How to Identify a Burned-out Employee

The rise of silent quitting over the past few years, along with the growing number of able employees quitting from the companies they had previously worked for but not migrating to competitor companies have clearly shown that there is a change in employment market trends.

While job satisfaction is certainly an aspect of why workers tend to change jobs or reassess their stance at their current job, there is also one more important thing to consider. More than ever before workers have been experiencing stress and burnout caused by their jobs. In fact, according to the American Institute of Stress 76% of US workers say that work stress has negatively impacted their personal lives. Similarly, 77% of workers have also said that they have experienced burnout in their current job. It is unsurprising that those two statistics go hand-in-hand especially when one considers that around 70% of workers also don’t believe their employer is doing enough to prevent burnout.

Naturally, it can feel hard to have to manage not just the workload but also the stresses of your employees, but that does not mean your organization should not have problems that can help alleviate the stress. Aside from setting up programs though, what you predominantly will need to focus on are ways of detecting which employees are suffering from burnout. This can be the key to a more targeted response that will help you completely transform your company’s culture.

How to combat this? Let's take an example from the world of army. In the army, regimentation is a necessary evil - and without it, there will be a complete collapse in both discipline and morale. The job of an officer is to ensure that these troops are organised and fairly allocated to the necessary tasks, taking into account the skills and abilities of each individual. Similarly, powerful sales leaders should set clear roles for their sales team members - and hold them accountable to the expectations and requirements they have set. The clearer the roles, the greater their clarity in managing a team.

1. Exhaustion

   The most common sign of burnout is across-the-board exhaustion. If you have an employee who used to be more energetic and active, then the signs of burnout could really start to be clear if you notice them being mentally, emotionally, or physically exhausted. This is something that you will need to observe your employees over prolonged periods of time in order to determine whether someone is simply feeling off one day, or is truly exhausted due to burnout.

2. Socialization and Disengagement

   When employees are suffering from burnout the first thing to go is their appetite for engaging with the other people on the floor. This disengagement can be noticeable in every aspect of their work, from the way that they respond to emails, to how engaged they are in meetings, to the number of times that they talk to their colleagues during breaks. When it comes to this particular aspect of burnout, the easiest way to spot these different things is if you have built up a work culture that invites employees to be active and wants to work and collaborate with others. By establishing a work culture of support, you are far more likely to immediately notice if one of your previously well-performing employees is now completely disengaged from all social communications on the job.

3. Response to feedback and non-recognition of hard work

   As touched upon previously the first thing to usually go at times of high stress and burnout is someone’s control over their emotional stability. What this can mean in a nutshell is that where you might have had a competent employee who would have handled feedback well, you might now find yourself with an employee unwilling to discuss feedback openly or responding negatively to it.

   This is particularly crucial to keep in mind if one considers that 31% of burnout employees have called the lack of recognition from leadership one of the predominant reasons they suffered from burnout. Put simply, in a culture where workers feel overwhelmed, but underappreciated they are far more likely to end up feeling left out.

4. Productivity monitoring

   In times of burnout, employees will be unable to handle the same workload as they may have previously been able to deal with. This is where monitoring your employee’s performance can be extremely important. While some might think that monitoring shows a lack of trust, it does not necessarily need to be perceived this way. Using a monitoring system, like CleverControl, which gathers all of the evidence and data from a person’s daily activities and tasks can prove to be invaluable. This is because it can easily show you all of the times that your employee may have been unproductive, zoning out or searching for things unrelated to work in order to clear their mind.

   As their productivity dropped and the quality of their work experience increased, the likelihood that they are experiencing employee burnout is widely increasing. Outside of productivity though, such an app can also show you how socially engaged with the team the employee in question was. As outlined above social disengagement can be an early indicator of burnout and as such, it should not be avoided, especially not when it is in combination with less productivity.

5. Concentration deficit

   In order for employees to be productive they need to be able to concentrate. With burnout is one of the most frequent things to get lost in concentration. If during project meetings, or discussions you notice that one of your employees is often losing their train of thought or is unable to remain on the task for prolonged periods of time, then you may be witnessing a case of them being burned out. This should immediately be addressed before the lack of concentration leads to any mistakes that could harm the project or the organization.

6. Frequent sick days and absences

   According to Deloitte one in four working professionals say that they never use their days off and rarely even take vacations. Around 29% of professionals say that they consistently work longer hours and even weekends. As a result, they find themselves more easily burned out. On the other hand, employees who are experiencing burnout will often feel unable to come to work and may call in sick. If you see a pattern emerging regarding the frequency of sick days taken by an employee then that would be a good indication that something is not as it should be.

   According to Gallup, burned-out employees are 63% more likely to use their sick days. What is equally important is that they will also be 2.6 times more likely to seek a completely different job. This could be a huge loss for your company as you will not lose a valuable employee for one sick day, but rather a prolonged period of time as soon as they find a new position. Training a replacement and dealing with the loss of productivity caused by this change could also be harmful as it would push your projects further back.

7. Expectations and Deadlines

   One of the most important things to keep in mind as someone’s employer is when it is appropriate for you to set deadlines and when it is not. Deadlines are meant to be used to ensure that a project is completed in an adequate amount of time. However, what often happens is that managers overpromise, which leads to lower-level employees having to deal with unrealistic timeframes. This is also clear by the income-related statistics we currently have on burnout. Namely, mid-level employees who earn between $30,000 and $60,000 will often experience burnout at around 60%, those earning above $100,000 have a slightly lower percentage of 38%. While this difference may not always seem like a lot, in reality, it can be a huge indicator of how a company’s culture works.

   According to Gallup, burned-out employees are 63% more likely to use their sick days. What is equally important is that they will also be 2.6 times more likely to seek a completely different job. This could be a huge loss for your company as you will not lose a valuable employee for one sick day, but rather a prolonged period of time as soon as they find a new position. Training a replacement and dealing with the loss of productivity caused by this change could also be harmful as it would push your projects further back.

8. HR Discussions

   One of the most important things to keep in mind as someone’s employer is when it is appropriate for you to set deadlines and when it is not. Deadlines are meant to be used to ensure that a project is completed in an adequate amount of time. However, what often happens is that managers overpromise, which leads to lower-level employees having to deal with unrealistic timeframes. This is also clear by the income-related statistics we currently have on burnout. Namely, mid-level employees who earn between $30,000 and $60,000 will often experience burnout at around 60%, those earning above $100,000 have a slightly lower percentage of 38%. While this difference may not always seem like a lot, in reality, it can be a huge indicator of how a company’s culture works.

   According to Gallup, burned-out employees are 63% more likely to use their sick days. What is equally important is that they will also be 2.6 times more likely to seek a completely different job. This could be a huge loss for your company as you will not lose a valuable employee for one sick day, but rather a prolonged period of time as soon as they find a new position. Training a replacement and dealing with the loss of productivity caused by this change could also be harmful as it would push your projects further back.

Employee burnout has become increasingly more frequent in recent years as employees are frequently unable to create a distinction between their work life and personal life. This lack of separation can lead to employees having a hard time relaxing even when at home, and this can lead to a lack of sleep and an overall decrease in their energy. Lower energy and enthusiasm as well as decreased productivity are therefore some of the earlier signs of a person who is suffering from burnout. However, these are not the only signs that you can be on the lookout for. Disengagement and lack of socialization can be easy spot signs of burnout. This is why having an open work culture that encourages discussions can often be the key to early prevention of burnout.