Employee Burnout and Approaches ..
COVID-19 has disrupted the normal way of life across the globe. Most of us have been directly or indirectly impacted by the toll of the pandemic.
The factors of increasing stress like health and economic uncertainties have sustained whereas the factors of decreasing stress like social contact have been restricted; the confluence of which compounds the stress in general, working people or otherwise. Teams and workers (employees, independent etc.) who were already in stress with work have had a huge stressor added to their profession and lives.
As of June 2021, each country is in a unique situation with COVID-19. Developed nations like USA, UK, Israel are making huge progress in mass vaccinations while countries like India, Bangladesh, Brazil are struggling behind in vaccination. The end to the pandemic seems to be in sight, but the restoration of life to norm globally might prolong to 2022. From March 2020 to end of 2021 or even 2022 is a long period, stress and burnout during the period could very well become a chronic issue.
Traditionally, Burnout is considered “a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, and it is defined by the three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism and professional inefficacy” (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001, p. 397). Exhaustion is the depletion of physical and mental resources; cynicism refers primarily to cynical detachment where there is depletion of social connectedness and professional inefficacy is the depletion of value for oneself at job.
The three dimensions remain true within workspace, with COVID the stressors beyond the job add an important variation beyond workplace to the emotional and interpersonal stressors.
Burnouts are unique; Every individual could have different levels of depletion on the 3 dimensions of burnout.
When primary source of burnout is exhaustion, self-care is effective approach to recovery. The exhaustion could be because of the job or having to juggle job and personal family life esp. in COVID times with working from home and taking care of kids or parents.
Taking 10 minutes to an hour every day for act of self-care can help replenish the physical and/or mental energy. A 10-minute meditation, HITT style cardio (skipping rope, jumping jacks, running etc.) and spending some time in the field of passion/hobby (singing, dancing, playing musical instrument, writing, reading etc.) help replenish the mental and physical energy. Sound sleep for good recovery is vital, of-course.
When cynical detachment is a primary source of burnout, self-care won’t help much. During COVID times everybody is working from home or remote, employees can feel alienated and disconnected to the rest of the team.
Team building exercise and employees reaching out to colleagues and managers for a catch up, encouraging and helping others can help eliminate cynical detachment. In remote working conditions, opening video as convenient in the online meetings can help bridge the lack of being in a close physical space. Being able to read facial cues and associate with others in the team by face is important to build connectedness among the team members. Managers or supervisors who are in regular constructive and positive touch with the employees help boost the team morale, increase connectedness, help reduce burnout and reduce attrition.
When professional efficacy is the primary reason of exhaustion employees are losing their value at their role. Compassion towards self and others in the team is important. Individuals should practice self-compassion and understand their limits and avoid constant overwork for hero delivery, especially when times are tough like in COVID situation. Celebrating small wins can help restore one’s sense of worth in the team. In tough times, everyone can use a little more pep, support and recognition. The boost in morale and the individual feeling important contributor to the team can reduce the burnout because of efficacy.
Team Leads or Managers can help and support the team in all 3 dimensions in varying levels. Managers can help with streamlining work throughput to ensure team members are not overburdened with work. Managers can bring a compassionate ear to the team, helping eliminate roadblocks, inspire and encourage team members, and encourage on the sense of connectedness and one strong team together.
Managers can also explore opportunities for stretch capacity to reduce work burden on the already exhausted team, explore options to flexible staff arrangements for the team, work with the team to plan time-off/recovery cycle while maintaining work throughput. Managers help create an ecosystem for success and can help reduce/eliminate burnouts.
Since burnouts are unique to each employee the agency of responsibility lies in each employee. Employees should feel empowered to take control of their lives and ask for help as needed. Employees have the most power over the 3 dimensionality of burnout. Working out, mediation, rest/sleep are individual choices of actions. Employees should feel empowered to reach out to the colleagues to connect with compassion and encouragement. Employees should also maintain positive, supportive and encouraging behavior in personal life with family and friends. This becomes vital in lockdowns where most of the social influence one perceives or can exert is around one’s personal life. An encouraging and supporting spouse, friend or parent can help put situations in perspective and maintain positive energy thereby reducing stress and burnout. Also, Employees should feel empowered to reach out to the team leads or managers for help, as appropriate; the well-being of employees is a legal and moral duty of employers, and managers’ duty is to help the team.
Burnouts at individual levels can become contagious across the team over period of time, this is especially true in pandemic times or times of economic crisis. Employees and managers must be careful in what to share and who to share certain information within the team so as to reduce contagion. Employees must feel empowered to share their stressors to the managers, so managers can help contain the contagion as well as help in all dimensions of burnout to the employee.
Burnout is real and unique for each individual. Understanding the primary source of the burnout and taking appropriate actions can help eliminate it.
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 397–422.
