The signs of burnout can creep up very quickly in employees when their physical, mental and emotional strengths are reaching close to exhaustion.
However, the effects of employee burnout are not just limited to their personal welfare alone. It can lead to significant complications like lower productivity levels, higher absenteeism rate, reduced employee engagement and increased employee turnover.
As part of the Human Resources or leadership team, you’ll know that staff burnout often results in additional costs – financial, reputational and cultural – for your business, too.
Recognising the early signs and risk factors of employee burnout can help you prevent these serious issues from occurring. After all – prevention is better than cure.
Fortunately, there are innovative tools like VibeCatch’s employee engagement QWL (Quality Work Life) Polls that can provide your organisation with relevant insights in addressing employee burnout before they happen.
What is employee burnout?
Employee burnout is a type of work-related stress where employees feel physical, mental or emotional exhaustion regarding their jobs.
It happens when people become unmotivated or lose a sense of accomplishment for what they do. The possible causes can range from intense workloads, poor leadership, unclear job expectations, little recognition, weak communication and insufficient compensation, as well as a lack of personal freedom and control.
All of these effects impact an individual’s overall health and wellbeing.
What burnout risks should you look out for?
The presence of employee burnout in your organisation can be detrimental to the performance of your staff. This condition causes them to disengage from their colleagues, take recurring absences, break company rules, damage the culture or resign to seek other opportunities.
The issue of burnout is not new to many businesses. In fact, Deloitte’s external marketplace survey of 1,000 full-time US professionals cited that 77% of their respondents have experienced employee burnout at their current job - with more than half of them reporting they experienced it not just once.
Job burnout can have negative consequences on the engagement level, overall performance and retention of employees:
- Burnout costs between $125 billion and $190 billion every yearin healthcare costs. Researchers estimate that workplace stress accounts for 8% of national spending on healthcare in the US.
- Burnout often leads to disengaged employees, who cost their employers 34% of their annual salaryas a result.
- Burnout is responsible for a significant amount of employee turnover, between 20% and 50% or more, depending on the organisation.
Having the means to measure and pre-empt this risk can help you implement better employee initiatives and improve the current health levels of your team members.
Keep in mind - the right information can make a big difference in alleviating burnout and making more informed decisions. A QWL Poll can help you by regularly assessing employee motivational levels and predict factors such as looming employee burnout in your organisation. Identifying these factors can provide you with a clearer picture of how well the employees are doing and their level of engagement towards your company.
QWL Poll: an effective way to assess employee risks
The Quality of Work Life (QWL) poll is a type of pulse survey that measures the job satisfaction of workers. The data and insights it provides aim to improve the welfare of employees in your company.
In a previous post, I detail how the latest QWL features and report functions provide concrete numbers to assess risks and to help you move forward with actionable items that will improve your company’s QWL.
Fig 1. Quality of work life Risk index dashboard
VibeCatch’s QWL Poll is backed by a scientific method and continuous listening to help you effectively measure risks, determine the right actions to take and obtain measurable results.
The VibeCatch survey calculates QWL from three drivers:
- Physical and Emotional Safety
- Social Cohesion and Identity
- Goals and Creativity
VibeCatch’s QWL Poll can also be tailored to your requirements – making sure the criteria and results suit your organisation the best. Its Heatmap and Distribution features equip you with a comprehensive status of where each department, employee group or worker stands in terms of the different risks we’ve discussed, including burnout.
The QWL poll is anonymous, allowing you to easily encourage more employees to participate and share their feedback around how you can enhance the workplace.
So, don’t let employee burnout go undetected!
With VibeCatch’s QWL Poll, you have an accurate way to understand all employee risks and concerns.
What is VibeCatch?
VibeCatch is an HR platform based on 15 years of proven research, offering you the opportunity to make a difference and prove the impact that you know you make every single day for the people around you.
Through VibeCatch’s QWL Polls, Pulse Polls and 360 Feedback Polls, you can uncover hidden opportunities, correct issues and address areas of improvement for both employees and management.
This time, you in the HR department will be able to work based on reliable information and you can now have a tangible Return on Investment (ROI) to present to management.
Book an obligation-free consultation and we’ll discuss your options to show you how VibeCatch can help you help everyone.
