To Burn Out Is Human — Here’s How To Heal It

Three quarters of employees are experiencing burnout.

That’s according to a survey conducted by mental health benefits platform Spring Health, but it’s also something many employees can intuit from experience. Statistically, most of us have felt the weight of burnout — signs include the struggle to get up for work early in the morning, constant exhaustion and frustration, and the inability to accomplish even the most basic job tasks. We’re human, and burnout happens — especially after two years of Covid-19. The key is knowing how to minimize burnout, and how to recover when it hits.

The solution for managers is deceptively simple: Remember the human. Participants in the Spring Health survey cited a variety of benefits that helped stop or heal burnout, including reduced hours worked, more time off, empathy and support from managers, and access to mental health benefits.

“It isn’t enough to say that employee health and well-being matters,” said Vimal Bhalodia, senior vice president of engineering at Arcesium. “Leaders across the company need to be seen making decisions and taking concrete actions with this consideration front and center.”

On a personal level, too, we need to remember to be kind to ourselves. It can be difficult to ask for help or admit feeling drained at work, especially if the burnout is being caused by outside stressors. However, while a manager can look for signs in their direct reports, the quickest way to get support from leadership at work is to ask for it. No person should feel forced to drown in stress and anxiety in the workplace — and a bit of attentive kindness and self care can be a huge boon in preventing it.

To learn how burnout-healing empathy can take shape in the workplace, Built In NYC spoke to leaders from Squarespace, Arcesium, Candy and Skillshare to get their advice on how to spot, prevent and mitigate burnout in employees and themselves. The specific techniques that are necessary vary from person to person, but empathy always comes first.

 

 

As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out? 

Burnout is very personal — it can show itself in dramatically different ways depending on the person. Some people won’t hesitate to share that they have been feeling overwhelmed or stressed, while other folks might not realize that they’re burning out, or might consider it a sign of weakness and try to hide it. Some more subtle signs are general unhappiness, negativity or a downgrade in the quality of work.

While it’s common to assume people on the edge of burnout will be less productive, it’s also possible for employees to become dramatically more effective as the buffer between their work and personal lives disappears. A key for managers is to be monitoring any change in a team member’s baseline and try to determine whether it’s an indication of something deeper.

 

How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?

When managers become aware that an employee is experiencing burnout or on the edge, they should prioritize that person and work with them to understand what immediate support they need. It could be decreasing their workload, deprioritizing certain projects, taking vacation or extended leave or changing the nature of their work altogether — whatever the employee needs.

However, a key principle is to give the person agency in whatever measures are taken. You don’t want to send the message that opening up to you about their mental health results in their scope being reduced.

Later on, managers should work with their employees to understand what went wrong and figure out a long term plan to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Managers should be open to anything from small tweaks to a dramatically different scope or setup depending on what led to burnout in the first place.

Burnout is very personal — it can show itself in dramatically different ways depending on the person.”

 

What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run? 

For employees, tell your manager when things aren’t going well or you feel they’re headed that direction. Employees and managers have to work together to protect work-life balance. When employees take time off, they should mute emails and messages. Burnout can creep up on you, so leverage company resources to increase your awareness of your well-being.

For managers, build psychological safety and trust with your team. If a report feels it’s safe to share that they’re feeling overloaded or unhappy, you’re better positioned to give them proactive support instead of reacting to a severe situation later. Managers should have buffer time in their calendar weekly to support their reports. 

Managers should frequently revisit their employees’ scope, rather than assume what worked last quarter is still ideal. There’s a constant balance needed between an ambitious scope to grow and a workload that’s untenable.

Encourage your team to take time off. Not when it’s convenient for the roadmap, but when they actually need it. Ensure employees have a back-up plan so that they feel at ease when they are out. And lead by example — take time off! Trust your team to manage without you.

 

 

 

As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out? 

Rather than take a one-sign-fits-all approach to burnout, we should be sensitive to changes in a particular employee’s behavior. A ray-of-sunshine employee making a casual, negative comment — like “I’m too tired to deal with this now” — is a much stronger signal than the same comment made by a good-natured grumbler. There are some easy examples of behavior to be sensitive to.

First, look out for expressions of frustration. Sometimes it really is just that project or task, and sometimes this can be a burnout warning. Second, keep an eye on planning and progress blockers — these could be legitimate escalations, or they could be signs that the employee has run out of the mental and emotional energy needed to unblock themselves. Finally, note changes in engagement in non-task-related discussions. An employee who always has an opinion — whether on lunch spots or the latest web framework — suddenly going quiet is worth your attention.

Note that burnout is not the only explanation for some changes — as managers, it is our job to be aware of notable changes and consider all possible reasons before jumping to a conclusion.

 

 

How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?

Just like there’s no one-sign-fits-all way of detecting burnout, there’s no one way to address it. Understanding what’s driving stress and burnout for a particular employee is a prerequisite to dealing with it. Especially in this Covid-19 era, we all know that stresses both inside and outside the workplace could be causing burnout. 

As managers, we have a wide range of tools at our disposal for dealing with stress in the workplace. We have an equally broad — but potentially very different — set of tools for dealing with stress outside of the workplace in a way that respects an employee’s personal and professional boundaries. 

Most importantly, we should never take unilateral action. Instead, have a dialogue with the employee: Present the observations, get buy-in on the causes, brainstorm possible interventions together and then commit to tracking progress and iterating on the plan as needed. 

One more pro tip: Most companies have a ton of resources for dealing with burnout. As managers, we should not be afraid to reach out to our own managers and HR departments to understand what is available and pass that information along to our teams.

 

What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run? 

The single most critical step employees and managers can take to prevent burnout in the long run is to talk about it — and normalize the conversation as part of the company culture.

When I do interviews with candidates, I make sure to set aside a few minutes to talk about Arcesium’s approach to work-life balance, both in general and in the context of the challenges of Covid. Our senior leadership discusses team health at our monthly manager meetings, and managers at all levels actively give feedback — the meetings are never silent. In addition, our CEO’s internal presentations and blogs spend more time talking about the impact of Covid on our employees than on the impact of Covid on our business metrics.

Working at Arcesium is a marathon, not a sprint. That’s more than just a line in our recruiting pitch — it’s a shared value that creates our culture. Our employees and managers work together at all levels to prevent burnout and help our global team consistently perform to their highest potential.

 

 

 

 

As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out? 

I’ve been fortunate in my career and at Candy to work with passionate, highly-motivated and resilient people. So when burnout is starting to set in with someone, it’s usually pretty obvious — they aren’t as engaged or proactive in meetings, they’re quieter than usual or they seem distracted or exhausted. Sometimes there’s no one thing, but they lack the typical shimmer that makes them unique. Usually, if your manager spidey-sense tells you something is off, it is.

Before the pandemic, when teams were together in the office five days a week, it was arguably easier to spot burnout because you could see and interact with the whole person — formally in meetings and informally at the coffee cooler. During the pandemic, when work was completely remote, the opportunities for all of us to spot burnout were less diverse and less frequent. The pure remote work setup forced me as a manager to find ways to create space for those more candid, real, soft moments that you’d ordinarily get in the office to check-in and truly connect with my team, not least to genuinely gauge how they were doing.

 

How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?

It’s imperative that when a manager first becomes aware of an employee feeling burned out, they should stay calm and hold space with authenticity and trust.  

From there, the manager should seek to understand the specific employee’s unique needs and drivers — both in terms of what caused their burnout and what it will take to resolve it. I’ve found that while the general cause of burnout is deemed to be overwork, what causes the feeling of burnout is usually a function of specific, and often daily, habits and practices that an employee has built up over a long period. Asking thoughtful, empathetic questions and listening goes a very long way. 

Once it’s clear what the problem is, Candy empowers the manager to act swiftly on the information they’ve received to support the employee. One of my favorite support tools in my managerial toolkit is the ability to “call an audible” — to switch things up at the last minute in light of new information. In reaction to an employee getting close to burnout, a particularly memorable audible told them to take the rest of the day and the following day as vacation and focus on rest and their mental health. 

 

What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run? 

Modern society — with technology and information overload together with decision fatigue — puts us on a collision course to burnout. At Candy, we have programs in place to prevent burnout, including mental health days and meditation. I have three additional techniques I use with my teams to prevent burnout.

 

 

 

 

As a manager, what are the signs that might tell you an employee is feeling burned out? 

There are many things that come to mind when we highlight the signals an employee is feeling burned out. 

As a manager, I’ve seen that the best employees are often good at staying on top of the most obvious things, but when the rest falls to the wayside — even if it’s due to good prioritization — it might be a sign of work overload and that burnout is close by. This could also ring true if an employee is expressing increased frustration around collaborative partners and projects that they would usually have a smooth time with. Emails and internal messages sent during extended hours could be another subtle sign that an employee is starting to get engulfed by work. 

But burnout doesn’t always have to come from an employee’s workload: It can stem from circumstances happening outside of work, too. We all do our best to keep walls up between the professional and personal zones of our lives, but if one becomes too much it can impact an employee’s performance across the board. 

The next sign is perhaps an obvious one, but sometimes the employee will tell you directly. A tap on the shoulder to say “I’m feeling overwhelmed” is usually a tell-all sign that burnout is approaching.

 

How should managers react when they become aware that an employee is feeling burned out?

Before going into problem solving mode, it’s helpful to anticipate that high performers are usually the ones prone to feeling burnout the most. Using one-on-one time to ask probing questions and get an understanding of what is driving the root of burnout, practicing compassion and acknowledging that you understand where they are can be great first steps. 

Also, acknowledge your role and figure out areas where you can do a better job giving direction. Does everything feel like it’s a burning fire from you, or are you good at calling out what can be reprioritized? Talk through work streams to creatively troubleshoot roadblocks and identify ways you can help reduce workload that the employee might not be thinking about. 

Brené Brown’s podcast, “Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle,” has enlightened my thoughts on stress management — and it’s also been a tool I reference as a manager. Knowing that we need to help our employees complete the stress cycle to get back on track, some of the helpful tips include introducing positive social interaction, creative expression and laughter, and helping the employee find a way to take a personal day or schedule a vacation.

So much about having healthy employees is rooted in having a healthy workplace.”

 

What steps can employees and their managers take to help prevent burnout in the long run? 

The truth is that burnout is inevitable when you work hard — even more so when you have passion invested into the things you’re working toward. Keeping in mind healthy boundaries, so much about having healthy employees is rooted in having a healthy workplace. 

Building an authentic relationship with your direct report goes a long way. We are all human, and your employee being able to feel like they can share any challenges with you is important to help you diagnose as you go. This includes leaving space for some connection around what’s happening outside of work. One suggestion is using one on one time to align on what the top priorities are in the upcoming week or month — having clear goals can help make work more manageable for all. 

Fostering a longstanding, and healthy work environment is a priority at Skillshare. Keeping this goal front-of-mind is one of the things that sets us apart from other companies. Our unlimited paid-time-off policy and quarterly unplug days combined with sponsored emotional and professional wellness courses, plus access to resources outside of work to maintain mental and emotional fitness are just a few of the things that keep me excited about working here.