Tackling Employee Burnout With Stable Long-Term Strategies

“Give up the delusion that burnout is the inevitable cost of success.” – Arianna Huffington.

Huffington delivers a powerful message about the misconception of overwork and glorification of self-sacrifice often associated with achievement and encourages a shift in perspective towards prioritizing holistic well-being and sustainable practices in both personal and professional life – something that we cannot afford to overlook in modern day workplaces.

Here’s the Top 5 Statistically Found Causes of Employee Burnout:

1. Excessive Workload – surpassing manageable thresholds, inducing exhaustion and stress. Our AltMindShift Employee Programs aid organizations in pinpointing areas for improvement.
2. Unreasonable Time Limits and Deadlines – building pressure and anxiety. Leaders can enhance productivity by ensuring fair standards that inspire excellence rather than those which increase stress.
3. Workplace Inequity – favouritism, bias, uneven compensation, or mistreatment of colleagues, leads to frustration and demotivation.
4. Unclear Managerial Communication – resulting in ambiguity and disengagement among employees.
5. Insufficient Managerial Support and Guidance – leaving employees feeling unsupported at their job.

Why Organisations Must Care About Employee Burnout:

1. Employee struggles, negative emotions, or burnout affect the entire organization.
2. It brings down organizational health by diminishing productivity, escalating turnover rates, heightening absenteeism, and amplifying medical costs due to preventable illnesses.
3. According to research findings, burnout incurs companies about 15% to 20% of their total payroll in voluntary turnover expenses.
4. Employees display diminished confidence in their job performance and are more prone to seeking alternative employment.

Tackling Employee Burnout with Long Lasting Solutions:

1. Creating a Wellbeing Culture – When an organization places emphasis on workplace wellness within its culture and provides resources for healthier living, employees are more inclined to prioritize self-care, support one another, and seek a balanced work-life equilibrium. Conversely, if well-being is solely an HR program and not integrated into the organizational ethos, burnout may persist. Perks provided by HR for physical and financial health become less impactful if business operations prioritize work objectives over employee well-being.
2. Equipping Managers to Identify Burnout for Themselves & Prevent Worker Burnout – Educating them on strategies to minimize burnout and enhance engagement can cultivate a culture of high performance. Assessing the manager experience within an organization involves hiring individuals who are well-suited for the role and recognizing when managers feel caught between employee needs and meeting higher-level expectations, because manager suffer too and often make up for a significant number. This proactive approach helps identify managers who may be at heightened risk of burnout themselves.

      3. Crafting Your Overall Employee Experience to Mitigate Burnout –

             a) Encouraging a balance between work and personal life to maintain well-being.

             b) Cultivating an environment where open communication is valued and encouraged, not feared for repercussions, leading to collaborative solutions when employees communicate.

            c) Providing constructive feedback to employees, reducing the risk of burnout with adequate warnings for employees to reflect and grow

           d) Granting employees autonomy to make decisions and take ownership of their work, communicating trust to employees of their flexible hours with collaborative goal-setting

           e) Recognizing and rewarding employees for their dedication and achievements and refraining from recognising the same individuals regularly during team calls.

            f) Implementing programs focused on employee wellness to support overall wellbeing. Our EAP Programs for example consist of individual counseling sessions and group sessions based on custom needs-analysis offering individualised solutions along with mental health resources

          g) Advocating for regular breaks throughout the workday to prevent exhaustion, including remote work groups, with adequate paid time offs (PTOs) and recreational freedom.

         h) Offering flexible work arrangements to accommodate individual needs and preferences.

         i) Invest in opportunities for professional growth and skill development to inspire mentoring needs for employees.

         j) Monitor and manage workloads to prevent overwhelming employees and regularly identifying signs of stress at intermittent gaps.

In conclusion, preventing employee burnout requires a proactive and multi-faceted approach but at the core, many short term implementations end up failing as seen with Companies sometimes, if a culture and design of employee experience itself is not built in the work processes and valued.

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