Employee burnout can cause high turnover and increased business costs

A recent poll of more than 600 HR professionals from companies and industries of varying sizes found that employee burnout affects 95 percent of all organizations. This same study found that the three main factors affecting employee burnout are: unfair compensation, unreasonable workloads and too much required overtime or after-hours work.
Further analysis showed that poor management, employees not clearly seeing the connection between their role and the business’s strategy, as well as negative workforce culture, are key factors that continue to fuel this issue. These are also factors that HR can control.

Burnout is a situation in which an employee feels extreme exhaustion that can be physical, emotional or mental in nature. Some signs of burnout include: An inability to concentrate or remember important things resulting in mistakes, increased absenteeism and accidents, disengagement or lack of interest, lower productivity, irritability and lack of patience with coworkers and clients and excessive cynicism.

All of these symptoms can translate into a negative impact for your business. Additionally, businesses affected by employee burnout suffer a higher turnover rate, lower employee engagement and increased spending on healthcare costs to cover psychological and physical problems related to employee burnout.
Some strategies for combating employee burnout include:

• Allow and encourage your employees to take their full lunch break as well as short breaks throughout the day.  Additionally, add activities during business hours that give employees a reason to leave their desks.
• Encourage employees to use their allotted vacation time.
• Give your team a treat when there has been a stressful week or a big goal has been met. This could be food, gift cards, a jeans or casual dress day, or allowing employees to leave early.
• Define an employee’s role by ensuring that they have an up-to-date job description and understand the expectations of their performance in that role.
• Keep work hours reasonable and be realistic when assigning tasks and deadlines.
• Maintain an open door policy. Members of your team should feel comfortable sharing if they feel burned out or being offered the opportunity to share ideas that contribute to success of their role and the organization.

Contact the experts at BCN Services if you need help developing incentives, policies and ways to help keep your employees motivated and productive.