Employee Burnout
Having all the technology we do makes it pretty easy to work from any location at any time, this is great in some cases however it most definitely has its draw backs. In an always on culture, workplace burnout is an increasing feature of today’s employment scene.
To help manage this more and more business are implementing and embracing strategies to monitor and reduce burnout among their staff.
With digital technology being what it is the boundaries between work and personal life are getting more and more blurred and this leads to heightened anxiety, low moods and burnout. 37% of people check their work emails out of work hours, and 25% of these people check their emails five of more times an hour. Managers have a responsibility to their staff to ensure they have the support and ability to cope with their workload.
Reduced levels of concentration and focus are being reported by workers, who are clearly exhausted by the end of the working day. Coupled with not being fit and rested at the start of the working day and an inability to have adequate breaks or control ones work flow over a sustainable period. These are all signs of burnout. In our recent search poorer performing teams are evident by having 20% and above of them employees struggling with burnout. High performing teams have less than 6% of their employees struggling with burnout.
A clear way to see how employees are handling working in an ‘always on’ world is through the use of employee engagement surveys. Team Works allows staff to share their completely honest opinions about their workload, stress levels and if they are considering loosing elsewhere for a job, through the use of an anonymous online survey.
Measuring the extent to which teams have surviving characteristics is now seen as a valuable strategic measure in organisations to spot burnout, It is used across law firms, NHS trusts, IT companies, in-fact anywhere where talented individuals make the difference to the organisations success. Especially when there are work demands present that are unsustainable.
Surviving is the precursor to burnout leading to absence and talent loss and has a massive impact on productivity and cost. Deputy Director of facilities management at Manchester Metropolitan University identified a cost saving of £600,000 in one of his teams, simply by addressing factors that had a high level of surviving and burnout. Whilst simultaneous achieving quantum leap with productivity and labor retention, their work is short listed for the UK leading directors estates award for improving wellbeing and predictive in the facilities management.
Employee burnout shows a problem with the practice not the person.
