How can burnout be prevented by HR?
HR Professionals are worried about the emergence of new technologies due to which the workers have to be trained. Businesses have to provide training to workers to sustain themselves, and it’s not so easy. The companies have to upskill employees because they have to adapt to changing circumstances, such as more customers moving to digital buying mode. The companies are increasing the number of employees who are devoted to L&D. But there are not so many such resources available in the market. Hence, HR professionals have to search thoroughly for such professionals, which is time-consuming.
Moreover, new software can help HR employees create pay stubs for employees and even schedule them for onboarding training.
How to help HR?
They have to get such software implemented due to which document management can become an automated task. Small organizations are even facing a tougher job because their employees leave so easily when they get better opportunities.
Why employees are quitting jobs?
Companies are acknowledging the reality of The Great Resignation due to which employees are quitting jobs. The Great Resignation is majorly happening among those employees who have more than the survival salary and are in their mid-career phase. So, quitting jobs does not mean that these employees won’t have any money left to pay the bills.
Employees are also leaving jobs because they have to put in more hours at work due to remote jobs. They have been working on weekends also, almost 70% of them. However, companies have no option but to allow employees to work remotely due to the pandemic. But layoffs in 2020 are also the reason due to which workers have been devoting extra hours.
A Microsoft study (Work Trend Index survey by Edelman Data x Intelligence in January 2021) has revealed that 73% of current employees want flexible work options. Employees have realized now that they can’t go back to work from office schedules, which involve long commuting hours and a fixed timeline. Also, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that companies can easily handle the work-from-home option for employees with time tracking tools.
Hence, companies have to adopt a feasible hybrid model by asking their employees. Apart from that, they have to ensure that remote employees even have wellness programs devised for them, and they must be enrolled at regular intervals.
How to detect that you have a burnout?
There are many signs of a burnout, which are as follows:
No interest in work: If you don’t feel like starting work in the morning, you are suffering from burnout. Even when you have started work, you might have trouble concentrating on it.
Physical issues: If you can’t sleep properly at night or have headaches, then these are also symptoms of burnout.
There are many reasons behind a burnout, one of which is circumstantial, which includes an employee feeling frustrated with his work because he has been asked to do the job of another colleague who has left.
Solution
It means that you are in urgent need of a break because you are overworked. It’s better that you take a long break, at least for a week. But if your office isn’t allowing it, then you require a prescription for it from the doctor. In 2020, also, 25% of the employees gave up on their vacation time because layoffs were very high and some of them had to substitute for others.
The other set of reasons is structural. This means that your current job profile or industry is not about supporting staff health, but only about getting results from you. For example, if they are making you work on weekends or holidays, then it’s time for a job change.
Solution:
This means that it’s better to look for another job.
The third reason is skill set related. It could be true that your skill sets are not aligned with your job. Hence, you are stressed because you have to attune your skills to the job, which necessitates re-skilling all the time. If you are not naturally good at something you do, then you might be putting in more hours to yield results, which also causes burnout.
Solution:
You will indeed have to get another job because otherwise you will always be stuck in a job without getting any growth.
How can Great Resignation be stopped?
Employees want work-from-home, apart from a lesser number of workdays in a week. When a survey by the investment firm Jefferies was conducted for employees leaving their jobs, two major reasons, a four-day workweek (31.6%) and lack of a raise(42.8%) were found. However, the rest of the employees didn’t quote any reason to leave the job. It’s true that in this survey, it was discovered that a major reason for the voluntary turnover of the employees was the large number of layoffs that happened in 2020. Hence, a four-day work schedule is an ideal way to prevent burnout because the remaining employees are already working for laid-off employees too. The companies might feel that working for only 4 days a week means lesser productivity, which is not true because in Iceland when such a scheme was implemented, productivity rose.