Top Six Work Burnout Issues with Effective Solutions

COVID-19 pandemic has put a brake on global business organizations for quite some time now. Very few organizations have been spared from the wrath of the COVID-19 pandemic. As per a survey, approximately 67% of employees have responded that burnout was at its worst during the pandemic. In addition to this, nearly 27% of employees who are working from home are unable to unplug themselves from work even after working hours. So how can organizations tackle this drastic burnout to increase workplace productivity? Here are the reasons for excessive work burnout along with its remedies with productivity tool.

Such an increasing number of work burnout incidence has become a matter of concern for employers across the globe. Not only does it harm mental health and wellbeing, but it can also impact employee retention which will create a high employee turnover. 

Causes of Burnout And Ways to Keep Employees More Productive

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is the responsibility of every organization. However, burnout becomes a roadblock in maintaining a positive work-life balance. Employees often feel exhausted, demotivated, or annoyed due to a high amount of work burnout. These side effects of job burnout can affect an employee’s physical and mental health. Here are the reasons that can help employees to know if they have got work burnout:

1. Perform Detailed Job Analysis 

Project managers need to do an in-depth analysis of all job roles within their organization. This analysis will enable them to identify what is necessary for a particular job role and what is not needed. As a result, they can cut down or delegate tasks that are less important. 

If you think that your teammates have more work than they can handle, then schedule a face-to-face meeting for further discussion. In this meeting, you clearly need to guide employees about a few options that could be considered for shifting certain tasks or projects to someone else. This will make your life easier by enabling you to reduce conflicting projects or tasks priorities. 

Furthermore, project managers can set attractive rewards for their employees as per their job roles. Such rewards consist of appraisal, positive feedback, promotion, meal coupons, gift vouchers, etc. Also, they need to look out whether there is an opportunity to make the most out of those rewards in reducing burnout within the organization.

2. Reduce Workload

When employees have a manageable workload, they can work efficiently and can have enough time to rest and acquire professional knowledge. But when employees are constantly overloaded with work then there is no room for opportunities to restore work-life balance.

Project managers need to plan workload, set work priorities, delegate tasks, and let go of perfectionism to address the stress of heavy workload. They can use a robust productivity tool as well. All they need to make progress in these time-management skill areas to achieve these goals.

For many individuals, such efforts on reducing their workload can significantly reduce work burnout and provide them with more time to have frequent breaks. Too Much Workload is big burnout when we are talking about productivity at work, Having too many tasks at a same time is the main issue when we are unable to complete at least one task at a same time.

3. Set Communication Boundaries

According to a report, around 44% of professionals say that they are unable to get detached from their job even after completing regular working hours. As a result, a majority of employees are suffering from physical and psychological health issues due to immense work pressure. Setting communication with teams can reduce burnout at workplace and productivity tool also that helps to maintain better productivity and efficiency of employees at work.

In such crucial times, it is up to project leaders to set clear communication expectations and healthy boundaries. They need to instruct their employees to turn off their communication channels outside of working hours. Moreover, team leaders and project managers should not send any work requests to their teams.       

Business owners should even prevent their top-level executives from sending professional emails to employees during off-hours. Business leaders can set effective communication boundaries to make their employees feel psychologically safe by following these guidelines.

Also Read : How To Choose Scheduling Software for Your Infusion Centre

4. Reduce Unnecessary Meetings

Organizations have started working remotely in times of pandemic. In such times, meetings became the fastest way for companies to free up their employee’s time. However, constant meetings can create work burnout issues as well. Schedule unnecessary meetings can ruin your daily tasks as well as your workflow speed.

As per a study, if an employee spends approximately 20% of the time in meetings, then there are high chances that they may have work burnout issues. That means the meetings take around one-fifth of an employee’s usual time.

Some meetings can be carried out asynchronously. A project update is a great example of this. Rather than meeting frequently, team members can simply add their weekly updates to a list of project management apps. Everyone’s kept in the loop, and no one has to sacrifice their valuable time.

Instead of keeping your employees busy for long, you can update them via email, Skype, Microsoft Teams, or Slack. Furthermore, you can take benefit of these tools in recording and attaching a video update to ensure better clarity.

5. Decrease Amount of Context Switching

A majority of employees are frustrated by the context switching issue which they often face at work. It is because they are constantly switching between email, chat, video, and documents. As a result, employees find it harder than ever to focus on the actual work, which stretches out working hours and leads them to burnout.

To lower the frequency of context switching, project managers should decrease the number of productivity tool used for communication. They need to make it clear to their teams that emails and chat message notifications need to be muted while carrying out a crucial task or project.

Furthermore, you can also help employees reduce their context switching by keeping information organized on one platform. You can also consider cutting down the surfing time for employees by centralizing important data in a tool stack that is accessible for all.

6. Keep a Check On Employees

Lastly, project managers need to train their teammates to recognize and effectively address signs of work burnout. In addition to this, project managers can have regular check-ins on employee stress levels while working on a project or at the time of one-on-one meetings. 

Apart from this, project managers should encourage their teammates to take frequent work breaks or sick leaves as and when needed. Moreover, project managers should keep a close eye on the amount of work done by employees. They need to step in and stop employees from taking on huge workloads to eliminate the chances of work burnout. 

Concluding Lines

Employees are the biggest assets of any organization. With the increase in awareness about productive workplace management, a majority of organizations have started taking a proactive approach to tackle employee burnout.  A productivity tool can reducing burnout & also increase work performance.

For this, businesses have started implementing employee-friendly workplace policies to prevent their employees from resigning. Businesses can enjoy the benefits of a more fulfilled and productive workforce through honest, dedicated effort in addressing burnout.