Battling Burnout
When the pandemic first struck, there were only two possibilities for employees: work remotely if you can or work in person if you must. Now, we are seeing numerous variations of location-based work moving forward. There are still fully remote and fully on-site workers, but now, there are also a wide range of hybrid options and variability on teams.
But how can we disconnect, when we live where we work? When the next change is around the corner? When there’s no time for communicators to recover from one crisis before turning to another? Doshia Stewart, Vice President of Global Corporate Communications for Allegion, joined us for a Think Thursday open discussion of common challenges, how organizations can help battle burnout and disengagement of talent, and how to address the challenge of the “always on” mindset. You can download the presentation from the discussion here.
Doshia shared that one or a combination of the stresses that the pandemic has caused are widespread. The most common causes are:
- Excessive collaboration
- Zoom/Screen fatigue
- Job security/Financial concerns
- Meeting culture, unproductive time, lack of control over one’s work and situation
- Foregoing or deferring engaging and creative aspects until you can work in person
- Overloading capable workers
- Failing to build adequate talent capacity (running lean for too long)
While some of these issues may seem too big to tackle, there are tangible steps you can take for your team to reduce these stressors. These include:
- Locating and describing the source of your stress/team stress
- Creating space for engagement and focus
- Creating conditions for rest and recovery
- Learning to alternate between engagement and recovery
- Giving time off to support mental health
- Being observant, vigilant, and caring
One final takeaway for managers: You owe it to your teammates to sign off, even if it feels performative. If you are not able to disconnect, your employees will try to model your behavior and burn themselves out, thinking that is the expectation for the culture. Putting a priority on well-being is a powerful way to keep your team healthy and engaged.