Burnout is a genuine threat facing millions of employees each year. Hours are long, pay is less, and it is the perfect cocktail to wear employees down exponentially. Given how vital those employees are to the success of any business, it is presenting a significant problem.
Although each situation is certainly different, there are steps that any manager can take to prevent burnout among employees. Here are a few of those tips.
Promoting Balance
Work-life balance is something that is gaining traction more and more these days. There is an understanding of management that their team is human and that they face the same struggles that everyone else does.
Managers can help promote a better work-life balance by not demanding team members be available at all hours. Setting those boundaries can help create a separation of work and life that can keep burnout from becoming overwhelming.
Monitor Scheduling
It can become all too easy for a manager or leader to ride those prized employees as hard as possible. But think about it in the way you would think about a racehorse—riding that horse hard means that its shelf life is exponentially shorter.
The same can be said for employees of a business. Their shelf life is exponentially shorter when management just rides them into the ground. This means monitoring scheduling and workloads to ensure that team members are not simply being inundated with work even when it is clear that they are at the end of their rope.
Encourage Vacation Time
There are far too many organizations that quietly punish taking vacation time. But if anything, businesses should be encouraging it. Allowing employees to get away for a bit means allowing them the opportunity to recharge their batteries and come back refreshed.
Giving employees grief over taking time off will only compound the feelings of burnout. Then, it may be more than having a bad day or two. It may be the difference between keeping a valuable employee and seeing them walk out the door to the competitor. Vacation is crucial for keeping employees from feeling burnout in their position.