Avoiding Employee Stress and Burnout

Jobs are stressful today, so make sure you know signs before employees are impacted.

By Alexandra Walsh

If your company is understaffed, overworking your remaining employees might be unavoidable. However, this is never a sustainable solution.

The more unrealistic workloads and deadlines become, the higher the stress levels your team must endure. Eventually, this can lead to burnout and employees leaving your business for good.

To prevent these stress-related issues, managers and senior team members must know how to recognize the signs of stress and burnout, and understand what actions to take.

Recognizing the Signs of Stress and Burnout

The warning signs of employee stress and burnout include emotional, behavioral, physical, and performance-related changes. While stress is a temporary response to pressure, burnout is a long-term state of exhaustion that develops over time due to unmanaged workplace stress. Your most engaged and hardworking employees are often at the greatest risk.

Emotional and Mental Signs

Stress and burnout can significantly impact how employees feel on a day-to-day basis, affecting their attitude and outlook.

For example, irritability and cynicism might show up as a negative or distant attitude towards work, colleagues, and customers. Recognize these are often a clear sign of burnout. You might notice employees reacting defensively or emotionally when receiving feedback or constructive criticism.

Similarly, some workers may start to withdraw and feel disconnected from their jobs, losing motivation and enthusiasm for work projects they once enjoyed. Social interactions with colleagues might also decrease.

Behavioral Signs

Burnout and stress can often lead to noticeable shifts in how employees behave. For example, you might notice increased absences or tardiness, as stressed employees may take more sick days or arrive late more frequently. Some might even put in longer hours, but find their efforts aren’t as productive.

Changes in work habits are common, too, such as procrastination or quiet quitting where a worker does only the minimum needed. Social withdrawal can also occur. Employees who were once interactive might become more reserved.

Additionally, some workers may turn to alcohol or drugs to deal with their stress, affecting their behavior, which is another sign to be aware of and pay attention to.

Physical Signs

Chronic stress can impact the body in many ways. You might observe that your team is experiencing more health concerns of late. For instance, feelings of exhaustion and fatigue, and persistent tiredness even after resting, are often signs of burnout. Stress can also weaken the immune system, leading to more frequent colds and illnesses.

Sometimes, physical issues like headaches or stomach problems may appear without an obvious cause, which could be stress-related. Additionally, sleep problems such as insomnia or irregular sleep habits are common indicators that stress might be affecting an employee’s well-being.

Performance Signs

Unchecked stress and burnout can take a toll on employees, affecting their performance and overall mental state.

When stress is high, it might take longer to finish tasks, and deadlines can be harder to meet. The quality of work may also decline with more mistakes sneaking in. Plus, exhaustion can sap creativity, making it challenging to come up with new ideas or solve problems effectively.

Over time, an employee might feel like they’re failing or that their contributions no longer matter. It’s so important to recognize these signs and find ways to support each other to stay healthy and engaged.

Avoiding Stress and Burnout

A business or company needs to make changes to prevent employees feeling stressed or burned out. These will center on creating a supportive workplace culture, managing workloads, promoting a balance between one’s work and their life, and providing resources for helping a person be well.

• Foster open communication: Managers can create a welcoming environment by holding regular one-on-one meetings with employees where they can openly chat about workloads, challenges, and stress levels. A caring culture helps employees feel safe and confident to share their concerns without any fear of negative consequences.
• Build psychological safety: It’s important to develop a place of trust and mutual support where team members feel comfortable taking risks, asking for help, and sharing their opinions without worry.
• Lead with empathy: Leaders play a key role in setting a positive tone. By demonstrating healthy habits themselves like taking breaks and using their vacation time, managers make it clear to someone experiencing stress that caring for oneself is truly important and is a sign of strength.
• Enhance social bonds: Promoting casual meetups and team-building activities can boost camaraderie and make everyone feel like they truly belong.

Workloads and Expectations

Regularly review and adjust employee workloads to keep them manageable and fair. Remember, unrealistic expectations can lead to burnout, so setting clear, achievable goals with your team is key.

Make sure they have the resources and support they need to succeed. Also, try to match roles with each person’s strengths and interests. When employees feel they’re using their talents, they’re more engaged and find their work more meaningful and rewarding.

Don’t forget to rotate responsibilities in high-pressure or repetitive roles. This keeps things fresh and people fresh, energizing both the individual and the team, and offers valuable cross-training opportunities.

Work-Life Balance and Flexibility

Consider offering flexible work arrangements when possible, such as changeable schedules that help employees better balance their personal and professional lives.

Encourage and support, maybe even insist on, the use of paid time off (PTO), making sure staff take time away from work to rest and recharge. Some companies even have mandatory time-off policies to make sure everyone disconnects completely.

It’s also helpful to set clear boundaries by discouraging after-hours emails and messages, perhaps by establishing quiet hours or automatically turning off email access after certain times.

Introducing mental health days—paid days for employees to focus on their well-being—shows that the company cares about their health and helps remove any feeling of shame or disgrace with taking mental health breaks.

Wellness Resources

Offer your employees mental health benefits. Provide access to mental health support, such as employee assistance programs (EAPs) or subsidized therapy sessions.

Make adequate training available. Train both managers and employees on burnout prevention, stress management techniques, and showcase examples of effective communication. Equip managers to recognize early signs of burnout so they can support their teams effectively.

Involve Employees

Gather employee feedback. Encourage open and friendly conversations or surveys to understand what might be causing burnout. Make sure employees know that their opinions matter.

Create solutions together. Invite employees to help shape the solutions for workplace concerns. When they see their ideas are taken seriously and lead to real changes, they’ll feel more connected and committed to improving the work environment.

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Alexandra Walsh is the vice president of Association Vision, a Washington, D.C.–area communications company. She has extensive experience in management positions with a range of organizations.