When motivated people reach their limits. How to prevent Burnout and dismissals.
Expectations for employees are rising. Managers are expected to manage uncertainty and turbulence, deliver great results, engage and motivate their teams, have everything under control, solve problems and radiate positivity. Employees should find solutions to every problem, be proactive and make the impossible possible..
What plagues supervisors and their teams is the permanent pressure that constantly increases and intensifies. The feeling of not being able to complete tasks is particularly negative. If ‚construction sites‘ pile up on the desk, the feeling of stress increases. This results in employees that are easily irritated, constantly feel under pressure, and can’t switch off. Long-term stress, in turn, leads to limited room for thought, poor decisions, bad moods and even physical symptoms, even in the most cheerful people. Normally, we have no problem coping with short-term rush hours. If the pressure of work has a beginning and a foreseeable end, it does no harm. On the contrary, temporarily highly active phases can have a motivating effect. We feel important, needed, and energised. Unfortunately, the workload has increased massively for many people in recent years, at all levels. Holidays offer a short break. After that, work continues at full speed.
Overload through motivation
Not everyone is equally resilient to stress and pressure. Sensitive people feel it earlier on and, in the best case, draw boundaries. Motivated and resilient people can usually deal with stress for longer, because their inner motor activates them at all times. If motivated and resilient people reach their limits, it usually shows in physical symptoms first. If the mind is overloaded, the body reacts. Trembling, dizziness, motionlessness are classic signs of burn-out. Once the engine is red-hot, it has to be shut down. In recent years, I have seen too many committed supervisors and colleagues drop out overnight.
Motivated people have to be protected from themselves when they are under constant pressure.
For motivated employees, recognising that they are doing ‚too much‘ is not easy. They don’t want burn-out and they don’t want to work on the back burner and limit their ‚drive‘. On the contrary. They like to work and want to move things forward. Their problem is that they are stuck in situations that require support from higher up, which they usually don’t get. Sometimes it is simply too much work for one person, but in most cases there are also problems with their superiors. If they don’t get help and don’t manage to solve their stressful situation themselves, frustration follows. Then it becomes dangerous. Once their limit is exceeded, the resilience is never the same again. That‘s sad for everyone!
Recognition of overload symptoms in employees.
The loss of top performers is a problem in every company. They usually carry many responsibilities and knowledge and are needed for important decisions. The more responsibility they carry, the greater the blockages that occur within the company when they drop out. The situation is similar when good colleagues resign. Many do this to protect themselves, because they realised that the problems exceed their capacity to deal with them. What remains in the company are gaps in knowledge, extra work, and sometimes even disillusioned employees. Even if replacements can be made when high performers resign, this is usually little consolation. Everyone knows how long training takes.
Taking dissatisfaction seriously
In companies, I advocate taking preventive measures at an early stage! There are many clear signs in advance to recognise dissatisfaction that can lead to burnout or resignations.
- Listen! Affected people talk about their problems if they are given a protected space, the right questions are asked and no out-of-the-box solutions are served.
- HR knows. All high-performers that started struggling that I have worked with asked HR for help in advance! No measures followed. Burnout and dismissals were accepted without consequences. The problems remained in the company.
- A problem for one employee is usually a problem for others.
Alarming signs:
- Inner withdrawal
- Rejecting behaviour instead of proactive participation
- Irritability
- Lack of clarity in conversations
- Accumulation of errors
- Irritated colleagues
- Private stress
What can direct supervisors do in the case of the above-mentioned signs?
- Pull the brakes!
- Have a direct and open discussion with the person concerned – acknowledging problems can already relieve the burden a bit.
- Help: Listen, be open to criticism, offer solutions.
- ‚Walk in the forest‚ Send overburdened employees home for a short period of time to provide relief (without any disadvantages for them!) – make sure to inform affected colleagues and demand understanding for the situation
- Stop overtime → Track overtime and delegate open tasks or duties to others
- Temporarily prevent new requests/tasks
- Addressing overload in the team
- Involve colleagues who can support
- Inform those affected about solutions
- Remove organisational tasks
- Communicate the situation upwards
- Ask for understanding, resources or reduction of responsibility.
If more leaders were equipped with these skills and management techniques, a lot of frustration, burn-outs and resignations could be prevented. To be able to do this, leaders need to be able to better ‚read‘ behaviour in their teams better.