Employee and Organizational Well-being: A Burnout Prevention Strategist’s Guide

Companies everywhere are looking for innovative ways to improve workplace health and wellness. An epidemic of burnout and quiet quitting have companies searching for solutions that support employee well-being and, ultimately, the organization’s health. 

Here are 3 practical and efficient solutions to help you tackle burnout and promote employee and organizational well-being.

1. Create a psychologically safe environment to talk about stress and burnout

Fear is the primary reason employees do not talk to their manager about the stress and burnout they’re experiencing. Fear of losing their job. Fear of losing respect. Fear of losing the next big promotion.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Even though employees are stressed, worn out, and burnt out, they’re afraid to talk about it. Rather than finding long-term solutions to their health and productivity challenges, they give as little as possible as they work on fumes.

The first step toward building a sustainable workplace health and wellness plan is to develop a psychologically safe environment to discuss stress, challenges, and burnout.

So how do we do this? By modeling from the top. Leaders must demonstrate that it’s not only safe to talk about stress but encouraged. Here are a few ways leaders can model appropriately.

• Update your out-of-office reply and email signature to clearly state your working hours. Perhaps include a statement, such as, “I will respond to your email within my working hours. There is no expectation to reply until you are at work.”
• Send an email to employees at the end of the day, saying, “I’m heading home from work now to be with my family. I hope you enjoy your evening as well.”
• Post as much on your social media channels about your rest life as your work life. Make work-life balance something to celebrate.

2. Train managers to have emotionally intelligent conversations with direct reports

Most managers care for those they supervise and want to see them succeed. Part of doing so is having conversations about productivity, effectiveness, and stress management.

During a recent workshop I presented to leaders of a national, multi-site corporation, a leader mentioned having gone to counseling to help with her stress levels. I asked what made her feel safe to not only access her benefits package counseling resources but share having done so with colleagues. She said her manager shared a story of a time of great personal stress and the impact a counselor had on her well-being. When her manager admitted reaching out to a counselor, she felt it would be ok to do so herself, which was a life-changing decision.

Here are a few recommendations for how managers can authentically open the wellness conversation while prioritizing effective work practices and employee well-being.

• Help employees understand expectations, discuss which tasks are high, medium, and low priority, and train employees to manage their day and week based on importance. While workloads may be high, acknowledging them and helping employees prioritize their work can create a huge advantage.
• Ask those you manage how they are doing, and genuinely listen. Respond with empathy to show you truly care. Ask what you can do to help.
• Authentically share how you deal with stress, including the resources that have helped you most.
• You will build trust by seeking to understand your direct reports’ struggles and responding with empathy. When employees trust your intentions, they are more likely to engage with resources provided by the company.

3. Implement quarterly burnout assessment checks to improve employee wellness and productivity.

A challenge of workplace wellness programs is collecting data on the plan’s efficacy. For example, how do you know what is causing employees the most significant workplace stress and which initiatives are making a difference?

Research shows six factors create burnout in an organization:

• Overwhelming workload
• Lack of control
• Lack of reward
• Lack of community
• Lack of fairness
• Conflicting values

These factors speak to company culture and cannot be fixed with a simple day off. Organizations often do not see a significant return on investment with their workplace wellness plans because initiatives do not address the root causes of employee stress.

By identifying and understanding the six factors affecting employees, organizations can manage workplace stress with short-term resource solutions and long-term culture design.