In Europe, over 50% of workers experience symptoms of burnout.
The main stage of burnout is known as emotional exhaustion, which can reduce productivity and have a huge impact on employee health. But if employers take steps to prevent it, it can pay huge dividends for both personal well-being and company profits, according to The conversation.
What is emotional exhaustion?
Employees have limited resources, in terms of time and energy, to meet the demands of their jobs. While this pressure can increase employee motivation, it can also hinder personal growth and impact well-being.
Employees suffering from emotional exhaustion lack physical or mental energy. They are irritated, frustrated and have no energy to work well and only do the bare minimum to save energy. Therefore, it not only affects personal well-being, but also the productivity of a company.
Emotionally exhausted employees feel dissatisfied with their jobs and may consider quitting, but there’s another side to this: satisfied employees who enjoy what they do will have a positive attitude.
What causes burnout?
Some risk factors for emotional exhaustion in the workplace are:
- Laissez-faire leadership, in which managers are not involved or take responsibility. They don’t explain their goals and how to achieve them, and they do little to motivate their employees.
- Excessive workload. Employees who do not have enough time to perform their tasks cannot rest and feel overworked.
- Lack of clearly defined tasks and responsibilities for employees. This happens when employees are faced with unclear demands, which makes it difficult for them to perform their tasks effectively.
How can we prevent burnout?
HR managers must prevent and reduce emotional exhaustion. Here are some ways to do this:
- Provide more workplace resources such as time and support.
- Give employees more autonomy and control over their tasks and workload.
- Improve organizational equity by encouraging polite, honest, and respectful interactions in the workplace.
- Promote constructive, supportive and motivating leadership.
- Assign manageable workloads, which help maintain a positive attitude.
Burnout and online work
In many organizations and workplaces, the pandemic has driven the use of available technology to make work more flexible in terms of time and location.
These new ways of working have opened up debate about how, where and when people work, which in turn impacts employee expectations, behavior and wellbeing. These new ways of working can be helpful, but they can also represent another source of workplace stress that affects physical and mental health in a variety of ways.
As a benefit, online working has made work environments more flexible. However, it can also cause information overload, interruptions, misunderstandings, and the need to constantly connect. Added to this are the lack of support, resistance to change and difficulties in reconciling work and family life.
Employers have a duty to avoid emotional and mental exhaustion. They can do this in several ways, such as providing a good working environment that supports employees’ emotional well-being, balancing workloads, and promoting positive and motivating leadership styles.
They can also take more specific measures, such as providing training and professional development programs, establishing clear communication policies, and promoting respectful work environments and collaborative relationships.
Implementing these measures can be extremely beneficial to employee well-being and ultimately the success of the company.