Guest Contributor
Trending

4 Signs of Employee Burnout and How to Help

By | Sierra Powell

Employees are one of the most vital assets a company has. As such, it would be wise that, as a manager, you prioritize their health and wellbeing. One of the biggest challenges you are bound to face during your leadership tenure is employee burnout. Burnout is always a result of stress at the workplace, or a toxic work environment rippled down from the management. Employee burnout reduces their motivation, and hence productivity. As such, when not addressed early enough, the business can suffer a great loss. Identifying employee burnout may be daunting, especially since they are not too obvious. As a manager, you need to be attentive to your workers to assess any changes and address them. Below is a list of signs to watch out for and how to help them overcome.

1. Exhaustion

Exhaustion is the most obvious sign of employee burnout. It would be best if you were keen when you hear your employees complaining of exhaustion and the frequency of their complaints regarding the matter. If their complaint is persistent, then you may be looking at employee exhaustion. Exhaustion could be a result of employee work overload or even setting unreasonable demands on your staff. Exhaustion can affect their sleep pattern at the end of the day, affecting their productivity at work. Signs to look out for when your employees’ burnout is due to exhaustion may include sleeping at work or worn-out expressions, eye bags, or even body aches.

Solution

Talk to your employees and ask them what is going on to determine whether it is indeed the burnout they are facing. You need to know whether the burnout results from their work environment and what you can do to improve their working condition. You may need to give such employees some days off work to relax. Make your employees feel that they can talk about work burnout without fear of being fired or written down.

2. Mood Changes

Employees experiencing burnout are bound to be irritable, lack motivation, and have a negative attitude towards work. You will notice employees who are always social and active starting to detach from other employees. Also, their morale to achieve top-quality results will be below. In such a case, you need to find out whether these employees are facing burnout issues.

Solution

According to Wellspace, “analysis by the World Economic Forum enlightens a direct correlation between your employees’ happiness levels and the company’s performance. Statistics like turnover, profitability, productivity, and customer loyalty are all positively impacted by an improvement in employee wellbeing, including mood.” As a manager, you may want to consider a service or system that tracks the health and wellbeing of your employees. Find something that can teach employees helpful coping exercises and something that can collect and record your employees’ health track data, including their mental health and sleep patterns.

3. Mistakes

Burnout affects people’s ability to focus or even remember the very basic things. As such, you will notice your employees constantly forgetting deadlines or meetings. Lack of concentration also guarantees increased accidents at the workplace. As such, liability claims and compensation for the business may increase, which is quite costly. Once you notice such patterns from your employees, you may have to consider checking on whether they are experiencing burnout.

Solution

Invest in a wellness program for your employees. You may need to hire a professional to talk to your employees individually, or you may implement a periodical lecture on employee wellness. During these times, your employees should feel that it is a safe place to be open about the issues they are facing at the workplace that contribute to their burnout.

4. Unfinished Tasks

Increasing your employee workload may be the reason why they are experiencing burnout. You will notice that such employees will be closing their workday without finishing their assignments for the day. If they have completed projects, you will see several mistakes from the result.

Solution

You may have to hire more personnel in your business. Therefore, you will have lightened some of the tasks they have. Giving your employees what they can cope with will improve their morale and productivity.

It would be best if you never disregarded the health status of your employees. They are the backbone of your business. In the right working condition, your return on investment is guaranteed to increase.

 

Show More

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button