What can you do to ensure that your employees are not suffering from burn out?

Experiencing burn out can be constituted by many different factors. The usual factors are extra hours spend at work, the amount of quality of work expected by managers, as well as amount of work that is required to be completed within a short notice.

However, burn out can also be easily associated with employee’s morale – which can consist of unfair sentiments arising from unfair compensation – on whether someone is getting more highly paid, while performing the same duties or the salary is the same, with one having more duties and responsibilities. It can also be associated with poor management and misalignment of direction. To put it simply, imaging redoing a work several times because of changes of instructions by the management.

These are what you can do to ensure your employees are not suffering from burn out:

Listen

Regardless the amount of work load, you should always make time to engage them to prevent burnout from happening. You should listen, whether is it in an actual complain, or through subtle signs like their tone, their frustrations at work. If you do realize that they might be experiencing a burn out, you can allow them a voice to understand the root of the problem.

This strategy works best, if you empower your employees. Let them know you are always there readily available to hear complains and grievances without providing a judgement – and above being a leader, you’re also a friend.

Provide

To be fair to your employees, you should provide avenues for them to raise their unhappiness to you – whether in the form of a regular employee survey, or one to one talks with their leaders. You need to be able to provide them accessible advice and help to complete the tasks given, or a reasonable deadline for any tasks assigned.

You are also able to provide the environment which minimizes burn out – by providing more welfares such as random parties, good food and providing day offs to celebrate company’s successes.

You can also provide employees with the education on what a burn out feels like – so that employees would be more aware, and will take the necessary actions to reduce burn out.

Be Fair

Evaluate yourself. If you are making decisions irrationally, by providing unfair treatments – then you need to be the change. You must recognize effort rationally and to communicate the rationale on why decisions are made (I.e., why did you promote this person), to reduce any tensions arising from inequality.

If your employee is putting in effort, while still not delivering -  it is of no harm to provide encouragement as well and to see how you can help the employee in reaching the organization’s goals.

How should you handle favouritism?

The interesting thing about this article, is that it is for the one that is shown favouritism as well as for the others affected by it. How bad can it hurt right if you are the one receiving the compliments? At the very least, you know you are performing in your manager’s eyes.  However, do you want your career progression to be based on how well you are performing in the role or would you rather it be because of how good of the relationship you share with your managers?

Think about your co-workers. How would they credit your promotion? Would they have been given equal growth opportunities for career advancement? Would they have thought that performance is linked to career advancement?

Give the benefit of the doubt

Understand if this is a usual practice, by your managers. Try to understand if the treatment is specially for you, or do your managers encourage the others in their little ways as well. Is the manager showing you more interest compared to your colleagues? Do your other colleagues perceive your treatment as unfair as you deem it to be?

It is of this stage that you should also distinguish Favoritism from performance recognition. Have you been given the extra attention because of the overtime you have put into the company, or that you have went beyond what was expected to earn the confidence of your managers?   

Talk to them, Tactfully

Being the one that your manager would be more receptive to, you could have the power to recommend an objective approach. You could probably recommend justifying who should be the one who should be taken the role, or even the key client to the rest.

You could also encourage a more inclusive team, whereby you could propose names on taking up certain responsibilities, as well as be the one sharing positive reviews of other colleagues, whose effort could not have been realized by your managers