003 - 7 Tips to Decrease Employee Burnout
Summary
Today’s episode is for the leaders, but, even if you’re not a leader, it’s full of 7 tips that you can pass along to your organization for decreasing employee burnout. Or better yet, recommend me as a speaker to help whip them into shape! ;-)
For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast OR follow me on Instagram @coachellyn!
ACTION STEPS:
Increase Transparency & Keep Employees informed
Reward Your Employees
Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them
Train Your Leaders to Model Better Boundaries
Set Realistic Deadlines
Leverage Social Support
show your Employees You Have Their Back
RESOURCES IN THIS EPISODE:
My “Take Back Your Life Membership” - here
Transcript for this episode…
(00:08):
Well, Hey there friend, I am so excited that you're back and I know, and I know, I know I've been such a slacker lately. I don't even know how else to describe it. Let's just say day job has been crazy and I'm big on practicing what I preach and, you know, abiding a lot of the things I talk about as a burnout and stress management coach. And so I did need to kind of take a step back and not quite deliver the podcast quite on my usual timeline, but we're back at it today. And you might've noticed that the intro was a little bit different to the podcast. It is going to be different moving forward because I got a new computer since the last time I recorded podcasts and well, something happened with my old podcast template and I had to recreate it. So I had to rerecord all of my intros, all of that fun stuff, but fortunately, I know what I'm doing now. So it worked out just fine.
(01:47):
So you might have seen the title of this podcast and be like, I don't know if this is for me. I don't own a business. I just work for a business or maybe you're a solo preneur, whatever, hell, if you are in a leadership position at a company, then this is absolutely for you. Even if you're not, these tips I'm going to be giving you today are ways in which I believe we can increase employee fulfillment as well as decreased employee burnout. And there might be some things, whether you're just a corporate employee that you could even use as kind of planting a seed for your company or recommendation you could make to your company of something that would help decrease employee burnout. So let's go ahead and get into our tips for today.
(02:28):
I've got seven tips for you. I'm going to try to keep it as short and sweet as possible. Y'all know it can be chatty. Um, but our first tip is improve transparency and keep your employees informed. Employees can burn out this way. This one's huge because employees can burn out when they're frustrated with their company or they don't feel like their company can be trusted. They can also burn out when they feel that their company doesn't trust them. There are emotional components to burnout that we sometimes just don't give enough credit. And this is one of those situations. Like it can be incredibly frustrating when employees don't feel like they're being kept in the loop or they don't feel like they know what's going on in their company. And I'm not just theorizing. When I say this, I strongly considered quitting my day job at several points during my first 12 to 18 months on the job purely because there was a lack of transparency and there seemed to be an expectation of trust from my company when no trust with given. Now, I'm happy and I've moved into a management position since then, but I know how much it can cause employee fulfillment and productivity to suffer when there's a lack of transparency and a lack of trust.
(03:37):
So there are some things that we can do to keep our employees in the loop that can definitely have very, very strong contributors to decrease in their burnout and increasing their fulfillment. And that would be to run frequent, probably quarterly company-wide calls, especially in the virtual age and the COVID age to just keep your employees in the loop to share revenue improvements and projections, or even difficulties and struggles like this is even if you have a predictable, slow time in your business, it's important that new employees are aware and that old employees are reminded because it's important for transparency, but it also helps your employees be proactive about mitigating any burnout that may or may not come through a slow season where they may experience boredom burnout or through a particularly busy season where they might experience overwhelm burnout. Another important thing is just to share your goals and the way that hitting them will benefit your employees. It's about making your employees part of the company, not just a cog in the wheel. So that's tip number one is to improve transparency and keep your employees informed about everything that's been going on. Ever since my company incorporated, um, these company-wide meetings and town halls quarterly to keep us in the loop. I actually really, really enjoy them because I do feel like I'm a part of the larger team now. And I love that. So that's tip number one.
(04:54):
Tip number two. This one is huge and I've kind of added to this since I first considered this tip. It's about rewarding your employees. And when I say reward them, I mean rewarding your employees for not only overall or for personal achievements and personal accomplishments, but also overall company growth. My company did for the first time, since I've worked there, a profit share after 2020. If we hit our bi-annual revenue goals, they gave us a cut of that. And that was amazing. And for the first time since I started working there, it made me feel like the company success was my success too. And that felt incredibly fulfilling and incredibly rewarding.
(05:32):
Now, most companies do some sort of review process by annual review, whatever it is to check in with employees on KPIs and performance indicators. And oftentimes there is a reward that is given for that promotions, bonuses, whatever, but I want to add an important addendum to this after kind of hearing and seeing some of the experiences of my clients is that your reward in these circumstances cannot be something that is vetted years advance and I'm talking stock options. We are all human and delayed gratification is hard A F. You've got to give your your employees something now. You've got to give them something to reward them for their hard work now.
