How Managers Can Combat Employee Burnout
If you’re feeling burned out at work, you’re not alone.
During the pandemic, many roles and responsibilities shifted, and some companies that pivoted to working from home struggled to help employees establish the new boundaries necessary to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Long hours, high stress, job creep, poor management and bad communication can all add to a growing imbalance between what is expected of an employee and the resources they have to deliver. In such situations, feelings of guilt and fatigue can further inundate an employee, limiting their ability to speak up and ask for help.
“Burnout happens to the best of us,” said Eleni Abendschein, senior customer support manager at Planoly. At this Austin-based startup, which offers a visual social media planner for businesses and brands, Abendschein says that fostering a culture of transparency and open communication goes a long way toward supporting overwhelmed employees back to a more sustainable work-life balance.
“People need to know it’s okay to talk about it,” she said. “In a world of perfectionists, we’re constantly putting pressure on ourselves to perform at our best at all times. When we self-criticize or feel overworked, it’s easy to internalize that negativity.”
Abendschein aims to stay aware of her employees’ needs, sensing when they’re struggling before they approach burnout. But she knows as well that burnout can be addressed more easily within a welcoming work environment, by higher-ups who lead by example and show empathy to those around them.
Abendschein and leaders from four other Austin tech companies sat down with Built In Austin to discuss the nature of employee burnout and what managers can do about it.
All Web Leads (AWL) is a digital marketing company that uses internet marketing to turn consumer interest in insurance products into policy sales for insurance carriers and agents.
As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out?
In my experience, when an employee is burned out, the signs of that start well beforehand. They begin subtly but then tend to escalate quickly. Typically, burnout is noticed when an employee’s results and performance start to suffer. The key is to be on the lookout for those subtle clues early, to course-correct before full burnout is reached and performance is impacted.
One key thing to look out for is a change in personal engagement, perhaps with you as their leader but also with their teammates and peers. For example, if an employee is usually very visible and active in Teams or Slack but their level of engagement, interaction and contributions start to diminish, that typically is the first sign that something is wrong. It might not be burnout at work and could be something outside of their job.
However, if stress at and outside of work becomes too much, the stress has a cumulative impact and is a big driver in burnout. Other clues tend to revolve around attendance, punctuality to meetings and customer calls, and complaints or negativity about customers, peers and the company. Additionally, they can get defensive when given feedback or during coaching sessions.
Open dialogue will help improve an employee’s engagement.”
How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?
Burnout is really about an employee’s disengagement from their role, their team and the company. This disengagement is manifested in being both mentally and emotionally disengaged. Whether they become aware of full burnout or observe some subtle clues that’s where an employee is headed, a manager needs to handle the situation with empathy and kindness, from a place of genuine care for their employee. They need to seek to understand what factors are contributing. A manager should be open-minded, listening to their employees’ feedback without being dismissive, defensive or insensitive.
Often, just having open dialogue will help improve an employee’s engagement. Once we have an understanding of what the main drivers are, we can agree on a plan of action to help alleviate employees’ concerns, where possible, and set aside time in one-to-one meetings to talk specifically about both those concerns and the employee’s engagement moving forward. If burnout is related to a desire to contribute more, find a special project to have them help with, which is also a great development opportunity to prepare them for the next step in their career.
What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run?
By ensuring your employees are taking care of their emotional and physical well-being, you will provide the work-life balance they need to be at their best. Being in tune with our emotions will help when we start to feel the pressure and stressors mount. When I have had an employee get overly stressed or put too much pressure on themselves to perform, I encourage them to press the reset button.
In a remote environment, have your employee take a 15-minute break to take their dog for a walk outside, clear their head and then come back to the task at hand. Or encourage them to take the rest of the day, not think about work and pick things up where they left off the next day.
As a leader, one of the most important things you can do to prevent burnout in the long term is to focus on your team culture. If you have a strong culture focused on winning in a collaborative, fun, passionate environment, it helps to build strong connections with peers and leadership. These connections help to bring the team together to create a support system that will help with the daily pressures of work. This also allows the team to operate in a fun and energizing way, which helps to drive greater engagement, preventing burnout.
Passage is a biometric authentication startup for developers, working to create a world without passwords.
As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out?
I can usually tell when an employee is feeling burned out, because they aren’t as excited about their work. They talk less in meetings and are noticeably frustrated or uninterested. While those things can definitely be symptoms of a variety of personal or professional issues, I always like to start by making sure that people aren’t feeling burned out.
How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?
If an employee is feeling burned out, a manager should talk to them about ways to immediately reduce their workload. Whenever possible, try to add more flexibility to their work schedule or encourage them to take paid time off (PTO). At Passage, we always seek to understand the cause of the problem and tailor the solution to the specific situation. For example, if an employee is feeling burned out because of too many different projects going on at once, we would work with them to prioritize and immediately remove lower-priority tasks from their workload.
Communicate and be proactive.”
What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run?
The best thing employees and managers can do to prevent burnout is to communicate and be proactive. A great manager seeks to build trust with employees and discuss work-life balance, job satisfaction and career growth on a regular basis. Managers should encourage employees to use their PTO and provide flexibility in their work schedule.
At Passage, we have unlimited PTO and actually request that employees take at least one week of PTO per quarter. We have regular one-on-one meetings and actively seek to foster an open dialogue with all employees to understand how they are feeling. We believe that people enjoy their jobs more when they understand the expectations of their role, get to have input into the projects they contribute to and are able to have balance between work and personal life.
