With 69% of remote workers saying they experienced burnout symptoms last year (Monster) and employees experiencing increasing stress and anxiety in their personal and work lives, how can your organisation minimise burnout.
Recognise the signs of burnout Continually check in with your teams, understand how they are feeling and recognise signs of burnout which can include low energy, a lack of motivation, absence from work and high levels emotion or frustration.
Embrace flexible working Flexible working isn’t just working from home, it’s managing outputs instead of time at the desk. Allow flexible working hours to allow individuals to combine work and home life and think about opportunities for job shares or term time only roles.
Encourage time off Encourage your teams to take rest time which includes ensuring individuals are still taking their holiday, taking breaks throughout the day and discouraging an ‘always on’ culture during evenings and weekends.
Understand the cause of stress If there are high levels of stress within your teams understand why and put in place plans to address this. This could be workloads that are too high, unrealistic pressure and deadlines, a lack of clarity around expectations or a lack of trust and autonomy.
Communicate support available Regularly communicate the wellbeing support that you have in place and how employees can access this as well as encouraging use of areas such as EAP's or counselling where needed.
Have a clear purpose Employees are less likely to be burned out when they have a clear purpose and feel like they are contributing to a vision and mission, so regularly communicate and engage your teams in your organisational purpose.
If you would like to talk through how else you can support the wellbeing of your teams please do get in touch with our Director of Wellbeing, Gemma Carter-Morris on gemma.carter-morris@nextstepsconsulting.co.uk
Gemma Morris, Director of Wellbeing, Next Steps Consulting