The Burnout Crisis

What responsibility does the employee, leader, organisation and government have to reduce or eliminate the risk of this “occupational phenomenon”?

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn in March 2024.

This was the big question I posed to a group of NZ Wellbeing Leaders as part of a peer-to-peer support session.

Because burnout is a topic that’s been taking up a lot of my headspace lately, with a certain amount of heaviness.

Turns out it isn’t just me, Cal Newport has now termed this period of time as the “Great Exhaustion” after what started as the “Great Resignation” in 2021. To quote “office workers seem to have retreated into a pervasive atmosphere of fatigue”.

I know this crisis will take a collaborative and concentrated effort to solve so fleshing out ideas with other wellbeing leaders felt productive and helpful.

As a collective we discussed and pondered on the following…

🔥 Burnout feels more prevalent this year that last – heightened through constant change, increasing redundancies and economic pressures

🔥 The focus on wellbeing is sadly slipping away as the goal swaps from thriving to surviving

🔥 People are now staying in roles and risking being burnt out in order to keep their job and income

🔥 Burnout is just one risk (or symptom) from a range of psychosocial hazards and likely a term that is being used more than it should due to a misunderstanding of what it really is

🔥 People don’t feel safe to say that they think they’re burning out and have a lack of trust disclosing they’re struggling

🔥 Burnout is a systemic, complex and broad workplace and societal issue

We got into ideation mode on how we work together to solve the burnout crisis and came up with the following solutions to start cooling things down…

INDIVIDUALS

💦 Rather than just saying you’re burnt out, get clear on what is specifically causing it.  Is it pressures at work, home or both?  Listen to the Wellbeing Provocateur podcast episode with Suzi McAlpine i or check out her book to understand the key signs and causes of burnout so you have the right language to use when raising with your People Leader

💦 Treat burnout symptoms like you would any other health condition and seek expert health advice.  They will help you determine whether you are fit for work or not

💦 At the last resort you can make a protected disclosure about serious wrongdoing at work through the Ombudsman

LEADERS

💦 Answer the question – “how do we make ALL leaders at our organisation care about this?

💦 Recognise that leaders are at even more risk of burnout than their team members so education and support for leaders is critical as the behaviours they model flow down into their teams

💦 Educate leaders on the signs to look out for, how to support their team and what the process is (ideally they’d be supported by a member of the HR team)

ORGANISATIONS

💦 Work with a trusted provider (like MindMatters Clinic) that can complete psych assessments with your employees to understand what’s causing the stress and whether it’s work, home or both and then work with the employee to make changes

💦 Employ an in-house Counsellor or Wellbeing Advisor/Coach that is accessible for people to talk to and get support on reducing their burnout risk

💦 Collate data to identify burnout risk – Stay Interviews to proactively avoid people leaving due to burnout because potentially Exit Interviews are too late and proactively manage high Annual Leave balances

💦 Focus on job design and create an annual process to review job descriptions

💦 Be open to requests for 4 Day Weeks, 9 Day Fortnights and changing shift patterns

💦 Have clear guidelines on your communication tools, how they are to be used and when it’s acceptable to contact people outside business hours

💦 Setting clear expectations with clients on timeframes and being brave enough to push back when it’s putting pressure on people

GOVERNMENT

💦 We are looking forward to the Guidelines of Managing Psychosocial Risks from WorkSafe New Zealand as progress as a nation but the question is still “when are the penalties for mental harm going to be the same as physical harm?”

Whilst some of these solutions may seem big and take a lot time and resources, one thing we did discuss is the power of small incremental changes.

Like James Clear’s 1% principle from his book Atomic Habits – what can we do each day to become 1% closer to solving the burnout crisis as an individual, leader, organisation and nation?