Managing workplace burnout
Managing workplace burnout
Feelings of workplace burnout are on the rise, especially since the beginning of the pandemic. What exactly is it? Workplace burnout is an overwhelming feeling of workplace discomfort, stress, and helplessness within one’s role and at the company where they work. These feelings lead to under productivity and negative energy which causes people to want to leave – and has led to what people are calling The Great Resignation.
While it might be hard to manage people’s feelings, there are ways to help create working environments for people to thrive and be fulfilled within their roles. First, it’s important to understand that everyone has personal lives outside of work and working from home has blurred those lines a bit. By acknowledging that people need to take some time for themselves throughout the day in order to better perform their tasks, that’s one simple way to give people space between work and life.
But, managing workplace burnout is more than flexible scheduling and is something that won’t disappear once the pandemic is over.
Examining workplace burnout
What does workplace burnout look like? How can you tell if someone is feeling burnt out at work if they don’t communicate it with you? How can people communicate that they’re experiencing workplace burnout without offending management? There are so many factors that go into workplace burnout that it’s not necessarily something that can always be solved, but it is something that companies can strive to address and hopefully avoid.
Identifying workplace burnout
Some symptoms of workplace burnout include but are not limited to:
- High levels of stress and anxiety at work
- Overly irritable or cynical about daily tasks and projects
- Lack of concentration and motivation
- Lack of energy, unusually tired at work
- Lowered levels of performance
These symptoms very much align with what you hear about depression, which is akin to workplace burnout. While someone might be happy in their personal life, being unhappy at work can lead to feelings of overall restlessness and general fatigue. Happy workers create better work, so it’s important to improve feelings of burnout before they run too deep.
Ways to improve feelings of burnout
There are many ways to improve morale around the workplace, many of which E3 Consulting offers intensive programs to combat. Here are some simple ways to step in when you see burnout happening in your workplace:
- Give support to people who are struggling
- Encourage time off for rest and relaxation
- Offer optional group activities to increase morale
- Be mindful of others and what they may be going through
- Incentivize people who might need a boost
- Give positive affirmations for a job well done
Everyone has a bad day at work every once in a while, but burnout is something that needs to be managed from the top-down. Recruiting good talent and retaining them is important for a company’s growth and overall success.
Want to learn more about managing workplace burnout? Let E3 Consulting walk you through programs and steps to reactive your staff
We want to help you decrease or eliminate the sense of workplace burnout within your company, and set you up to manage it when there are signs in the future.
