There is no denying the fact that the business world is advancing at a rampant pace with stellar innovations at the helm. In fact, companies are far more aggressive in their endeavors in contemporary times as they look to compensate for the losses triggered by the pandemic. However, the world cannot overlook the fact that employee burnout instances are also rising. Workplace burnout is for real and it is only becoming a more alarming phenomenon with each day.
To substantiate, as per Forbes, more than 52 percent of the global workforce has been a victim of burnout situations in 2021. Speaking of millennials, almost 60 percent of them are battling burnout instances at present. Even in the post-pandemic era, 53 percent of them were already affected by their vulnerabilities to burnout. Besides, if we talk about Gen Z workers, 58 percent of them reported burnout experiences in 2021.
Clearly, every generation in the workforce demographics is at odds with employee burnout. This explains why most organizations in the world feel overwhelmed with employee engagement and retention challenges. From developers in an organization to the accounts team, every employee seems to be struggling for tranquility and a healthy work-life balance. As an employer, it is vital that you pay heed to the need for providing burnout assistance to your employees.
Otherwise, low employee morale and engagement will remain persistent issues for your organization. You already know how much that can hamper the revenue and profitability of your business. The key is to give your employees a workplace environment that promotes happiness and absorbs their vulnerabilities. Having said that, this blog highlights the dimensions of a workplace culture that denounces burnout. So, let us delve deeper into the verticals of a rejuvenating work environment.
7 dimensions of a burnout resilient workplace
Promotion of wellness
Mental wellness and burnout situations have a direct and lucid correlation. When employees reel under constant stress and mental fatigue, they find themselves on the brink of burnout. Modern workplaces have to take this into account and promote mental wellness in the workplace in a diligent way.
A lot of business organizations are now paying greater heed to employees’ mental health. They are acknowledging the simple fact that employee burnout affects overall organizational efficiency. Mental health counseling, mental wellness programs, and stress management training define the new normal in the workplace. In the best interest of your organization, you too ought to promote the idea of employee wellness at a greater scale.
Active measures for fostering a culture conducive to employee wellness will keep burnout instances low and employee morale high. Furthermore, it will also lead to lower absenteeism and better workflow management. In fact, if we look at the ROI of employee wellness initiatives, as per SHRM, the overall ROI is $1.5 for every dollar spent on wellness programs. It is indeed a win-win scenario for all!
Trustworthy connections
High trust is a salient prerequisite of a workplace where people feel more relaxed and less susceptible to burnout. It makes it easier for employees to deal with their vulnerabilities when there is high trust in the workplace. This is for the simple reason that in trusted connections, people find a way to express their mental and emotional states. It is the basic human tendency to feel much happier around people that we can trust in a worthwhile way.
To elaborate, as cited in an article by Harvard Business Review, people in high trust organizations are 40 percent lesser susceptible to experiencing burnout. Besides, in companies that embrace trust, employees manifest 76 percent higher employee engagement and 106 percent more energy. To add, in these organizations, workers report stress levels 74 percent lower when compared to workers in low trust companies.
Having said that, trust can be the epicenter of great things working in tandem for taking an organization to new heights. As you can see above, from employee engagement to morale, trust is the foundation of a wide spectrum of critical success factors. As a visionary and streak smart business leader, you ought to promote trust and positive relationships in the workplace. For that, you will have to lead from the front and start by showing greater trust in your employees.
Worthwhile empathy
In the post-pandemic era, the need for workplace empathy is far greater than ever before. Employees want their colleagues and senior executives to understand and value their emotions. Little acts of empathy in the workplace can encourage employees to express their emotions rather than battling with them on the inside. This can be a great relief for them and help them in an incredible way to vent out their stress. Of course, it means a lot to all of us when people around us understand our emotions.
Probing further, let us pay heed to the findings of the State of Workplace Empathy Report. As per the report, more than 90 percent of employees expect their coworkers to be empathetic. What is more interesting to note is the fact that 84 percent of CEOs are of the view that empathy can generate better business results.
It is a well-known fact that emotional vulnerabilities too can push people to the edge of burnout. When emotional vulnerabilities stay unaddressed for long, they translate into enormous stress and roadblocks to productivity.
Therefore, coherent to your strategic business objectives, you need to find ways to foster more empathy in the workplace. The greater the empathy in the workplace the greater will be the morale and the lower the susceptibility to burnout.
Tangible gratitude
Gratitude is quite an underrated emotion in the workplace with not many people paying heed to the need for being grateful. However, in reality, a small expression of gratefulness for someone’s effort can make their day and help them sustain the pressure in a better way. Hence, promoting tangible gratitude can be a handsome way of creating an optimistic work environment.
