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- How to Prevent Burnout on Your Team
How to Prevent Burnout on Your Team
What To Do and What NOT To Do as a Leader
Shoutout to Nicole Greene for the insightful question on LinkedIn that inspired this blog! As someone with over ten years of management experience who has also come back from burnout more than once, here’s what I’ve learned.
Table of Contents
Learn What Energizes and Drains Your Team
I’m a big fan of the idea that you should manage your energy, not your time (credit Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz).
A high workload may burn out some people, but others may get fired up by it - as long as it’s the right kind of work, and they feel appreciated and appropriately rewarded for it.
“The same boiling water that softens a potato hard-boils an egg.”
Get to know what energizes and drains each of your team members, keeping in mind that everyone’s different. Some folks may thrive in collaborative or social situations, while others might prefer long blocks of solo focus time.
Then try to notice when someone's workload is shifting and check in with them. Do what you can to shift the balance back, or at least let them know when that might be possible.
And if there’s something you can do to eliminate or reduce the kind of work that drains everyone, do it!
Be a Buffer
“Nothing will kill a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a bad one”
You may not be able to eliminate all the stressful or toxic elements of a job, but you can be a buffer, or an umbrella as @lizandmollie illustrate below.
From the book No Hard Feelings by Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy
Define Sustainable Success
Help your team members understand what achievable high performance actually looks like.
Benchmarked praise
High achievers want to do their best and exceed expectations. Set them up for success by giving benchmarked praise.
Instead of:
Wow, that was faster than I expected, thanks!
Benchmark with something like:
Wow, I wasn’t expecting this until next week! I’m impressed by the quick turnaround! In the future, if you have other competing priorities, feel free to take your time with this sort of task.
Ask for 85% effort
Wait, what?
In Effortless and this article from HBR, Greg McKeown shares research that debunks the idea that maximum effort = maximum results and outlines his 85% approach.
Ask “What does it feel like to be at 100% intensity?”
and “How can you keep this closer to the 85% level”
“. . . to help employees stay in their sweet spot”
From the book Effortless by Greg McKeown & featured in HBR
Encourage breaks and the value of rest
When someone’s been performing at a high level for a long time, they sometimes need encouragement to take a real break. Help them understand that rest is an important part of performance, particularly as it relates to long-term sustainability.
Consider a company-wide vacation break where everyone is off at the same time. This past month, my employer was closed between Christmas and New Year’s. Sure, I still struggled to disconnect over the holidays, but it was much easier knowing everyone else was off too, and I wouldn’t be coming back to an insane amount of emails.
Lead by Example
Model the type of behaviour you’d like to see from your team.
Show them how it’s done and let them know it’s ok.
Normalize talking about the risk of burnout
Make it a regular part of team training or casual conversation.
I realized I’ve been pushing really hard lately and I don’t want to burnout, so I’m taking a few days off next week.
Push back on unreasonable requests
Tell your team about how you handled unreasonable requests from clients or your boss, reducing scope or negotiating deadlines.
Take regular, fully-disconnected breaks
Turn on that out-of-office message and empower your team to handle things in your absence.
Use delayed delivery
Unless you’re in a globally distributed, truly asynchronous work environment, don’t send that 9 pm email, especially to more junior team members.
I know you have that note in your signature that says they can reply during their regular working hours, but some people have a hard time not looking at email in the evening, or first thing in the morning when they wake up. If it’s not time-sensitive, schedule that email to go out at 9 or 10 am the next morning.
Consider the power differential between you and the other person and hold back as much as you can.
What NOT to do
Don’t scrutinize your team
Don’t be so concerned with preventing burnout that you put your team under a microscope.
No one wants to be called into a one-on-one with their boss to assess their risk of burnout because they didn’t wear makeup one day and look a little tired. Give your team the space to have an off day and some ups and downs. That’s normal.
Cartoons by Hilary - Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell
Don’t make empty gestures
Beware of “sending the team home early”, especially in a remote work environment.
When someone is overwhelmed with work but dedicated to their job, they may smile and say thanks, and then get right back to work. Everything will still be there tomorrow, so why would they push out their work to the future?
If you genuinely want to help folks take a break, finish a task for them, cross-train someone else on their workload, or hire another person. Then they can truly step away and disconnect.
Don’t pry into their personal lives or medical history
If you’ve decided to check in with a team member about their performance and risk of burnout, please respect their right to privacy. Employees aren’t obligated to share details of their personal lives or medical issues with you.
It’s ok to say:
I’ve noticed that [insert objective facts, such as “you’ve missed 3 deadlines this month”], is there anything going on you’d like to share with me?
I wanted to make sure you’re aware of our [insert company resource here, such as an “Employee Assistance Plan” or EAP]
Is there anything I can do to support you?
You may wish to confirm with your HR team to ensure you respond appropriately to any potential accommodation requests as many jurisdictions have specific legislative requirements.
Don’t blame yourself
If someone on your team does experience burnout, try to learn what you and the company can do better, but offer yourself some compassion as well.
A person’s capacity to deal with stress or trauma is uniquely individual. Twenty people might witness the same horrific accident, but only a few will develop PTSD.
Leaders and organizations have a responsibility to do what they can to promote employee wellness and create psychologically safe environments that minimize the risk of burnout. But the reasons that someone experiences burnout can be complex, with many factors outside your control, and some you may never even know about.
Want to know more about how to avoid burnout as an individual? Check out my earlier blog post 7 Tips to Avoid Burnout: Lessons Learned from a CPA who’s been there
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