Tired of Being Tired? The Way Out of Burn Out.

Someone asks if you can (fill in the blank). You look at your calendar. That hour is open. You say, “yes.” You forgot that hour was designed for something you’ve been meaning to do, for yourself. You’re angry (with yourself) for forgetting. You promise to do better tomorrow.

The next day… repeat.

The only way I know out of tired-induced-people-pleasing is to set boundaries and stick to them. And this is hard, for me.

Examples of boundaries: Putting an hour in your calendar during the day to exercise; blocking 30-minutes between meetings to work; limiting one day each weekend to kids’ sports. Boundaries are parameters that guide our behavior. Putting a boundary in place doesn’t mean saying no. Boundaries create the conditions that tell us, without struggle, when to say yes.

Before I had my son, I traveled for work constantly. Some weeks I was on the road for six consecutive days, in three different states. And I loved every second of it. Audience + microphone = happiness. When I had a child, I knew that schedule wasn’t going to work. So, I set boundaries. I decided how many nights per week I would travel, the time I needed to be home from each trip, and how many hours I was willing to fly. And I didn’t violate those boundaries for 8 years. If a piece of work would require me to violate my travel boundaries, I said no without struggle, no matter how much I wanted to do that piece of work. The boundaries made the decisions easy. There was no deliberating or debating.

I’ll admit, I’m not as effective as setting boundaries in other areas of my life. Last week, I had a yoga class on my calendar. When I learned a repair person was able to be at my house during that hour, the yoga class was quickly deleted from my calendar. Yesterday, I asked my son what he wanted for breakfast, before flag football. He wanted scrambled eggs and a smoothie. I made both, knowing there wasn’t time. We were late for flag football. What was missing in both situations? Boundaries.

How does this apply to work? The key to preventing tired, burnt-out employees is to make it safe to speak up. As I wrote earlier in the year, burnout is a systemic issue, not a personal one. Burnout at work comes from too much to do, over time. One way out – make it safe to tell the truth at work.

For the most part, no one wants to admit to their boss that they are overextended or overwhelmed. Doing so feels like failure, and who wants to admit failure? If you want employees who are energized versus exhausted, focus on making it safe to tell the truth at work.

Five ways to make it safe to tell the truth at work:

• Leaders and managers share their own truth. See the top of this blog for what that could sound like.
• Ask employees meaningful questions. “How’s it going?” is not a meaningful question. Try: “What are your preferred working hours? What times a day would you prefer not to be contacted?”
• Show appreciation when employees risk and say hard things.
• Reward the truth. Make employees who are willing to say hard things a positive example.
• Help employees problem solve to manage their time and priorities. Be ‘in it’ with them.

The good news about violating boundaries is you will get another chance to do it differently tomorrow. You can always reset a boundary. This time, tell the other people in your life about your boundaries. Tell your coworkers if you don’t do happy hours after meetings, 7:00 am Zoom calls, and back-to-back meetings, and tell them why. Then offer an alternative. Everything in life is a negotiation.

Retain Employees by Setting Clear Expectations

Leaders and managers work hard to retain employees. Employees watch how their organization’s leaders and managers work, and often make career decisions based on the hours the most senior people keep. 

Employees pay attention to how often managers and senior leaders take time off and whether or not leaders attend meetings and respond to emails while they’re on vacation. Employees observe the late nights that leaders and managers put in and the emails sent at 11:00 pm and on the weekends. I’ve heard lots of employees say, “If I need to work like my boss works to get ahead in this organization, I’m not interested.”

Managers, one of the keys to retaining employees is to communicate expectations. If you’re available while you’re on vacation, but don’t expect employees to do the same, set that expectation. If you send an email outside of regular business hours but don’t expect employees to respond until the next business day, tell them so. They don’t know. Many employees assume that if you email them at night, you expect a reply.

Microsoft has made these situations easy to avoid, with the ability to program emails to go out during regular business hours. And some people state in their email signatures, “I work outside of regular business hours, but don’t expect you to.”

Instead of allowing employees to make assumptions about what managers do and don’t expect, set clear expectations. Be overt and clear. When you hire employees, tell them, “I work most evenings and weekends, but don’t expect you to do so. And I work these hours because I enjoy it, not because I have to. If I email you outside of regular business hours, I am not expecting you to reply.” Retaining good employees begins during the interview process when initial expectations are set.

Managers, if you expect employees to check and respond to emails outside of regular business hours and to be available while on vacation, tell candidates during the interview process.

Employees, if your manager emails you outside of regular business hours and doesn’t tell you whether or not she expects you to reply, ask. Simply say, “I often receive emails outside of regular business hours. How will I know when you need me to reply?” Likewise, if you notice your manager emails you on vacation, you can say, “I typically hear from you when you’re on vacation. Are you expecting me to check in while I’m off?”

The need to ask questions and set expectations goes both ways. Don’t wait to be told. Ask.

Managers and employees, ask these Candor Questions about working style preferences to aid in retaining employees:

• How do you feel about being contacted outside of regular business hours?
• If I need to reach you over a weekend or in the evening, what method is best?
• Would you prefer I text you so you don’t have to check your email outside of business hours?
• What time is too early and too late to call, text, and/or email?

Ask more. Assume less and make retaining employees easier.

You Can’t Yoga Your Way Out of Burnout – How to Really Prevent Burnout

Yoga, wellness programs, and mindfulness will not prevent or eliminate burnout. Burnout is an organizational issue. If you want to prevent and eliminate burnout, focus on your organization, not individuals.

Burnout comes from a lack of role clarity and employees feeling like they can’t be successful at work, either because they consistently have more work than can be done in a regular work week or because they work for a manager who is a perfectionist, and nothing is ever good enough. Employees who constantly feel pressured at work or feel like they’re failing, regardless of the amount or level of work they produce, are susceptible to burnout.

Have you ever gone on vacation, had a relaxing time, and two days after you returned to your regular life, forgot all about that vacation? That’s like burnout. When the yoga class or vacation is over, you go back to your job with unrealistic expectations. Nothing has been solved.

Companies try to make employees’ experience more manageable with programs and perks, but what employees really need is a manager who clarifies roles so everyone knows who does what, helps employees manage their workload, and creates open relationships so employees feel comfortable saying when they’re overwhelmed.

Train your managers to do these three things to prevent and reduce burnout:

1. Clarify roles so people know what they’re accountable for and to eliminate redundancy. It’s very frustrating to feel overwhelmed, only to find that someone else on your team or in another department is working on the same project as you.
2. Manage workload and set realistic deadlines. If an employee regularly has more to do than can be done in a 40-hour work week, eliminate something – change deadlines, reallocate work, and evaluate if everything being done is necessary. If you can’t eliminate a project, evaluate if it can be scaled back. Is every bell or whistle necessary?

3. Create an atmosphere of psychological safety so employees are comfortable asking for help prioritizing work. Most employees suffer in silence until they’re so overwhelmed and exhausted, they quit. Finding employees’ resumes circulating on LinkedIn is predictable and thus preventable.

• • You can get employees talking by scheduling a short, weekly debrief – 10 minutes – of what’s working and not working.
  • Help employees prioritize responsibilities by assigning each priority a letter – A, B, or C – in order of urgency.
  • Ensure there are no consequences for sounding the alarm of needing help. Word gets around. If an employee is penalized for asking for help, other employees will learn not to do the same.

Allocate work to allow employees to be successful, focus on the projects that really matter and eliminate the rest, and create an organization in which it’s safe to tell the truth. That will solve burnout.