By J S Manoj Koundinya
Senior Vice President — Talent Acquisition & Talent & Career Management at DBS India
and Matt Pittman
Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group™
Employee burnout is pretty evident in today’s fast-paced and demanding work environment. The rising penetration of technology, surging globalization and the increasing need for constant connectivity have blurred the boundaries between work and personal life, resulting in heightened stress levels among employees and decreasing job satisfaction.
Irrespective of the industry, organizations worldwide are grappling with this challenge, attempting to find effective solutions to address employee burnout issues. However, a critical question arises here: Are we making efforts to solve the right problem? Let’s find an answer through this article that dives deeper into the complexities of employee burnout, explores potential underlying causes, and suggests a holistic approach to tackling this pervasive challenge.
Understanding Employee Burnout
Employee burnout is a multifaceted phenomenon widely visible in today’s work culture. It refers to the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion of employees caused by chronic work-related stress, and characterized by feelings of detachment from other aspects of life, a sense of reduced accomplishment and incredulity. Burnout is not a temporary state of tiredness but a chronic condition that can have severe consequences for working professionals and organizations alike.
Traditional Approaches: The Tip of the Iceberg
In an attempt to address burnout, organizations often focus on surface-level solutions, such as flexible work hours, employee wellness programs, or stress management workshops. While these initiatives can provide short-term relief and demonstrate the organization’s commitment to employee well-being, they often fail to address the deeper issues driving burnout among employees.
It is important to shift our focus toward systematic factors contributing to burnout and gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. The systematic factors leading to employee burnout include organizational culture, job design, and leadership practices.
Organizational Culture: The Silent Culprit
Organizational culture plays a significant role in shaping employee experiences and well-being. Burnout thrives in work cultures that prioritize long working hours, excessive competition and a lack of work-life balance. Employees may feel compelled to constantly prove their worth, thus sacrificing personal time and neglecting self-care. Moreover, work environments that stigmatize seeking help or exhibiting vulnerability at workplaces, further perpetuate the burnout cycle.
Brandon Hall Group™ research confirms that employers are aware of this factor. 54% of responding organizations acknowledged it was critical to improve the employee experience in 2024. (Source: HCM Outlook 2024) Organizations must cultivate a supportive culture that values work-life integration, promotes open communication and fosters psychological safety to tackle employee burnout effectively.
Job Design: The Building Blocks
Job design refers to the way tasks and responsibilities of various job roles are structured within an organization. Poorly designed jobs that lack autonomy, variety and meaning can easily contribute to burnout. When employees feel trapped in monotonous or highly demanding roles without opportunities for growth or creativity, their motivation dwindles, thus leading to exhaustion.
Organizations need to invest their creativity in designing jobs that align with employees’ skills and interests, provide opportunities for growth and development, and allow a sense of ownership and autonomy. Crafting jobs that foster employee engagement and purpose helps organizations to mitigate the risk of burnout. In fact, 72% of respondents identified improving employee work experience as a critical initiative on the HCM Outlook 2024 Study.
Leadership Practices: Leading the Way
Leadership plays a pivotal role in shaping organizational culture and employee well-being. Leaders who adopt a command-and-control approach, micromanage their teams and fail to prioritize work-life balance, inadvertently contribute to employee burnout. The leaders’ behavior sets the tone for the entire organization, and their actions speak louder than words.
To combat burnout, organizations need leaders who prioritize employee well-being, foster a positive work environment, encourage work-life balance, and lead by example. Leadership development programs should focus not only on technical skills but also on emotional intelligence, empathy and effective communication.
A Holistic Approach: Beyond the Band-Aid Solutions
While flexible work hours and wellness programs have their merits, addressing employee burnout necessitates a more comprehensive approach. Organizations must recognize burnout as a systemic issue requiring a versatile strategy to eliminate its root causes. This includes:
- Cultivating a Supportive Culture: Organizations need to prioritize mental well-being by promoting work-life integration, encouraging open communication, and eliminating the stigma around seeking help. Creating a culture that values employee health and happiness is paramount to getting rid of burnout.
- Designing Jobs That Have Meaning: Job design should focus on providing employees with autonomy, opportunities for growth and a sense of purpose. Engaging employees in the work design process and customizing roles to suit individual strengths and interests can enhance the motivation of employees and reduce burnout.
- Developing Resilient Leaders: Leadership development programs should emphasize on the significance of emotional intelligence, empathy and effective communication. Leaders must prioritize employee well-being and creating psychologically safe workspaces.
- Encouraging Self-Care: Organizations should promote self-care practices and provide resources to help employees manage stress. This includes offering mental health support to all team members; encouraging breaks during work hours and educating employees on the importance of self-care.
- Fostering Work-Life Integration: Organizations should adopt policies that enable work-life integration, such as flexible work arrangements, remote work options, and clear boundaries between work and personal time. Encouraging employees to prioritize personal and professional life and providing resources for maintaining a healthy work-life balance can significantly reduce their burnout and boost productivity.
Addressing employee burnout requires a paradigm shift in how organizations approach this widespread issue. Simply implementing surface-level solutions is akin to treating the symptoms rather than addressing the underlying causes. By taking a holistic approach that tackles organizational culture, job design, and leadership practices, organizations can create a work environment that supports employee well-being and prevents burnout in the long term. Prioritizing employee mental health is morally right and a strategic imperative for organizations seeking to thrive in the future.
J S Manoj Koundinya is a Senior Vice President — Talent Acquisition & Talent & Career Management at DBS India. Manoj is a HR leader with 18+ years of diverse experience across industries globally in Learning, Talent & Organization Development. He is passionate about delivering business strategy through people practices by strengthening leadership, driving performance and institutionalizing culture. He has driven large-scale transformation through M&As, Ramp-Up, Restructure and Leadership Transition. He is a certified practitioner of psychometric assessments, PROSCI Change Management and Executive Coaching.
Matt Pittman is Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group™. Matt brings nearly 30 years of experience developing people and teams in a variety of settings and organizations. As an HR Practitioner, he has sat in nearly every HR seat. A significant part of those roles involved building out functions in organizations and driving large-scale change efforts. As a Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group™, Matt leverages this in-depth experience and expertise to provide clients and providers with breakthrough insights and ideas to drive their business forward.
