Address the burnout signs often overlooked in fast-paced workplaces

Public awareness has shifted in recent years, with burnout gaining increased societal attention. However, in fast-paced organizations, burnout may understandably remain an afterthought — until its consequences demand action and resources.

Human nature causes employers to overlook the real roots and consequences of employees' burnout. Despite damning evidence against the fundamental attribution error, misplacing blame onto individuals "is both a fundamental psychological tendency as well as an industry norm that remains strong" across many industries. Unhelpful attribution of burnout remains strong in the workplace.

How can that realistically and efficiently change? What are people leaders missing that could help proactively address employee burnout and ensure sustainable productivity? 

Dr. Maslach Christina Maslach, Professor Emerita at UC Berkeley, co-creator and namesake of the gold-standard Maslach Burnout Inventory, and co-author of The Burnout Challenge: Managing People's Relationships With Their Jobs, recently provided eye-opening, actionable insights on the more subtle burnout signs that are tempting but perilous to dismiss. Those insights are recounted below.

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Falling stars: Signs of employee burnout you shouldn't dismiss

If a usually stellar, productive employee ends up "off their game," an employer's instinct may be to write the person off or blame them. The subtle signs of burnout are easy to dismiss as an employee's personal flaws: 

• Inefficacy in an employee who normally exceeds expectations
• Decreased alertness from an ever-vigilant coworker
• Long-belated deliverables from an individual who used to honor deadlines
• Pessimism and bitterness in a colleague who anchors team morale
• Reduced quality or volume of a person's work
• Declining faith in the team by a reliable team player
• Disinterest, despondence, or detachment from once-exciting projects
• Struggles with creativity from a formerly innovative teammate
• Apathy from someone whose enthusiasm previously set the workplace's tone

However, a more productive conclusion could be to address their burnout, returning them to their former all-star status. After all, burnout is a workplace issue — not a health problem or individual issue — says Dr. Maslach, citing the World Health Organization. 

If one employee is burning out, others may soon succumb to flaws in the work environment. According to Dr. Maslach, the exhaustion, inefficacy, and cynicism reflected above are key, research-derived dimensions of burnout. And, these phenomena are canaries in the workplace coal mine.

Time to take action.

How even lean workplaces can act on the signs of burnout

In fast-paced workplaces, burnout has historically been seen as an afterthought. Deal with it if it happens, and deal with it by pressuring or blaming the employee in question. However, writing the employee off and ignoring the problem may lead to progressive productivity drain across the workforce. 

The cost of burnout incentivizes taking action within the workplace, and there is a manifold return on taking even subtle signs of burnout seriously. Addressing burnout within the workplace can reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and improve company culture. Anti-burnout action may also reduce costly employee churn and even help to attract and retain new hires.

But once the problem is identified, how can leaders address it?

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Gather data proactively

According to Dr. Maslach, the goal of gathering data is not to figure out who is burning out — but instead, why people are burning out — so employers can take meaningful, workplace-wide action. One way employers may gather data is by administering the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), to gauge the burnout patterns within their organizations. 

One caveat given by Dr. Maslach: The MBI is an assessment tool, and like any survey measure, it can be misused. The assessment's administration should be anonymous and confidential, as identification could cause employees to answer dishonestly or feel singled out. Neither of those situations aids in solving an organization's burnout problem.

Supplement assessments with specific, qualitative insights

Dr. Maslach also indicates one single form of assessment may not give a full picture of how and why employees are burning out. 

More naturalistic sources of information may help employers identify opportunities for action within the workplace, such as aggregate sentiments from company-sponsored peer support groups. When people share their thoughts in casual, unstructured environments, their natural language can provide nuanced insights.

• Where are the gaps in terms of policies, values, principles? 
• Has the organization's messaging about the mission "landed"? 
• Is the org perceived to be embodying its espoused principles? 
• What are the levels of anger, frustration, or anxiety within the company?
• What lights the fire in employees?
• What behaviors or skills are desired from leadership? 

Less formal assessments may also carry the benefit of flexible follow-through. Dr. Maslach notes that when employees bother to give formal feedback, it's important they see the results of that feedback; otherwise, burnout may be exacerbated. Naturalistic sources of sentiment analysis do not carry the same risk.
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Invest in management's soft skills ahead of more major organizational change

Fast-paced organizations tend to be rife with the drivers of overextension and exhaustion. As transformational organizational change may take extensive time and resources, what can be done in the interim? 

One interim burnout solution is to address the soft skills of people leaders, for instance teaching them to take the blame and shame associated with workplace issues off of employees' shoulders. 

• Can you respond empathetically to employees' personal issues?
• Offer more realistic deadlines? 
• Learn to add flexibility to the workplace dynamic? 
• Foster team trust and connection?
• Communicate more effectively? 

There are low-cost, even digital, solutions that can help affect these small but meaningful adjustments to the work environment. Rather than changing the entire workflow of the organization, teaching soft skills to people leaders may be a cheaper and shorter-term solution.

Support manager well-being so that they can support their teams

Leaders can more effectively learn better management techniques and provide emotional safety for their reports if they are emotionally well themselves. One way to ensure manager well-being is to give managers an external outlet, a place to vent and receive guidance for coping and healing outside of the workplace. With added layers of support for their own well-being, they are more likely to engage in positive, burnout-busting interactions within the workplace.

Provide opportunities for positive feedback

Like managers, employees have mental, emotional, and social needs that, left unmet, can influence feelings of cynicism or inefficacy. 

Managers may learn to provide this feedback more freely (again, by learning soft skills) in order to reduce workplace burnout in employees. However, a proxy for workplace feedback can be social feedback from online peers. People who understand each other, even from different workplaces, may help instill a sense of pride and accomplishment in each other.

Forge connection and trustworthy, positive community

A lack of connection and sense of safe community in the workplace is known to drive burnout, according to Dr. Maslach. Again, as longer-term efforts to create community within the workplace unfold, interim solutions may be better than nothing. 

Some employers use digital workforce solutions that connect employees to each other. Offering reliable, understanding connections, like those available via anonymous peer support, can help re-energize employees whose productivity has been drained by feeling isolated or suspicious of those around them.

In the end, small but meaningful changes are better than nothing

Evident from the tactics covered above, employers' main goal should be to "fix the job, not just the person." That said, changing the workplace to reduce burnout doesn't have to mean overhauling everything. Expensive or radical adjustments to the work environment may require buy-in and time that organizations do not have. Instead, says Dr. Maslach, burnout-busting changes can be "small, inexpensive, and customizable." 

According to Dr. Maslach, employers can consider the following three tenets to guide productive change:

1. Collaborate: Offer feedback opportunities, act on that feedback, update employees on results of their suggestions, make them feel included in workplace-related discussions.
2. Customize: Tailor workplace culture (when possible) to employee preferences, and understand that the best solutions are flexible in order to accommodate varying needs. 
3. Commit: Put in the necessary time and resources to solve workplace problems, even if this involves trial and error to find the best path forward. 

It takes time to assess burnout in the workplace and act on insights at the organizational level. However, it takes even longer for otherwise valuable employees to recover from burnout. This fact should drive decision-makers in fast-paced workplaces to pause, attending to burnout-drivers it may feel normal to overlook or dismiss.