The Secret About Employee Burnout
When organizations tackle burnout, it’s usually in the form of employee wellness: Get healthy! Take a break! Build resilience!
Sounds great, right? Actually, not so much.
This approach treats the symptoms rather than addressing the cause. It suggests that employees simply need to take better care of themselves. It exacerbates the problem by putting even more pressure on employees, who must find the time and energy to participate in yet another activity. (If they don’t have time to take a break and get some fresh air, chances are they don’t have time to attend a seminar on meditation.)
While well-being resources are valuable, alleviating burnout requires that organizations address the structural and systemic drivers affecting worker well-being. Shifting the burden from the employee to the employer to improve the employee experience (e.g., by redesigning jobs, amplifying employee voice, pushing down decision-making authority), is more challenging, financially and politically – hence the focus on providing resources instead.
But there is one powerful thing a manager can do – on their own – to combat burnout.
Give up some control.
“The Great Resignation” and “Quiet Quitting” have been trending because employees are addressing burnout by taking back control, either by leaving their organizations or by actively reducing their work effort. Yes, the secret about employee burnout is that while organizations treat wellbeing as an individual, resilience issue, employees are aiming for more control - and you don’t need to wait for your employer to address underlying issues to mitigate burnout for your team.
Give your employees more control over HOW, WHEN and WHERE they do their work. Respect their choices and the boundaries they place between their work and non-work time. Think about it…when you control your day, you make choices that optimize your time and how you do your work. Your day is more aligned with your needs and your goals because you are in the driver’s seat. You are able to make adjustments for improvement. You feel less stress and a greater sense of accomplishment.
You can even offer more control over WHAT they do. In “The 6 Types of Working Genius,” Patrick Lencioni articulates the benefit of aligning employee strengths and responsibilities: "The type of work that a person does turns out to be much more important in regard to burnout than the volume of work.” Playing to one’s strengths can mitigate burnout, and actually increase joy and productivity.
This doesn’t mean taking a laissez-faire approach to managing, nor does it mean putting performance at risk. Indeed, by taking a coaching approach to managing your team, you can transfer control AND facilitate high performance at the same time!
Here’s how:
Together with your employees, establish clear expectations on what needs to be delivered by when and what good looks like.
Ask open-ended, nonjudgmental questions that enable employees to make good decisions and take ownership over how and when they do their job.
Be sure to have regularly scheduled, meaningful check-in conversations to hear about their progress and the insights/learning they gleaned along the way.
By empowering your employees, you help them manage the daily stress that affects their health, productivity and organizational performance - in a way that works for them.
Melissa Janis builds management capabilities to create a workplace that's better for your employees and better for your bottom line.