Employee Burnout and What Companies Can Do to Fix It

By: Suresh Parakoti, Founder and CEO, glasssquid.io

Employee burnout is a very real phenomenon, and it’s proving to be more and more prevalent in the workplace. More often than not, managers tend to see an exhausted and frustrated employee as a personal failure to find the right candidate to join their team; in their mind, the person is unable to handle responsibilities, is incapable of rising above stress, or quite simply, just isn’t cut out for the job.

Every employee—even the high-performing rock star—is susceptible to feeling depleted and unmotivated some of the time. Burnout is driven by many different factors, and many thought leadership articles have shared some of its causes. For example, an article from Fast Company earlier this year listed the following five contributors to burnout:

●      Poor compensation

●      Unreasonable workload

●      Excessive overtime or uncompensated after-hours work

●      Poor management

●      A disconnect from overall corporate strategy

Similarly, the Harvard Business Review shared three more causes:

●      Excessive collaboration

●      Weak time-management disciplines

●      Overloading the most capable workers

Though the causes of employee burnout vary, most sources suggest that it’s less of an individual concern and more of an organizational challenge. This view may seem to absolve the employee of any accountability and put all the responsibility on management, but it has the power to put company leadership in control. In turn, leadership can take the necessary actions to turn things around.

Over the years, many companies have underscored the importance of work-life balance and actually managed to successfully implement it. A high percentage of these have also offered employee benefits that go beyond the usual medical, dental, vision and 401k packages to cultivate an environment that gets employees excited about going to work. These benefits include, but are not limited to:

●      A full-service café.

●      Flexible hours.

●      No dress codes.

●      Shopping discounts.

●      Gym reimbursements.

●      Paid maternity and paternity leave.

Companies not only offer these perks to keep the morale high among current employees, but also highlight them all over their careers page and job listings as a means to attract quality top talent. Some companies have gone above and beyond to ensure that their employees feel seen, attended to, and cared for. Zappos, for instance, offers nap times for employees to rest and rejuvenate when they need to; SAS’s shows their high regard for family with subsidized, on-site childcare centers and college scholarship programs for the children of their employees; Arianna Huffington has even implemented an email-deleting tool that unburdens her Thrive Global employees when they go on vacation.

Many management teams have recognized the reality of employee burnout as well as its implications within their companies. Loss of productivity, for one, has a tangible, quantifiable consequence. Employee turnover is similar. As work, environment and many other company-specific factors vary, so have the solutions and preventative measures for employee burnout that management teams have implemented. The bottom line is that leaders within the company have the ability to empower their employees, increase productive output, and reduce burnout. In doing so, they give their employees the drive to work, which ultimately drives the company’s success.

Suresh Parakoti is the Founder and CEO of glasssquid.io, an online staffing firm that leverages artificial intelligence to connect top talents with employers and hiring managers.