How Leaders Can Reduce Employee Burnout Within The Workplace

The constant pace of change and a variety of new demands are contributing to widespread burnout among both employees and managers today.

According to new research from a Harris Poll survey done on behalf of The Grossman Group, more than 75% of employees and 63% of managers report feeling burned out or ambivalent in their current position.

And surprisingly managers are not recognizing just how overwhelmed their employees feel, with 89% saying their employees are thriving compared to the actual thriving figure of 24%. That is more than a 3-to-1 discrepancy.

Today, I asked David Grossman of The Grossman group:

Question: Why do you believe so many managers do not recognize burnout in their employees?

Grossman: Managers may struggle to identify burnout due to various reasons such as lack of training, high workload themselves, or simply not knowing the signs and symptoms of burnout.

Some signs and symptoms of employee burnout may include exhaustion, lack of motivation, decreased productivity, increased fatigue, increased cynicism or negativity, difficulty concentrating, physical symptoms such as headaches or stomach issues, detachment towards work, and changes in sleep patterns.

Other signs may include withdrawal from social interactions and decreased satisfaction with work. It is important for both employees and managers to be aware of these signs and take action to address them to prevent burnout among employees.

Companies and their leadership can help managers get better at this by providing proper training on recognizing burnout, encouraging open communication between managers and employees, promoting a culture of work-life balance, and offering resources for mental health support.

___

As you will discover when you download the research findings there are additional specific tactics leaders and managers can take to help combat burnout among their employees include:

Have a plan to conduct regular employee monitoring and check-ins.
Ensure managers are committed to their employees’ success and are empathetic to their challenges—on top of ensuring communication from senior leadership that is direct, clear, and authentic.
Confirm communication reinforces action.
Ensure there is a plan to manage change fatigue.
Help managers to translate business strategy to employees’ goals.
Provide approachable and accessible access to senior leadership.

For background, Harris’ and Grossman’s new research comes from the survey of 2,086 employees, conducted over two waves in January 2024. The research finds the biggest driver of burnout (checked out, ambivalent, languishing, quiet quitting) for both employee and manager groups is "a great deal of constant change."

Other factors include unnecessary work from senior leadership, employees frequently having to shift focus throughout the day, and high turnover rates that often lead to even more work for those left behind.

"These findings are a wake-up call. Clearly, employees are not okay and yet that is often not recognized by senior leadership or the frontline leaders whose job it is to support and engage their teams," explains Grossman.

Discover the summary of the research by downloading your complimentary copy here. You will also learn more about what leaders can do to help reduce burnout among their employees.

About The Grossman Group

The Grossman Group is an award-winning Chicago-based leadership and communications consultancy focusing on organizational consulting, strategic leadership development, and internal communication.

About David Grossman

A leading consultant, speaker, and author, David Grossman ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, CSP is one of America's foremost authorities on communication and leadership inside organizations. He is Founder and CEO of The Grossman Group, an award-winning Chicago-based leadership and communications consultancy.

About The Harris Poll

The Harris Poll is a global public opinion, analytics, and market research consultancy that strives to reveal society's authentic values to inspire leaders to create a better tomorrow. With a global research reach of more than ninety countries, Harris offers advisory services across sectors to world leaders, CEOs, and business decision-makers.

Comments

A Guide For How To Dream Big And Win In Business

In Dream Big and Win , author Liz Elting shares the lessons she learned ― both the successes and failures ― while building a billion-dollar company from scratch. She explains why you need not only passion and purpose to win big, but also: a willingness to take decisive action grit sweat equity determination positive attitude Elting’s fascinating story began with her entirely self-funded business launch that started in a dorm room. By possessing a disciplined set of principles and focusing on carefully developing her leadership skills throughout the process, she was able to achieve her goal of becoming #1 in the translation market that was already dominated by established competitors. Today, Elting is the Founder and CEO of The Elizabeth Elting Foundation, which creates scholarship opportunities for entrepreneurial young women, funds exciting women-led startups and social businesses, and supports women-led organizations that foster women’s success through educational prog...

