Perhaps you’ve felt like this at work before. Normally, you enjoy your job, but you find yourself feeling increasingly cynical or negative. You struggle to think clearly, and your drive and ability to get things done are reduced. Tasks that once felt easy now seem very difficult.
Burnout costs employers and employees dearly. While it’s not technically a medical condition, it is classified as a workplace phenomenon born from chronic workplace stress. More than four in 10 Canadian professionals reported feeling burnout in findings released by Robert Half this year, with Millennials reporting higher rates than any other generation. A recent BCG study assessed the cost of burnout and stress to Canadian businesses at over $200 billion annually due to lost productivity. Workplace culture and employee engagement are also impacted—challenging to build but even harder to rebuild.
As a leader, the temptation is often to ignore burnout. Admitting it in your workplace can feel like a failure. It’s easy to dismiss burnout as anxiety, depression or even an employee’s personal failure to manage their workload. The reality is that rates of burnout are alarmingly high, and as leaders and employees, there is a joint responsibility to understand, monitor and proactively counteract it.
As always, prevention is better than cure. Employers must put in the hard work to understand how burnout surfaces in their organization and how to minimize it systemically. The reasons can be nuanced and complex, but chronic workplace stress is a significant contributor. Stressors include work overload, lack of autonomy, role ambiguity or conflict, and lack of perceived social support.
Measuring the factors that can lead to burnout is key. We are the experts on the nuanced aspects of our individual work environments, but we often don’t measure the stressors that can lead to burnout. Ask, don’t assume, that you know what might be stressing your employees out. People leaders can use simple mechanisms like employee surveys to collect this data.
Employers also benefit when they train managers to support people who may be experiencing burnout. If an employee seems disengaged or detached, managers trained in mental health first aid are better equipped to help. This helps managers become curious rather than dismissive, particularly in situations where performance is impacted by burnout.
Assessing whether your workplace culture and benefits package enable conversations and support for burnout needs to become the norm. Actions like changing “sick days” to “health days,” assessing the efficacy of mental health benefits and proactively communicating with employees about mental health to reduce stigma all play a large role in enabling burnout conversations and helping to reduce instances.
Finally, addressing the elephant in the room—fit for role—is often ignored by leaders. We have a responsibility to help our employees ensure they are in the right role—not just according to a skill-based analysis of role fit, but on a true assessment of the day-to-day activities involved alongside the desire and commitment of the employee. This means having open conversations with staff to ensure they feel comfortable voicing when they are not happy or interested in what they are doing. Capable but cynical employees don’t cut it.
From an individual perspective, no amount of pay or workplace benefits will offset burnout if that individual does not enjoy the day-to-day of their role.
Employees should ask themselves: What percentage of my day-to-day role brings me energy? What stresses me out at work, and how am I addressing the stressors? Be brutally honest—are you the right person for the role?
As a people and culture leader, I’ve been intimidated from time to time to tackle topics such as this, fearing backlash. Over time, I’ve learned that facing difficult conversations head-on is the only way to move forward. Bad news is good information and enables us to act. The burnout, the anxiety, the depression won’t go away because we don’t talk about it.
Kirsten I’Anson is vice-president of people and culture at Community Savings Credit Union.
