The unprecedented shift that has been happening within the workplace culture due to the pandemic is increasingly accelerating the employee burnout, which has been a common symptom associated with the fast paced, dynamic and challenging workplace in the past.
Intermittent zoom calls, extended work hours, commitment to spend time with the family are some of the issues that is adding up to the burnout in addition to the nearing deadlines and constant work pressure. According to Gallup’s recent report, Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures, 76% of employees experience burnout on the job at least sometimes, and 28% say they are burned out “very often” or “always” at work.
This pattern demands a break and that only comes from a highly empathetic leadership team who understand and support their team’s well-being.
It’s not an unsolved puzzle that workplace burnout is caused primarily from over-work and at many times, the conventional thinking to cope with burnout is by working less hours, taking long breaks, or maybe even a sick day off, just to thrive. But here is the most important question: Is it just over-work that leads to burnouts for your employees?
Here’s the harsh reality: the employee burnout have very little to do with the amount of hours they work every week. Most importantly, according to Gallup, it is how the individuals view their workload affect them as burnout than the hours they worked.
Leadership Matters the Most
As a leader, how can you then foster employee engagement and productivity at a time when you can not even be present physically near your employees?
Leaders are responsible for defending their employees against inappropriate workplace treatment; communicating the relevant issues clearly and offering timely assistance to them. In addition to that , when it comes to resource allocation, and workload management for the internal stakeholders, leaders should be the champion and ally of their team members. In such a way, you can keep your employees at ease without burdening them with over commitments at a time when they could possibly be spending their time with family.
Employees tend to do more work when they feel empowered, motivated and encouraged in their work, which in turn makes their job considerably less stressful and worth.
Show your team that you trust them because micromanagement is not going to work your way out of the employee burnout. If you had trusted them before the pandemic, you should be trusting them now too. If you are a leader good enough to bring the best out of your employees, give them the time and resources and wait for them to do the magic! Because Rome was not built in a day and great outputs need time and effort.
As a leader, you shouldn’t pose yourself as a savior. You employees doesn’t need a savior, they need a companion. Build you own empire and let them be their own superheroes. Make the work that you assign fun for them because once they find what they do interesting there’s no way back. And the day you achieve this with your employees will be marked in history as the day you have succeeded as a LEADER!