How To Be An Impact Player In The Workplace

Within the workplace there are Contributors and Impact Players – each representing a distinct way of working – the first leads to a job well done while the other carves a path to true leadership and generates immense value. More specifically, Liz Wiseman , author of the new book, Impact Players , explains that: While others do their job, Impact Players figure out the real job to be done. While others wait for direction, Impact Players step up and lead. While others escalate problems, Impact Players move things across the finish line. While others attempt to minimize change, Impact Players are learning and adapting to change. While others add to the load, Impact Players make heavy demands feel lighter. “ Impact Players is written for aspiring leaders, striving professionals who want to be more successful at work, increase their influence, and multiply their impact,” explains Wiseman. “It is also a book for today’s leaders, those managers who want t...

Business And Life Lessons My Father Taught Me

On this Father's Day , I thank my dad for teaching me the following business and life lessons : Listen - Growing up, I thought my Dad was perhaps shy or quiet. Really, he was just a great listener. I believe that's what made him so wise. He would listen to anyone. Young or old. New acquaintance or friend. Provide - My Dad provided for me. Music lessons. Vacations. Summer camp. Boy Scouts. He gave. He put others' needs first. Today, I find in volunteering likely the same satisfaction he felt when he provided. Educate - My Dad's passion was education. He loved to learn. He loved even more to teach. He lived to help other people learn. In the workplace, providing learning opportunities is one of the most powerful things you can do for an employee. Mentoring is equally powerful. Train & Prepare - All those years of hearing, "Have you done your homework?" and "practice your trombone," served me well....

Seven Ways To Stay Motivated

To learn how to stay motivated, read High-Profit Prospecting , by Mark Hunter . It's a powerful read that includes counter intuitive advice and cutting-edge best practices for sales prospecting in today's business world. Today, I share one of my favorite sections of the book where Hunter describes his seven things motivated people do to stay motivated : Motivated people ignore voices in their lives . These might be people in the office and friends who have bad attitudes. They're out there, and if you're not careful, they'll control you, too. Motivated people associate with highly motivated people . Just as there are negative people in the world, there are also positive people. Your job is to make sure you spend as much time with the positive people as possible. Motivated people simply look for the positive in things . Positive people count it an honor to live each day, learn from others, and impact positively those they meet. Positive people take great satisfaction...

Discover How Ken Blanchard Changed The Way The World Leads

I would be hard pressed to find a leader, someone who studies leadership, or an aspiring leader who during the past 43 years hasn’t read the iconic and business classic The One Minute Manager (1982) or the updated new addition, The New One Minute Manager (2015). For decades, these two books, both co-authored by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson , have helped millions achieve more successful professional and personal lives. Now, in Chapter 9 of the new biography of Ken Blanchard, you’ll discover the story behind the idea and ultimate launch of the original The One Minute Manager . Chapter 9 is in the insightful and intimate biography, Catch People Doing Things Right , authored by Martha C. Lawrence . In it and through extensive access to personal papers, letters, and interviews spanning six decades, she reveals how Blanchard became a leadership guru and bestselling author of more than 70 books. Lawrence shares insights and intimate details about Blanchar...

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The new book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are: The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organi...

How To Play Bigger And Be A Category King In Business

"The most exciting companies create. They give us new ways of living, thinking, or doing business, many times solving a problem we didn't know we had -- or a problem we didn't pay attention to because we never thought there was another way," explain the four authors of the dynamic new book, Play Bigger . They add that, "the most exciting companies sell us different. They introduce the world to a new category of product or service." And, they become category kings . Examples of category kings are Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA. Play Bigger is all about the strategy that builds category kings. And, to be a category king you need to be good at category design : Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category, and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as its king. Category design is the opposite of "build it and they will come." Key traits of category design...

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear. “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book, Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1. Don’t forget to as k : One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2. Make sure you listen : Remember, getting fee...

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog