In a year when a global crisis has substantially affected mental health, employee well-being is more vital than ever. While running a design firm is a massive endeavor—and you might personally feel the need to hustle 24/7 in order to keep your business running—it’s crucial to create a healthy and positive work environment for both yourself and your staff. If things go wrong, you might find your employees suffer from burnout.
“Burnout is defined as a combination of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization,” says Dr. Ash Nadkarni, an associate psychiatrist and instructor at Harvard Medical School. “People lose their sense of meaning, joy, and purpose at work.”
It’s commonly caused by prolonged exposure to stressors that leads employees to feel that the hard work they’re putting into their job isn’t yielding worthwhile results. “Burnout has three different components: exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of ineffectiveness,” says Stephanie Harrison, who has a master’s degree in positive psychology, and is founder and CEO of consultancy The New Happy.
It’s important to note that stress won’t definitively lead to burnout. “Your team won't burn out after a one-time intensive push toward a deadline, but if your business cycle is set up in a way that repeats those stress cycles frequently, burnout is almost a given,” says Laura Weldy, a women’s leadership coach.
If you’re worried that your employees might be suffering—or you simply want to prevent them from reaching their breaking point—here’s how to identify and fix burnout.
How to Identify Burnout in Employees
Your employees might not directly tell you that they’re feeling burnt out, so checking in on their well-being via one-on-one meetings is crucial. But even then, an employee might not want to disclose their true feelings. You can also take a less personal approach that gives employees more privacy—say, by surveying employees via the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which they can respond to anonymously.
Keep an eye out for behavioral or emotional signals that might indicate your staff is burning out. “I can always identify employee burnout when I notice a lack of communication, lack of attention to detail, and lack of interest,” says designer Megan Grehl. “I’m lucky that within my small team of five people, we can notice and feel each other's emotions and moods, even remotely.”
Not sure to look for in your employees? Here are a few key indicators of burnout.
1. Your employees start acting distant.
If you’re not seeing much of your employees, or you’re not hearing from them as frequently as usual, that could be a sign that they’re burning out. Distancing can manifest itself in many ways, from showing up late to meetings (or, during the pandemic, turning cameras off for Zoom meetings) or not responding to messages. “Someone who is burned out will likely feel more cynical about the work and people they are surrounded by,” says New York–based clinical psychologist Sabrina Romanoff. “In turn, they may dissociate from work to cope and become more distant.”
2. There’s a decrease in the quality of your employees’ work.
You might notice that your employees are making more mistakes than usual. “Burnout can drain emotional energy, leaving individuals tired and depleted, which means more energy is required to complete the tasks that once were done with ease,” says Dr. Romanoff. “This also leads to reduced performance, not because a person loses competency, but because perception about their tasks becomes overly negative.” In essence, they’ve become careless due to apathy or indifference.
3. Your employees exhibit negative changes in behavior.
Burnout can manifest as behavioral changes in employees. They might seem more irritable than usual, lashing out at colleagues or managers. Or they could seem overly moody or glum. “For example, you might hear an employee talking about how they feel like they aren’t ever successful or achieving their goals, which would indicate a sense of ineffectiveness,” says Harrison.
How to Fix or Prevent Burnout
The key to fixing burnout is to work with your employees to find solutions. “Rectifying employee burnout often means asking more than telling,” says Dr. Nadkarni. “In other words, rather than coming up with a set of solutions on one's own and issuing orders, making the process of addressing burnout a collaborative one is a burnout intervention in and of itself. Get your teams together during a retreat and brainstorm problems and solutions.”
While specific solutions will vary per situation, here are some important steps to follow to both solve and prevent employee burnout.
1. Establish work-life boundaries.
One clue that your employees might be heading for burnout is chronic overworking, whether that’s spending nights and weekends in the office, sending emails from home, or never taking PTO. Firmly encourage your employees to cut themselves off from work—and make sure you’re leading by example. “You can create a culture of self-care by modeling positive behavior and encouraging employees to do the same; take sick days and vacation days, create boundaries between work and home,” says Dr. Rachel Singer, a licensed psychologist based in Rockland, Maryland.
2. Encourage a focus on well-being.
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Well-being takes all kinds of forms, from the physical to the mental. You can offer your employees wellness benefits to keep morale high—gym memberships, massage treatments, and yoga retreats are some fun, tangible perks. But you need to go far beyond these gestures. “It’s essential to help employees to learn and adopt tools that help to prevent burnout, like making time for movement and exercise, getting enough sleep each night, prioritizing their work effectively, clearly communicating boundaries at work, and learning stress management strategies, like meditation or breathing,” says Harrison.
Additionally, you should foster communicative relationships with your employees and be open about discussing stress in the workplace. Dr. Singer suggests approaching the topic in one-on-one meetings with employees, such as by saying, “I know things have been really hectic recently—how are you managing everything that's going on?” And don’t forget to express your gratitude to your staff. Appreciation contributes to employee well-being.
3. Most importantly, regularly assess your company’s workflow and processes to see if any shortcomings might be contributing to employee burnout.
“It's not enough to give people a day pass to a spa or pay for a gym membership. You have to identify if a systems-based factor—for example, inadequate staffing—is keeping your employees from working as efficiently as they can,” says Dr. Nadkarni. “See if something in your process map for your business puts an unfair burden on an employee to solve. If a simple fix, such as a piece of technology, could set your employees up for greater success, then it's time to make an investment.”
