Don’t Lose Great Employees to Burnout

Your employees are some of your company’s most valuable assets; without them, your business would struggle to succeed. As a leader, their well-being will be one of your top priorities yet, amongst the chaos of busy schedules and tight deadlines, employee burnout can often be hard to notice before it’s too late.

Although the reasons behind an individual’s burnout will likely be unique, there are several common causes, including overworking, workplace conflict, events in their personal lives and concerns around job security. Having burnt-out employees in your workplace poses several risks, including increases in absenteeism, poor productivity, and lower levels of commitment and job satisfaction. This means that your business could quickly lose great employees and its competitive edge. The good news however, is that employee burnout is largely preventable. Here are our five top tips on how to safeguard your workforce from burnout.

Watch Out for Early Signs of Burnout

The key is to prevent employee burnout before it becomes a problem, there are a few early warning signs to watch for in your team:

1. Reduced productivity – Have they began to miss targets or has their work dropped in quality?
2. Physical and emotional exhaustion – Are they constantly ill or tired? Has their personality changed in any way?
3. Cynicism and withdrawal – Have they started to become distant or disgruntled with their job?

Eliminate Any Roadblocks

Many things can stand in the way of productivity, but none do so more than not having the right tools, equipment or systems in place to do the job effectively. In addition, having out-of-date technology or poorly thought out processes can negatively reflect on the whole business, especially from a new hire’s point of view. When there are roadblocks standing in the way of your employee’s success, work with them to identify what the problems are and how to best rectify these pain points.

Be Fair with Your Workforce

To prevent employee burnout, treating your workforce impartially is crucial. This includes equal pay and career advancement opportunities, honest recognition for great work, and finally, smartly distributing workload volumes. When there is a star employee in your team, it can often be tempting to allocate more or harder work to that individual, knowing the best person is on the case. However, this approach can quickly cause key employees to be overworked and lead to burnout. Instead of relying on a few employees to complete vital work, try to find ways to enable those people to transfer their knowledge and skillsets to others so you have an all-star team you can rely on.

Give Your Employees a Voice

Not being able to speak up can be infuriating. If employees feel like they don’t have a say in the decision-making that directly impacts their role or team, the result can often be disengagement followed by burnout. The key to avoiding this is not just by giving people a voice but by actively advocating it as well. What this means is that whilst listening to employee’s concerns is important, communicating what you plan to do (or why you can’t do anything) to change the situation and keep them up-to-date as time goes on is equally as crucial.

Appreciate and Reward Your People

Showing appreciation for the hard work a team does can go a long way in preventing employee burnout, for some inspiration check out these 50 fun ways to say thank you to your staff. That said, not paying employees what they’re worth can quickly cause any appreciation to be drowned out when they start feeling undervalued.

Summary

Employee burnout can lead to several problems throughout your business, and if left unchecked, it can directly lead to great people leaving your organisation for other roles. However, with the above advice and the right attitude, employee burnout can be preventable.

We understand that your people are your company’s best assets, which is why we’re here to help connect you with fantastic business support professionals throughout Australia. To find out how one of our expert Recruitment Consultants can help your business grow, contact us today.