CEO & Founder of Grokker, the innovative engagement engine powering life-changing employee and business results for Fortune 1000 companies.
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From department heads to frontline managers, team leaders are in the trenches with employees who are weary after over a year and a half of weathering change and disruption. Delayed return-to-office plans, evolving mask mandates and vaccine policies, and shifting corporate messaging regarding remote work expectations have resulted in uncertainty around what the new norms will be. As a result, workers’ pandemic fatigue is compounding with frustration and, unfortunately for employers, ambivalence about sticking with their current jobs. It’s not an easy time to be a people manager.
Employers are up against two interlocking crises today: employee burnout and job flight. According to a recent Gallup analysis, 74% of employees say they experience burnout on the job. A Robert Half survey finds 44% of employees are more burned out on the job today compared to a year ago. With burnout heating up significantly, alarm bells should be ringing for managers, who need to be aware that 70% of employees are prepared to leave their organization for one offering better resources to reduce burnout.
It’s no coincidence that U.S. employers are grappling with record-high quit rates and unfilled positions — while 48% of the country’s workers are actively job searching or watching for new opportunities.
In order to cope with this general malaise and continuing burnout trend, workers today are at constant risk of going AWOL. What’s a manager to do?
Don’t let quitting become the de facto form of self-care for burnout.
Let’s turn back to the Gallup analysis, which reveals that workers with a very low likelihood of experiencing burnout have three things in common: 1) they are engaged at work, 2) they have high well-being and 3) they work in cultures that celebrate their strengths. But the real difference-maker is something far simpler: their managers. It is their managers who help them feel valued and supported, help them make their work fit better into their current life situation by allowing adjustments (especially when challenges arise) and inspire a sense of shared purpose and camaraderie.
At times like these, it’s the day-to-day manager who can keep an employee from burning out or stop a job search in its tracks, and they can do it without a magic wand. It’s a matter of showing authentic care and concern for employees, leveraging the personal edge of the professional relationship to connect with people as human beings and providing resources that empower them to feel their best.
The cost of not caring in our present job market is voluntary turnover. Citing Gallup research in a piece for Inc., leadership expert Marcel Schwantes answers the question of why turnover is so high: “Here we are in 2021 in the middle of a pandemic, and organizations continue to get it wrong. We've heard this tune before: People leave managers, not companies.” Indeed, the Work Institute finds (bad) manager behavior among the top three reasons people leave their jobs. One more proof point: A survey from The Predictive Index found that 63% of employees rating their managers as “terrible” or “not-so-great” are thinking of quitting in the next year, while only 27% of those with “world-class” or “good” managers said the same.
Rally the troops with empathy.
While “bad” managers surely lack more than empathy — and empathy doesn’t give a manager a fast pass to the “good” column — the concept of empathic leadership is storming the modern workplace in sensitive, heartwarming bursts. The pandemic changed the way people regard empathy: They need and want it, and therefore expect it from their employers. As it turns out, the act of caring is a tonic for more than just burnout.
There’s no longer any excuse not to embrace the care-for-your-people management approach. While scores of old-school leaders are still playing catch up (particularly on Wall Street) to the new requirements of workplace empathy in creating high-performance cultures, employees are voting in record numbers with their feet and on job review sites, costing corporations good will and talent. Businessolver’s 2021 State of Workplace Empathy report, in fact, reveals that “68% of CEOs say they fear they will be less respected if they show empathy in the workplace,” a sentiment that translates into only 1 in 4 employees believing there is sufficient empathy in their organizations.
Managers, more than CEOs, can bridge the disconnect by developing an innate capacity to read, understand and share the feelings of their employees — and can make a difference in their people’s work experience and willingness to stay when times are hard. Empathy is a soft management skill that delivers hard results, but it must be modeled from the top down and requires both coaching and resources like any other business practice.
State the obvious.
The first step is stating the obvious out loud: These are hard times. All of us (yes, managers, too!) are at least somewhat anxious about the continuing uncertainties inherent in the return to work, and we’re possibly feeling burnout and struggling to cope with stress related to our health, family caretaking and the hustle of balancing work and life. That’s why — here’s the next step — you are giving employees tools to take care of themselves and feel connected to their colleagues and why you plan to continue to say and show that you care.
Empower them with resources.
People managers have the influence to shape their teams’ experience, bring out individuals’ strengths and motivate them to show up as their best selves, but they can’t go it alone. Employers need to arm them with the tools to act — to communicate effectively and show their support with programs that help them fight burnout and keep them engaged.
Fostering community is possibly the most powerful demonstration of care. Initiatives that connect frontline managers and employees with one another and with their unique personal well-being goals are key to keeping employees engaged and happy at work and showing that they are cared for in a way that is genuine and impactful.
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