In fact, Halo explains that 70 percent of employees would feel far more positive in the workplace when their bosses are grateful. To augment, employees of organizations that embrace the notion of thankfulness report lesser stress and symptoms of depression. These insights explain the direct correlation that workplace gratitude has with the pursuit of fostering a positive workplace culture.
Needless to say, in an optimistic work environment employees would be at great ease while handling their stress and burnout vulnerabilities. The aura and charm of an optimistic and relaxing work environment will have little room for burnout risks. When you pledge to cultivate such optimism in the workplace, gratitude has to be a central idea. Remember, companies with strong and positive cultures can amplify their revenue fourfold as cited by Forbes. Let us celebrate the idea of gratefulness in that case!
Flexible work arrangements
The massive digitalization in the corporate world is giving an enormous push to remote working cultures. This is where flexible working arrangements have become the new buzz in the contemporary workplace. In fact, because flexible work arrangements facilitate greater work-life balance, people are enticed to give up their full-time careers for freelancing. Employees in modern times like the fact that flexibility is a perfect way of not falling into the burnout trap.
To substantiate, CompareCamp, more than 86 percent of employees report lesser stress in flexible work arrangements. Moreover, 97 percent of employees believe that flexibility in their work can enhance the holistic quality of their lives. This explains why flexible work opportunities are among the top priorities of millennials and Gen Z employees.
The bottom line is, if you want to support your employees in preventing burnout, you need to offer greater flexibility to them. Flexibility promotes profuse satisfaction in employees and they have little to worry about. Otherwise, if you do not offer much flexibility, burnout situations will affect employee engagement in the long run and will affect your business.
Also, your employees will be tempted to switch to other companies offering flexibility and you will have huge turnover costs to bear. Having said that, deliberating on flexible working policies will be a great idea for curating a vibrant and high-performing work culture. Flexibility is the way forward and the sooner we acknowledge that the better it is.
Belongingness in the workplace
Another great way of providing burnout assistance to your employees is to encourage a great sense of belonging in them. When your employees begin to strongly believe that they belong in the workplace, they are much more comfortable and less prone to burnout. The key to encouraging this feeling in your employees is to nurture the virtues of inclusion and equality. When each of your employees can relate to this feeling of belongingness, the overall performance will be at the next level.
To elaborate, an analysis by Deloitte found that a strong feeling of workplace belonging can enhance job performance by 56 percent. Furthermore, it can bring down the absenteeism rate by 75 percent as employees will be less prone to stress and burnout.
When employees carry the feeling of belongingness, they view the company’s success as their own success. There is a fine alignment of objectives and employees are willing to go the extra mile for their organization. Even when they are overworked, they back their positive attitude inspired by belongingness to avoid burnout.
Inspirational Appreciation
There is no rocket science involved in the understanding of the basic fact that employees are more prone to burnout when their motivation is exhausted. In the absence of motivation, employees begin to find almost every task overwhelming irrespective of how simple or complex. Having said that, employers need to pay heed to the need for keeping employee motivation high at all times. What do you think is the biggest motivating factor for employees?
Employees are the most motivated when they feel appreciated and recognized. To explain, as per HubSpot, 70 percent of employees are willing to work much harder than usual when they receive due recognition. This explains the simple fact that employees are ready to go the extra mile without burnout being a concern as long as they get appreciation. Their vulnerability to burnout is much lesser even in the most exhausting tasks when they are driven by high motivation.
Having said that, as an employer, you need to infuse the virtue of recognition in the natural culture of your organization. Appreciation and recognition have to be more extensive. This implies that effort and loyalty need to be recognized too and not just the achievements. You need to celebrate your people and their slightest accomplishments to keep motivation high. With motivation, employees will sign up for even the most insurmountable challenges and the optimism around it will act as a shield against burnout. Coping with burnout becomes far more effective when an individual is propelled by high motivation.
To encapsulate, there is every reason why need to play an active role in guarding your employees against burnout situations. Each instance of burnout in your employees will lead to productivity issues in your organization. Furthermore, the same would also shoot up the disengagement and attrition rates. Therefore, burnout assistance needs to be an imperative strategy for your business. The most reassuring way would be to reinvent your company culture in a way that promotes employee happiness, morale, and optimism to confront burnout build-ups. The dimensions of company culture discussed above will have a great role to play in creating a culture that is resilient to burnout instances.
Top comments (0)