Checklist: How to Prevent Employee Burnout

Burnout is a rapidly growing problem for employees and their employers in all industries, especially since the onset of the pandemic. For employees, burnout leads to reduced work performance, decreased job satisfaction and low morale. The result is low employee retention and reduced output, which can prove to be costly for the businesses they work for.

Almost half of all employees report being at least somewhat burned out, according to a Deloitte survey. PeopleReady has created a checklist for your business to help you reduce stress and combat burnout among your workforce.

•  Encourage and practice a team-based environment. 
•  Make work expectations clear to all employees, with clearly defined paths for success. 
• Ensure all employees have the proper resources and skills to achieve these expectations. 
• Hold ongoing training to make sure employees stay involved and feel prepared to do their job. 
• Train management to recognize signs of burnout among their staff. 
• Give management tools to address burnout such as allowing flexible work schedules, changing shifts or redistributing tasks. 
• Open lines of communication for feedback and take action on it, especially repeated patterns among the responses. 
• Help employees understand their value and how their work helps achieve the organization’s overall goals. 
• Highlight employees’ strengths and try to incorporate those into their everyday work. 
• Create incentive programs to recognize and reward employees who go above and beyond. 
• Encourage physical activity throughout the day, such as a 5-minute stretch break every few hours. 
• When possible, make sure there are enough employees on the floor. Employees feeling overwhelmed or working too much overtime can quickly lead to burnout. 
• Enlist the help of a staffing partner if you are having trouble filling open positions or motivating employees.