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Burnout and employee engagement can just as easily be two ends of a shaky playground. As the burnout rate rises, engagement begins to decline. Along with it comes any motivation to produce great work, test innovations or bring new solutions to old problems.
A Indeed Survey from 2021 shows how fruitful burnout has become. Of the professionals in the United States who were asked about their stress levels, 52% said they felt burned out. At the same time, employee engagement is declining, reaching 34% in Q4 2021, per Gallup. That’s not good news, especially if you want to improve the motivation and effectiveness of your team.
To combat burnout, take bolder action than offering free snacks or a workplace gym. Those are attractive benefits, but they won’t have any long-term effects on morale, enthusiasm or revenue. The way to boosting motivation in the members of your workforce is to make some permanent changes.
Related: 37 motivational quotes from the world’s most influential leaders
Contents
1. Make the psychological safety of your team members a priority
According to research by McChrystal Group, employees who feel psychologically safe at work are about three times more likely to be motivated at work. But psychologically, safety means more than just having a clean, quiet environment to work in mentioned in Harvard Business Reviewrequires psychological safety that anyone can add to the discussion without fear of retaliation or embarrassment.
You might assume that your company culture is safe. Is that the case for everyone or just for you and other managers? When team leaders act out of favoritism or take advantage of others’ vulnerabilities, they harm your efforts to achieve psychological safety. This means that you may need to train all of your employees in practicing the art of psychological safety.
For example, you can take a positive approach and designate leaders who make “psychologically safe” decisions. Or maybe you’re rethinking your reactions to become a role model. Remember, you can track psychological safety using basic KPIs like employee turnover and employee satisfaction scores. When people feel free to be who they are, they are less prone to burnout and more motivated to perform.
Related: Here’s the secret to reducing employee turnover and lowering costs
2. Give employees many reasons to stay and take root
It is much more difficult for employees who feel empowered, valued and rewarded to leave their employer. Even if their work is difficult, employees who feel they are seen as valued employees will show initiative. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company, for example, has long been known as a difficult company to work for. Yet Indeed reviews show that people who get through the difficult interview phases love the challenge and culture by far.
The point is, you don’t have to be a fun, laid-back employer to win the battle against burnout. You need to build a company that gives its employees a reason to stay and perform at a high level. In other words, you should use external motivators to fuel your employees’ internal motivators.
How do you ensure that your employees get to work enthusiastically every day? Promoting from within is a suggestion. Covering the cost of training and development courses is another. If possible, you may want to offer monetary bonuses, commissions and stipends, in addition to fair compensation and regular raises. Just make sure you don’t try to make it all about the money. People will leave high salaries at the onset of burnout.
Related: 6 ways to help your employees learn on the job
3. Bring relevant employees into discussions you need to know
Nothing feels worse as an employee than realizing that you’re the last person to know anything important. Constantly groping in the dark eats away at motivation. It also promotes a sense of paranoia, which can become a bridge to full-blown depression and burnout.
You and your team leaders may not realize that you are leaving employees out of communication. Whether you miss transparency by accident or on purpose, now is the time to be more open. The more secrets you keep (or seem to have), the more silos you will have around your company. Those silos will only grow and become barriers to widespread motivation.
Be especially aware of how your remote or hybrid employees feel about receiving information. Seven out of 10 teleworkers feel outside the circle. So ask everyone to make sure they keep their colleagues informed. When sending an email, check your cc: and bcc: lines. Have you included all relevant members of your organization? Go through the same due diligence with Slack pings.
You may not be able to stop the major layoffs or economic uncertainty, but you can do your very best to reduce the likelihood of employee burnout in your organization. If you succeed, you will notice an increase in motivation and energy in all your employees.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.