Tina McHugh
Senior Research Associate
Published December 16, 2021
Benjamin Franklin was talking about fires when he famously said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But he could have been talking about burnout. Burnout, like many mental health issues, is growing at an alarming rate and driving employees to leave their jobs in significant numbers. Employers are grappling with the toll it is taking on those left behind and how to address it.
In a 2021 Visier survey of over 1,000 US employees, 89% reported experiencing some burnout in the past year, 70% would leave their organization for one offering resources to reduce burnout, and flexible work hours were valued more than any other benefit. But what should these resources and benefits look like? And how do you get employees, who are already overworked and overwhelmed, to talk about burnout and utilize what you are offering?
In an open forum on burnout with our Roundtable members, we heard some innovative ideas that are cutting through the noise and resonating with employees: global days and weeks of rest, workshops on perfectionism and the freedom to fail, “Inbox Detox” training, and task forces re-examining the way we work and devising guidelines for healthy team behaviors.
Our recent piece Managing Employee Burnout outlines strategies big and small for individuals, teams and organizations - all of whom play a role in recognizing, preventing and alleviating burnout. At the heart of it is understanding and monitoring imbalances in key areas of work that can lead to burnout: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. According to Leiter and Maslach’s Areas of Worklife model, “A mismatch between people and their work environment reduces capacity for energy, involvement, and sense of effectiveness. Matches in these areas enhance engagement.”
So engagement is the antithesis and the antidote to burnout. With workplace costs associated with burnout estimated to be $125-$190 billion per year and rising, managers and organizations should look to create conditions where employees recognize the signs of burnout early, can speak openly about it, and feel empowered to set healthy boundaries for themselves, starting with some true downtime as we turn the page on a new - and hopefully healthy - year.
The good news? If you have read to the bottom of this, you’re probably on the right track to managing your burnout (or you’re my sibling).