When understanding an employee condition and identifying burnout managers and Business leaders often don’t know how to react. They hope that this condition will pass away during a period of time. Employees who are burned from inside often don’t know how to explain that they really need a break. And that makes managers and Business leaders think that maybe the work will help a certain employee to “come back on board”.
HR people often “warn” about different negative scenarios with a certain employee but then pull back and just sit and watch by using the excuse: “We are advisors but it is managers responsibility to keep his team healthy and motivated”.
And then, after a while comes the unexpected notice for resignation followed by the blaming between HR and managers, Business leaders who is really responsible for this step. At the end of the day often both sides come with the conclusion that the only person responsible for the situation is actually the employee. Then they sit down relaxed, fill out the number of the leaving employee in the statistic and “continue ahead”.
If you are an emotionally grown manager or Business leader you must ask yourself not who’s more guilty for the resignation of the employee but how to prevent that to happen again.
Bellow you will find several steps to help you stop the process of losing burned out employees from the company.
- Take work out of them
When an employee efficiency is low putting more workload for them will bring you to a dead end. When identifying burnout sit down and talk to the employee. Find what frustrates him or her most of the responsibilities they have and try to move them out to another employee.
- Give them opportunity to share what they feel
When employees feel they are let down they search for a place or person to share their feelings and emotions. Invite them to do that with you. That will show them that you actually care about who they are as a person and not only what can they do for you as a manger or business leader to achieve your goals.
- Talk with them about energy boosters
If you come closer to the employee in this hard for him or her moment and they start sharing with you can go even further. Tart talking about health and the effect of the energy and happiness boosters. Help employees understand that energy boosters work better if they come from within internal world of the employee then if they are taken as a supplement from the outside world. That can help you work with the employees on building again their self-confidence, character and positive outlook.
- Offer them a different responsibilities path
Often a very significant reason for burnout comes from a direct responsibility of the employee. You can try to reassess his or her goals, responsibilities and results and analyze information to see if the reason for burnout isn’t hiding somewhere there. If you find the reason there discuss with the employee how to remove the stressor from his day to day activities. Talk honestly without trying to remove some responsibilities just to replace them with others. That will show the employees that you really care about wealth and health and that you see him or her as person instead of asset only used to achieve some goal.
- Ask them what makes their work more fun and try to ensure it
Positive emotions are the shortest way to help employees get back on board. If you have to offer something that boosts their willingness to continue let it be the thing that they really value. Try to understand directly or through a third person what really makes a burned out employee feel better. What bring joy and happiness in their life and try to ensure it (if it is something reasonable) You will be surprised how often small things can make big difference.
- Offer them flexible hours
It is used very often now, but you must realize that one of the burnout factors can hide in the small things connected with family, friends and society. You can try to offer a more flexible working schedule for the burned out employees. They often don’t want to be with others, feel depressed and embraced about their performance. They don’t want others to see them broken and down. Talk with the employee if they see as an option for a certain period of time to change their working hours to help them avoid this type of stress . Structure their work schedule as closer as you can to their personal needs and understandings.
IN CONCLUSION:
Burnout is a significant factor that can affect team or company effectiveness and results. If you want to prevent or heal it then you must go personal. Corporate strategies are not meant to deal with employees as individuals that comes in the role of the manager or Business Leader. Corporate strategies focus on goals and achievements, they are filled up with numbers, but to achieve them every Business Leader or Manager should also get deep into the human area.
The above mentioned steps are only few of the variety of steps that can help you deal with the burnout.
If you have your step feel free to share them and help others to ensure a healthy and productive work life.
The Human place 