Burnout is not a badge of honour
Australia, we need to talk. It’s time to put down the ‘burnout’ badge of honour and curb the dialogue around overworking.
Employers and employees both have a role to play in banishing the burn. The latest data indicates that more than two in three (67%) Australian workers are struggling to find work life balance since the pandemic began. With the boundaries between home and the office blurred, many workers are finding it harder to switch off.
If you’re reading this and slowly sinking into your chair, remembering the late night email you sent yesterday, or the ten browser tabs you had open near midnight – you are not alone.
In fact, this practice is so prevalent in the workforce that it’s been given its own term – “hustle culture.” Hustle culture is the notion of investing everything you have into your work to the point where you don’t have anything left to invest in yourself.
Here’s where it gets problematic. Hustle culture and burnout go hand in hand. Burnout is recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed."
According to WHO, burnout has three key indicators: feelings of exhaustion, cynicism or mental detachment from one’s job and feelings of or actual reduced professional efficacy.
Right now the risk of experiencing burnout is higher than ever: 86% of high-potential employees are feeling burnout, and they’re twice as likely to leave compared to their peers. Workplace mental health injuries are on the rise and active psychological claims up by 5% this past financial year.
Despite this, 53% of managers have not had a conversation check in with their direct reports about their mental wellbeing in the past 12 months.
So, it’s more important than ever to learn to recognise the signs early, and ask your people and colleagues, RU Ok?
At We Are Unity, we understand that it can feel difficult to create an open safe dialogue so we asked our subject matter experts to share their tips.
Start the conversation:
Empathy has been shown to be the single most influential factor in preventing burnout. Make sure you show your teams that you recognise and understand the challenges they face right now. We can’t solve the problem by ignoring the problem.
Business leaders have an important role to play in demonstrating and encouraging vulnerability by starting the conversation and actively listening to what is shared. We encourage you not to pressure employees to cheer up, stay busy, or pretend everything is okay (No one likes to feel like their pain is misunderstood). Take time to hear their experiences, and provide support where it is needed.
For leaders, an important part of the conversation is setting guidelines and expectations around work, such as only responding to communications within work hours, encouraging flexibility where possible and managing workloads to be realistic and achievable within the work day.
Change the conversation:
If the hustle is king in your organisation it might be high time to change the conversation. If your virtual all staff meetings sound like a giant collective to-do list, this can be a warning sign that your people may feel that ‘busy’ is a badge of honour.
While heavy workloads are sometimes unavoidable (and hard work and hustle should always be acknowledged and appreciated), leaders need to be careful not to positively reinforce a ‘hustle culture.’ Make sure you recognise the efforts of your people while still encouraging them to give themselves the space and permission to work safely and healthily.
Remember that as leaders you set the standard for what is expected. Consider the narrative you tell about your own time and encourage healthy habits across the organisation. Look out for sub par wellbeing narratives you share, and try to spot them in your people. “All I do is work, I don’t have time to eat healthy,” “I’ve got so much work on at the moment I hardly have time to sleep.” Or our personal lockdown favourite, “I just roll out of bed and start working, I haven’t left the house in days.”
Keep the conversation going:
RU OK? Day comes around once a year but mental wellbeing is a conversation that needs to be had regularly.
Make health checks a regular part of your 1:1 conversations to build an environment of psychological safety where your people feel safe to admit or ask for help when they aren’t ok. When early warning signs are flagged, leaders need to take action and provide solutions and follow up regularly during their implementation.
The risks of burnout are not isolated to workers. A global survey released in early 2021 found that 60% of leaders reported feeling used up at the end of the work day - a prominent indicator of burnout. Instilling the right behaviours at a leadership level not only manages your own energy levels, but creates a ripple effect on others through positive role modelling.
These quick fire tips are a great place to start:
Create boundaries around your time and deliverables.
Schedule your emails to go to staff during working hours.
Demonstrate meeting etiquette. Be punctual, come prepared and actively participate in meetings.
Publicise your wellbeing wins. Share how you create space in your day
Reconsider the narrative you are consciously and unconsciously promoting around busy-ness.
Productivity and busy-ness are not the same thing. Let’s banish the burn and make well being a priority in our workplaces.
To find out more about our work and optimise your team wellbeing contact our team at hello@weareunity.com
