How to tell your staff is burned out without them saying “I’m burned out”
By the time you get a resignation letter in your email, it’s usually too late. If you do somehow succeed in convincing your employee to stay on by promising more money and changes to whatever is causing them dissatisfaction, it usually doesn’t last long. As soon as their heart isn’t in it anymore, they’ve basically mentally quit, and it’s only a matter of time before they put in their letter again for real; this is depressing, a reality often fueled by the pressures of hustle culture.
Obviously, the key is to be a great manager and prevent burnout in the first place, and some of the ways we do that are through task switching, checking in on video weekly, asking “how are you?”, simply listening, providing time for breaks, encouraging the use of PTO, giving some extra perks or surprises, and sooo many more key principles that also help remote workers succeed.
Even if you do all of the above and then some, sometimes things happen. Maybe you have people who choose not to speak up or you’re overseeing a first-time manager who misses some signs from people on their team.
It’s your job to:
Notice the unspoken signs, to sense when the vibe changes, and listen when the signals are showing you that someone needs support.
Provide a psychologically safe place where people feel comfortable reaching out to their manager when they need help.
These are essential skills for overcoming the challenges of remote leadership.
Here’s how you can tap into your intuition and intervene before burnout impacts your team.
Be on the lookout for
Changes in visibility. A person is noticeably absent from participating regularly in their team channel, their video is off on zoom, they decline more meetings.
Don’t call them out in the meeting, but text them afterward to find out what’s up. In the next meeting, start with a fun icebreaker to use as an excuse to ask everyone cheerfully to put their video on. One of my teammate’s favorites is “tell me one good thing today”
Using a lot of PTO or has built up PTO. Taking a lot of time off, or no time off at all, are both signs something could be up. If they haven’t had a break in while, is it because of workload or because they’re not prioritizing themselves? Are they avoiding home, or needing a break from work?
Encourage them to take PTO if they haven’t. If you have the budget, get them a small perk to show them you care, like a massage gift certificate, a 3-month bark box for their dog, or a sensory deprivation float.
Changes in levels of patience. It can be challenging to work in a remote environment where clearcut hierarchies and norms are replaced with fast-paced growth, blurred lines caused by inflated titles and infinite slack channels and DMs. There’s plenty of opportunities to get frustrated, get sucked into the politics of a situation, and react emotionally over text. Does your teammate have a shorter fuse than usual?
Reach out privately and ask, “how are you?” Listen, hear them, empathize with their situation, and validate them. They need to know you’re listening, even if it’s going to take time to solve the organization’s problems.
Beating around the bush. Take feedback from your employees seriously. Sometimes people just don’t want to rock the boat or look like they’re complaining, so they might bring up a big issue (eg. being overworked) in an indirect way (eg. asking to clarify their role and how to prioritize multiple high priority projects, or saying things like “I wish I had time to do this better”).
Ask directly, “what would you change today to do your job better?” and listen. Ask for feedback, and do not be defensive or immediately create reasons for why their feedback is not actionable. Act on improving their daily work life by removing the roadblocks in front of them, taking the pressure off, and supporting them.
Missed deadlines, and reduced quality work. If someone’s usual high standard is slipping on a regular basis, they may need a break to recharge.
Repetitive tasks especially can lead to fatigue, and some context switching may be necessary to use different parts of the brain. Pause the project to review it, help with a live brainstorm, get or shift people to the project to share the load, review and adjust the process, create inspirational swipe files to aspire to; and in the meantime, let them work on something else so they can get a mental break. This is a simple but effective strategy for staying productive and avoiding burnout.
Updates to their LinkedIn. This is more of a sign that someone is getting ready to jump ship and wants to freshen up their profile for a round of interviews. If you notice tone of voice changes on their profile, they may be posturing their personal brand for their next role.
Be transparent about career leveling in your organization and what is expected to move up, get more responsibility, and have more impact.
The pattern of team performance. Employees have individual contributions and the team goals. The team goals, however, are what’s evaluated and lauded (or if negative, excused) at the end of each quarter to the whole company. When an employee is on a team that has multiple quarters in a row of not hitting the goals, they’re going to notice. It’s frustrating when you work hard as an individual and your tasks are successful and high quality, but they never seem to add up to the type of success the company is measuring.
Celebrate individual wins in company settings. Do not base all pay increases or bonuses on only team or company goals. Recognize how OKRs impact the culture within your team, and have a plan to mitigate it by making better goals, being realistic about what is needed to hit them, and the reality of the actual results – despite what the goals were, did the company still grow?
Career progression engenders loyalty
Helping your employees develop a vision for their career path and the steps to get there could be the key to helping them feel connected and invested in their professional growth within the company. When employees are intrinsically motivated and driven to succeed, you’ll have an engaged, productive and successful employee.
Stay interviews keep you connected
A “stay interview” is intended to uncover what is on the employee’s mind that needs to be solved in order for them to feel great about staying on board. Typically I’d ask,
What would you change about your job if you could change anything?
Do you have more strengths that you are not yet using to your full potential in your role?
What are you most proud of?
How can we challenge you more?
Find out what makes them intrinsically motivated, and how you can create a long-term vision of success for their career and impact within your organization. Check in often, listen, have empathy and be flexible, and you will reap the rewards of a long-term, loyal, engaged, self-improving team of talented collaborators.