(06:19):
So even if a part of the bonus or the promotion or the whatever is something that's vetted in the future, like a stock option, still give your employees something now, because all it's going to do, if all of their return is two years into the future, it kind of feels like you're baiting them. And it kind of feels like you're not actually appreciating the work they're doing now. You're only going to appreciate it if they stay for another two years and you're just going to keep pushing the finish line and nobody likes to feel manipulated like that. And honestly, that's kind of how it feels. So tip number one is to improve transparency and keep your employees informed. And tip number two is to reward your employees.
(06:58):
All right. So tip number three though, I love this one. It's don't just tell them, show them. This is a short and sweet tip here, because I can't tell you how many times I've seen or heard supervisors or superiors or higher ups in companies say things like, Hey, we care about you or Hey, you can trust us, but have done nothing to actually make their employees believe that it's not about saying in that situation, it is not about talking. Talk is cheap. Show your employees that you care, show them, show your employees trust in them. And in turn that will help your employees trust in and champion you. These are all very emotionally driven tips thus far, because again, burnout is not just about overwhelm and physical exhaustion. It's also the emotional side. So tip number one is to improve transparency and keep your employees informed. Tip number two is to reward your employees and tip number three is don't just tell them, show them.
(07:59):
Tip number four and honest to God, this is probably one of the biggest things I see happening in companies - and frankly, they're often in denial about it - tip number four is to train your leaders to model better boundaries, because I cannot tell you how frustrated it makes me. When I see corporate wellness consultants and Forbes articles saying something like "communicate to your employees, that they don't have to work so much or work so late" because in my opinion, that isn't going to do shit until the leaders within the company start modeling that behavior. This is super, super important because your leaders and your superiors and your higher ups in a company are the ones who, from an employee's perspective, have made it in the company. They've excelled. They've got the raises, the promotions, the paychecks. And even though it's easy to say that we shouldn't be motivated by these things, many of us still are, your employees are at your company because they want that success and validation too.
(08:55):
So if they see that the leaders of the company are logging on at 11:00 PM or working 12 plus hour days and are available on the weekends and on vacations, guess what? The employees are going to be too. If you're an employee and you're listening to this, I'm sure you're nodding your head like a bobble head right now. Right? But this is something that I see happen so often. In a nutshell,the important takeaway here is it's one thing to tell your employees to not work late or work on weekends, but it's quite another if they see their leaders and supervisors doing it, because they're going to feel like that is the expectation for them. They're going to feel like that's the only way to advance within the company. And if that's not what you want, if that's not the kind of culture you want to create in your business and in your company, your leaders need to model those boundaries. You set the expectations in your company, not in your words, but in your actions and in the behaviors your employees see modeled to them and if you don't want your company culture to be one of burn out, you need to make sure that your leaders and higher ups aren't modeling that to your employees.
(09:56):
So those are four big tips. We've got a couple more, and then I got a bonus tip for you at the end here. The next tip is to set realistic deadlines for projects. I cannot tell you how often I myself have said this, or I have seen clients say something akin to, I don't know how they expect me to finish this all by then, derivations of the statement or variations on the statement have been echoing during client meetings, group coaching sessions, my own head for years. And it's a common feeling that too much work, not enough time, too long of a to-do list and not enough bandwidth or work hours to get things done. And unfortunately the corporate culture has become more and more people please-y and less and less trusting of employees. I mean, actually I think a good thing about COVID is it's made people who were very old school and very anti-remote work. It's made them more trusting and more believing the fact that yes, employees can get done at home. That's probably the only good thing that's come out of COVID from the work perspective. But I digress.
(11:04):
The important takeaway here is if you have too much work and not enough employees, and you're not able to hire more, you should not be pushing your employees to do more in less time. And if you are an employee listening to this, push back. I know it's scary to do that, but push back, if your supervisor or whatever is telling you an unreasonable deadline for a project. Sometimes they may not know. Sometimes, especially depending on how far removed from the project they are or the actual day-to-day work they are, they may not know.
(11:38):
So tell them, but if you do know, if you were the direct supervisor to a team, you should not be pushing your employees to do more in less time, you should be extending deadlines to accommodate the workforce that you have. You must make sure that you are setting realistic deadlines over which they should be getting their work done. Don't people please and tell a client that you can get the work done in the next two weeks. If realistically, your team would have to burn the candle at both ends and work 80 hour weeks to do that, you've got to make sure you're setting realistic deadlines with your clients.
(12:15):
The next big tip here...and actually before we get into all that, let's just recap them because I've given you a lot thus far. Tip number one was to improve transparency and keep your employees informed with some sort of company-wide call. Tip number two is to reward your employees. Tip number three was to don't just tell them, show them tip number four was to train your leaders to model better boundaries. Tip number five was to set realistic deadlines. Now we've got one more tip. And then I guess we've got two more tips because I've also kind of got a bonus tip for you.