We also have a few tactical things we do as a company and are always looking for new ideas from the team. We have “No-Meeting Wednesdays” to give everyone a break from Zoom and meetings, and we allow employees to work remotely whenever they want. We also encourage employees to set boundaries by not responding to Slack messages or emails outside of their core work hours.
Planoly is a social media software designed for web and mobile use that allows users to visually plan, manage and schedule Instagram posts.
As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out?
When workloads peak for an org, it can be tough to get a pulse-check on our peers and teams, but it’s critical to maintain an understanding of how those around us are doing to prevent burnout. If an employee seems less energetic and less engaged during meetings, it could be a sign they're experiencing fatigue. An employee may be missing deadlines and important work because they feel they’re drowning and can’t get ahead of their workload but are also nervous to proactively communicate. A team member may be calling out more frequently, because they can feel mounting work-related stress or exhaustion from work and life. Performance decline manifests itself in different ways across different divisions but, in customer support, if an employee is receiving more negative customer feedback, escalates more issues to management or is more irritable towards customers, this is an indicator that they might be burned out.
Lead with empathy and a sense of curiosity.”
How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?
Lead with empathy and a sense of curiosity when having discussions about burnout. If you suspect an employee is feeling burned out, take note of their energy levels, particularly if they seem drastically different from how you’ve seen them in the past, and focus on getting to the root of why they’re feeling the way they do. This may happen over the course of several or many conversations. Be there for your employee. Ask how you can support and share relevant resources or information to support your burned-out team members. Be relatable: Share a time you felt burned out in your career and the steps that led you to feel that way, as well as how you overcame it. Finally, encourage time off. Sometimes people need a break — and a true break, in the sense that they unplug from work completely and take time for themselves without needing to check in.
What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run?
It starts with the culture. Is your organization setting a people-first culture or a shareholder-first culture? There will always be work to be done but, as leaders, we have to keep in mind the importance of managing the whole person and ensuring our people feel supported and taken care of. “Happy employees ensure happy customers, and happy customers ensure happy shareholders — in that order,” goes the Simon Sinek quote.
Be mindful of pulse-checking your team for morale and burnout. Get them involved, do an icebreaker in a team meeting, and ask each team member to share ways they self care or avoid burnout. It gets everyone talking, sharing and collaborating while inspiring new ways to prevent burnout across your team.
Atmosphere is a free ad-supported streaming TV service for bars and other public businesses.
As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out?
The signs aren’t always obvious, but things like lower production, lower enthusiasm and engagement are typically huge signs.
How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?
It’s really easy for managers to tell someone to keep their head down and grind, but treating a teammate like a machine won’t help anyone. Approaching the burnout in a respectful, relatable way will lead to a more productive conversation. It’s as simple as this: Ask what’s leading to the burnout, determine how we help someone get back on track and discuss how we prevent it from happening in the future.
If managers are taking breaks and recognizing their own burnout, employees are likely to follow suit.”
What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run?
The key to preventing burnout is keeping recognition high. Sales is a hard job, so recognizing and celebrating small behaviors reminds employees that they have an impact, even outside of sales goals. Managers can help by publicly taking breaks, too. I used to do the typical startup grind, but experience has taught me how to recognize my own burnout. If managers are taking breaks and recognizing their own burnout, employees are likely to follow suit.
Engagency develops websites on the Sitecore CMS for enterprise-level companies, in addition to providing Sitecore migration and training services.
As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out?
There are a number of telltale signs that someone is feeling burned out. They may start participating less in happy hours and events, or avoiding them altogether. They may become less vocal in team discussions, making fewer suggestions or insights on how to improve things. Overall, they may seem less passionate and enthusiastic about their work.
Their demeanor may shift to become more apathetic, or they might start focusing on negatives. They may feel stressed or overwhelmed by seemingly small details or tasks. In our line of work where some of our team is client-facing, they may become sensitive to problematic or challenging clients and be less patient with them.
It’s really about noticing shifts in behavior.”
When someone is feeling burned out, their demeanor may not even change, but you’ll notice them logging in late at night or working too many hours. They don’t use their vacation because they feel like they can’t take time off.
It’s really about noticing shifts in behavior. If someone starts acting differently than before, it could be the beginning stages of burnout. For example, they may shift from being very open and responsive to being shy, short in their responses or even brushing off direct questions from their manager.
How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?
Schedule a meeting to check in with them. Create a safe space for them to share how they’re feeling, and talk about what is contributing to their burnout. Discuss measures that can be taken to reduce their workload. Encourage them to schedule a vacation. Give them a random day off.
What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run?
Be persistent about encouraging your team to take time off, including sending out PTO and “schedule a vacation” reminders. At Engagency, we send out an email to the entire team every quarter. Go above and beyond encouragement, nudging them towards the most restorative time off. For instance, at Engagency, we pay for national and state parks passes, which is just a little extra nudge to get out into nature, get fresh air and exercise. At work, switch up their tasks. Offer them something different to do that gets them feeling excited or curious again. Often, burned out employees overwork or feel overwhelmed by a seemingly unending pile of tasks. As a manager, you don’t want them to be burned out working 12 hours a day, because that’s not good for anybody. So, you can provide reassurance that everything is going to be okay if they stick to working their normal eight hours.
