Either Deal With Burnout or Waste Money and Time Continually Recruiting: Solutions At All Levels

Albert Einstein never actually said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting something different (source). But it's a really smart thing to understand, because if your attempts at dealing with burnout feel like, well, insanity, then read on.

Brendan kicked us off with burnout so let's pick up from there. What is 'burnout' (or burn-out)? According to a 2019 World Health Organization report (here), burnout is:

"[A] syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and
• reduced professional efficacy.

Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life."

The part that matters from an organizational perspective is the reduced personal efficacy part, while people (a.k.a. us) care about feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion. Both are likely to be present. Here's how we can address it from different perspectives based on ideas from another World Health Organization report (here).

Individuals:

The first thing to do is determine whether you are an anxious or easily saddened person. If so, you may be more susceptible to workplace stress, and you may need to see a therapist or your primary care physician to get treatment (talk therapy plus medication). Sometimes life events such as illness or death of a loved one can be destabilizing even for the most resilient person.

Consider whether this burnout situation is a long-term problem or a short-term problem. Then you have options, including sticking it out for the short-term or changing jobs. As part of this you should determine what the sources of burnout are -- over-scheduling, being asked to handle someone else's job, lack of manager support, 'management by crisis' (gee, never seen that happen...), lack of autonomy or respect, etc. Each of these is slightly different. Only you can determine what you want to tolerate for the return you get on your efforts.

As our friend Dr Leah Kaylor says, get more sleep! (Her tag line: "Great sleep shouldn't be top secret!"). No kidding, this is extremely important because, well, you need sleep, and also getting enough sleep probably also indicates that you have regained more control over your schedule.

Finally, as simple as this sounds it is necessary: focus on the task at hand. Do not ruminate about what happened yesterday. Do not project into the future. Focus on now. 

Managers:

Yes, you are running your team ragged. That's right, you. Yes, you are a tough but fair boss...and you're running your team ragged. Yes, they "got it in gear"...and you're running your team ragged.

Remember, people don't work for you, they report to you. 

Eventually your burned-out team will start to make mistakes. That will not end well for you when your boss asks for status updates.

Maybe the most important thing smart, motivated employees want is autonomy. When you give your team members autonomy, you are creating trust as well as accountability. What if your job instead of micromanaging -- i.e. you compete with your team and yes that's you -- is to give them enough rope. If they hang themselves, it's on them, but if they build that bridge you asked for, everyone wins.

Remember, when you hire for talent you will get talented employees. Turn them loose on the tasks at hand.

Executives:

Burnout is risky. Your job corporately is to manage the organization's risk balance, and burned-out teams increase the risk that they will miss something. It also probably indicates that your subordinate leaders are not managing performance well.

An easy-peasy bad solution you are considering is making burnout the employee's problem by enabling not dealing with it through having "mindfulness interventions," meditation apps, etc. As an executive, you are responsible for the effectiveness and contributions of your areas of responsibility. Your best bet is to get your subordinate leaders on the same page regarding workloads, scheduling, performance management, and "the people stuff." You need to ask hard questions about scheduling, in-office expectations, support for development, utilization of paid time off, etc. 

All organizations operate amidst turbulent times. The smartest minds in organization science write about how to deal with this state of affairs. Have you read up on managing in turbulent times? What about your subordinate leaders?

Ask yourself this: if burned out people leave, and if the #1 reason people leave is because of their manager, how much extra cash are you willing to burn up endlessly supporting recruiting and onboarding just to cover up inadequate performance by subordinate managers?

Ask us how you can approach dealing with burnout...sanely.

(image credit: CIPHR Connect, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)