(12:49):
So our second to last tip here is to leverage social support. And this is a really, really important thing because a common thing that I felt and heard from clients is that they feel alone in their burnout. They feel like they're the only one that is struggling. And when we're alone, we're isolated. This isn't particularly important for your high achievers because high achievers often have difficulty asking for help. I know because I am one. We pride ourselves - and I know I do. I pride myself so much on my capability. On being able to figure it out. Asking for help or needing support from a colleague kind of undermines my sense of identity in my work and in my life. Um, but like it or not, we do need social support to help us feel better about our burnout. And this is one thing that's not just my own opinion. This is actually something that there is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence to support this, even in the most, most burnout prone, um, professions like healthcare and nursing, um, to summarize I've detailed. I have an entire article about all of the scientific evidence behind social support and burnout. But to summarize what I found in the research burnout is absolutely correlated with a perceived lack of social support. There are gender and profession differences between the levels of burnout experienced. So like for example, female entrepreneurs tend to experience more burnout than male entrepreneurs do. Women are very social. So we tend to get a lot of, um, support from having a social structure around us. Also marital status can also impact the level of perceived support and therefore burnout.
(14:26):
In a nutshell, social support is crucial to helping people overcome burnout. And if you're a primarily remote company, this is even more important. And I would encourage you to put something in place in your company that is some sort of a community building. It could be at my company, we have this group called Communitas and they organize game nights, happy hours, coffee hours, all of which can be done virtually. But the whole point is get, you could get your employees involved and you can ask them what they want. But the idea here is to build that community and connect them with their peers so that they don't feel that aloneness and that isolation, especially in their burnout.
(15:09):
So tlet's actually recap before we get into the last tip because I'm a big fan of reminding. Tip number one was to improve transparency. Two was to reward employees three don't just tell them, show them four was to train your leaders to model better boundaries. Five was to set realistic deadlines. Six was to leverage social support and last but not least our final tip is to show your employees support.
(15:38):
This is based on a blog post. This whole podcast is. And when I was first writing this out and kind of tossing around these ideas, this was a tip that I added because I had a situation at work where there was a period of time where I felt very isolated. I didn't feel like I was getting the support from my company that I wanted and that I needed when I was dealing with a customer. I felt like there were people who were supposed to support me that at that time were not. And I felt very isolated and abandoned. And I felt like I had nobody to back me up when it came to this upset client. Um, and ultimately that stress of that situation was so emotionally draining.
(16:21):
We talked about the emotional side of burnout. This was a situation that was so acute and intense that it was truly emotionally burning me out over the span of like 10 days or less actually. Um, and that is important. I ultimately got the support that I needed from my company, but it's just so important that a company continue to be there to support their employees because burnout isn't just physical. It is emotional, too. And if an employee feels alone like I did in that particularly difficult situation, that emotional burnout is going to skyrocket. It did for me over the course of those 10 days, and companies need to be there. They need to be there to support, to provide that support, not just in communicating support. Again, it's not just about speaking but portraying it.
(17:09):
There are a couple of quotes from Sheryl Sandberg's book, option B that I loved in regard to this. She said, "compassion at work shouldn't be a luxury. It's important to develop policies that give people the time off and support they need. So we don't have to rely on the kindness of our bosses." Um, another one of the quotes that I loved was "many women and men don't have access to the sick and bereavement leave. They need to get through difficult times, which makes it more likely that personal struggles will lead to work struggles."
(17:37):
So we need to be there to support our employees. It's incredibly, incredibly important. All of these things are things that you can do that won't require you to throw a lot of money at things it's just about changing your culture, changing your culture so that it's not a burnout culture. And again, whether you are somebody who is in a leadership position at a company, you are somebody who works in a corporate environment and maybe can use one of these tips to just plant a seed with your leadership team, or if you own a business. And maybe at some point in the future are planning on adding team members underneath you, whether that's a virtual assistant or whatever these can apply to you. And you can even take some of
(18:21):
These tips and just use them personally. So that's all I got for you today. Those are the tips that I wanted to share. Again, I'll recap them for you. One more time.
(18:31):
Tip one was improved transparency and keep your employees informed.
(18:35):
Tip two is to reward your employees. And I'm just gonna throw this in here. If you're a solopreneur and you're your only employee, please God reward yourself. That's going to help a lot.
(18:45):
Tip three. Don't just tell them, show them. Don't just tell them you support and trust them. Show them you do.
(18:51):
Tip number four, train your leaders to model better boundaries. If you want your people to have better work-life balance, your leaders need to model that or your employees will not.
(19:00):
Tip number five is just that realistic deadlines. Don't overload your employees just because you want to please apply it and get something done quickly.
(19:08):
Um, our next tip is to leverage social support and make sure you have community building structures so that people aren't suffering in silence and feeling isolated and alone in their burnout.
(19:18):
And then last but not least show your employee support when they are dealing with a stressful situation, whether work-related or not support that because emotional burnout can ramp up so, so quickly if you don't and that's going to cost you through your employee maybe more than you know it will.
(19:34):
So that's all I got for you all today. I hope you enjoyed this slightly different episode. And with that, I will talk to you next time.
