Burnout in the Workplace
How can we support our people, and who helps the helpers?
By Mo Ford
‘We’re all just exhausted!’ – this is a sentence I’ve heard uttered more in the last few months than perhaps ever before, and in a wide range of contexts. I have the image of a high stakes game of Jenga in my mind – precariously piling things on top of each other and bracing for impact. We’re dealing with the accumulated impact of three years of Covid-19, the current ‘cost of living crisis’, political turmoil, changes in working environments and practices, and whatever personal challenges we may be facing on top of all of this. With that in mind, let’s explore the issues and what can be done to prevent and address burnout in the workforce.
A recent workplace survey by mental health charity, Mind, found that over 40% of respondents reported a decline in their mental health since the start of the pandemic and were at risk of, or experiencing, burnout. Some people cited a blurring of the boundary between work and personal life as a contributing factor. Mental Health UK describes burnout as ‘… a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. It can occur when you experience long-term stress in your job, or when you have worked in a physically or emotionally draining role for a long time’. Clearly, this has consequences for the health of the workforce, which is concerning enough to make prevention a priority. But the knock-on effects of an exhausted team are significant too – risks of impaired judgement and dangerous mistakes, missed deadlines due to understaffing, reduced capacity for creative and strategic thinking and damage to working relationships as patience and social ‘filters’ wear thin.
Mind found that over 40% of respondents reported a decline in their mental health since the start of the pandemic and were at risk of, or experiencing, burnout
Who’s at risk?
Given the extent of the pressures faced by people across a wide range of professions and backgrounds, it seems sensible to consider everyone in the workforce at a higher-than-usual risk of burning out at the moment. Having said that, there are some professions, roles and identities that carry a higher risk of burnout. Professionals who are responsible for supporting ill, traumatised, vulnerable or marginalised people are at particular risk of impacts on their wellbeing that can lead to long periods of absence, high attrition rates and longer-term health consequences. Given that many of these roles sit within the public sector, funding cuts compound the impact of working harder with fewer resources, vicarious trauma and covering for sick colleagues. Post-lockdown NHS research saw staff reporting particularly high rates of burnout and trauma. There also seems to be a growing number of HR professionals who are overloaded and under-resourced, as leaders signpost increasing numbers of struggling staff to them to deal with (presumably due to a lack of capacity to address these issues on a more systemic level). Professionals tasked with holding space for people’s challenges, grief, and trauma are more likely to be working at (or over) emotional and resource-based capacity. This risks what’s sometimes called ‘compassion fatigue’, which in turn, can have negative consequences on professional relationships and decision making.
There is an additional risk for people with marginalised identities or experiences that are relevant to the ‘hot’ debates of the day. For example, many LGBTQI+ people and ‘migrants’ are experiencing fear, exhaustion, grief and anger as their rights are debated in public and hate crime continues to rise exponentially. Relevant decision making, policy changes, casual discussions in the office and uncertainty about whether it’s safe to show up authentically in the workplace can add to the psychological impact of this specific burnout.
So, how might we begin to address these issues? Firstly, it seems important to establish who ‘we’ are in this context. Whose responsibility is it to improve individual workers’ health and wellbeing?
It seems as if there’s been a sea change in recent years in the realm of workplace wellbeing. Expectations of the wellbeing support organisations should provide to their people appear to have increased. This may be related to greater awareness of mental health and emotional literacy, addressing the stigma of health issues more generally, and the impact of aforementioned recent events on the wellbeing of the population at large. In this process of workplaces stepping up to offer increased support, there is a tension in finding the boundary between the individual’s and the organisation’s responsibility. Some leaders are frustrated with employees making increased demands of already thinly stretched organisations and HR departments. And conversely, earlier career professionals are agitating for recognition of the health impacts of (for example) stagnating salaries, stratified hierarchies and a lack of autonomy and flexibility. I would argue for meeting halfway – employees do have a responsibility to identify, address and communicate what they need in order to maintain their health and work to the best of their ability. But if leaders want to see responsibility, initiative, and enough emotional bandwidth to do a good job, the cost is the training, resources, trust and flexibility required to enable this. Furthermore, there is a wider social responsibility beyond the workplace and our own support networks – I’d argue that the ‘we’ in ‘how can we prevent and address burnout?’ includes everyone, on some level. The question of who looks after individuals’ wellbeing and needs to help prevent burnout is therefore not a choice of ‘me or you’, but operates at ‘I, we and all of us’ levels.
I, We, All of Us
The ‘I’, or the individual responsibility, might involve a person accessing the resources that are available to them, whether that’s coaching, counselling, healthcare, reflective space, rest time, meditation, exercise or whatever works for them. This focus on self-care is often the most visible aspect of workplace wellbeing – it’s likely that this is because it’s potentially the least complicated type of change or addition for an organisation to implement. And there may be a cultural element to this in ‘late-stage capitalist’ societies, where individualism is the default.
The ’we’, or the collective responsibility at organisational or local level might incorporate some of the above options in the form of Employee Assistance Programmes, wellbeing focused sessions or reflective practice spaces – all of which can be really useful. But what else can leaders do? Some reflective questions about working patterns, workload, pay, organisational culture and inclusive practice may be useful in considering this:
Given the positive impact on wellbeing, revenue and productivity found in recent trials of a four-day working week, what changes to working patterns might be possible in our context?
Is pay an issue that could be contributing to burnout for some or all of our workforce? What is possible in terms of providing competitive pay and supporting employees through dramatic rises to living costs (directly and indirectly through benefits and support services)? What are the consequences of wage gaps, real terms pay cuts and people working above their pay grade?
What needs to be addressed as a priority and what must be pushed back to create space? Might there be unintended consequences of deprioritising strategic or policy related work that has the potential to positively impact workforce wellbeing?
What are we doing to support employees with additional challenges and burnout risks? What’s in place for ‘helping the helpers’ (HR, line managers etc.)? Do employees with marginalised identities feel safe, welcome and not tokenised? How can we be sure of this?
What formal or informal expectations are we placing on employees beyond their day-to-day role? What might be the consequences for those who aren’t able to take on extra work or social commitments (either because they’re already over capacity or due to other responsibilities in their lives)?
Finally, what responsibilities befall ‘all of us’ in preventing burnout? The last few years seem to have been characterised by social isolation, change and uncertainty, increasingly polarised views and a sense of scarcity. But we have also seen examples of people coming together to deepen a sense of community and mutual support – something that might be more common in periods of crisis but offers lessons to carry forward into less eventful times. At a societal level, we need political leaders to make policy decisions with the health of the population in mind. And, at the risk of suggesting additions to burned out professionals’ to-do lists, I’d argue that we need private, public and third sector leaders to role model healthy working practices, and use their position to call for wider changes that will develop a resilient and well workforce.
Learn more about the Oasis Raw Network. Contact us for more information on how we can help embed employee wellbeing through our oasis counselling services.