Preventing (and Rescuing) Burnt Out Employees

By Allan Pulga 

Finding good employees is not easy, so keeping good employees happy is essential to any employer. Keeping staff happy is more than just paying them well and offering them benefits – you need to learn to recognize the signs of burnout and pull unmotivated employees out of their rut. 

David Javitch, Entrepreneur.com’s Employee Management columnist, says that every organization has non-performing, unmotivated, burning out (or burnt out) employees.

“Therefore, to increase success, every business owner needs to deal with this obstacle by identifying unmotivated employees and ‘turning them around,’” he adds. “But turning them around isn’t as easy as it may seem, especially because as the employer you can’t really ‘make’ anyone be motivated!  

“Remember the old adage: ‘You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink?’ That, in a nutshell is true with people as well. You can’t motivate them if they don’t want to be motivated. But you’re the boss, so what can you do? 

“First, you need to identify the signs of a person on the verge of burnout. Then you must create the atmosphere that encourages these non-performing employees to refresh and motivate themselves.” 

Red-Flag Signs of Employee Burnout (David Javitch): 

• Decrease in performance or productivity
• Increase in number of days missed (e.g. sick days)
• Attitude changes
• Comments from co-workers
• Stress reactions (e.g. jittery, short-tempered, disagreeable)
• Tardiness
• Change in lunch/coffee breaks

Once you’ve identified any of the above symptoms, you need to gather information from previous performance reviews, managers or supervisors. “Determine if this situation is a trend or just a blip in performance,” says Javitch. “In either case, you need to intervene as follows: 

1.Meet with the individual. Begin by asking the employee his or her perception of their performance or productivity. Then based on your data and observations, share your specific views of the change in productivity and attitude.

2. Identify previous motivators (the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior). Determine which factors are no longer present and/or determine which ones no longer work as motivators.

3. Identify new motivators. Frederick Herzberg, whose writings of workplace psychology in the 1950s and 60s is still heavily relied upon today, offers the following most commonly used and effective motivators:

• First, identify areas where the individual can experience a sense of achievement, such as accomplishing a task, finishing a report, meeting with colleagues or creating new ideas.
• Next, be certain to recognize and reward the individual for a job well done or work in progress. This form of positive feedback usually encourages increased performance and therefore the individual receives even greater recognition or comment from you, the boss.
• Provide opportunities for personal or professional growth on the job. This can be accomplished through attendance at seminars or workshops or by observing other employees in other jobs. In addition, by creating a concrete career pathway (a plan for future career growth), you can motivate this person to strive toward the next job or position in your organization.
• Ensure that you're providing appropriate amounts of guidance and supervision so the employee knows exactly what's expected. Also, ensure the communication between the two of you is frequent enough, appropriate and adequate to ensure the employee knows exactly what the road to success looks like. You might discover that the current job is too challenging or perhaps not challenging enough to maintain the person's interest and productivity.
• Try rotating or exchanging the job responsibilities between several employees. This form of cross-training injects fresh, new energy and challenges into the daily job performance.
• And finally, try expanding the breadth and depth of responsibilities. This too can energize the individual who is not feeling challenged.” 

Following the above steps can help you and the employee figure out how well he/she fits into his/her role in the business. Not only will your employee feel valued by you, he/she will feel more motivated, seek more job satisfaction and become more productive. And of course, you don’t have to lose a good worker you intend to keep.