time off, the opportunity to leave early or refreshments in the break room, these kinds of rewards just for being part of the team can go a long way in motivating employees and making them feel appreciated and understood.
- Remember obligations outside work
How often do you respect the time they spend outside their working hours?
Many employees have family obligations, second jobs or take on freelance work. While the other job should never conflict with the employee's responsibilities, making requests outside working hours could lead to feelings of depression, hopelessness and exhaustion.
- Avoid excessive communication
Collaboration and communication are important for the success of any business.
However, when additional meetings are called or excessive emails appear in the inbox, it ceases to be useful and starts to interfere with the daily operations of the company and employees.
Constant communication requires a lot of emotional energy and mental space, which leads to employee burnout.
While employee burnout is common in the workplace, with a good leadership team that sees the big picture of everyone's life, burnout can be addressed and avoided.
