Why Employee Engagement Won’t Solve Burnout
Many employees in the modern workplace report feeling overworked, stressed, and emotionally drained. Burnout is expensive, and companies are scrambling to find solutions to help keep employees happy and productive in their jobs.
If you are a manager or a leader, you may have heard about the concept of employee engagement. Employee engagement is gaining popularity as a potential solution to workplace burnout. The idea is simple: if you engage employees more deeply, they will be more committed to their jobs, more productive, and less susceptible to burnout. But is employee engagement on its own enough to solve the problem of burnout?
The truth is that it’s not that simple.
Highly engaged employees can actually have a very high risk of experiencing burnout. A 2015 study by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence discovered that both high engagement and burnout were present in 18.8% of employees surveyed.
Fast forward to 2024 where high burnout rates have almost doubled to 37% and more than half of employees report feeling burned out at work. We can see that despite the employee engagement efforts of recent years, and an increase in awareness and efforts toward mental health, we have an even bigger divide to bridge
However, when it comes to passion at work, it is very possible to have too much of a good thing.
Habits of engaged employees that can lead to burnout:
1. Not setting boundaries.
Being completely devoted to a job can make it very difficult to set boundaries. In our highly individualistic culture, setting boundaries can bring up feelings of guilt or shame, or a fear of being perceived incompetent if we can’t be the hero who completes a task entirely on our own.
2. Never logging off completely.
Practices like working long hours, foregoing breaks, and staying connected to our devices even on evenings and weekends have become normal in many organizations. But normal does not necessarily mean healthy. When we refuse to log off completely, we’re more likely to push through exhaustion and ignore the warning signs that we are heading toward burnout.
3. Neglecting their identity outside of work.
Complete devotion to a job can mean that other parts of our lives, like relationships, hobbies and exercise, can fall to the wayside. The more our identity becomes tied up in our work, the more likely we are to work rather than engage in another type of activity.
4. Never feeling good enough.
Do you feel like your best work is never good enough? If so, you might be dealing with perfectionism. Perfectionists set incredibly high and often unrealistic standards for themselves, and are disappointed when they fail to achieve the impossible. The relentless pursuit of perfection creates a vicious cycle of stress, disappointment, and working even harder.
While the habits of individual employees contribute to burnout, the organizational environment also plays a huge role in employees’ mental health.
Organizational practices that nudge engage employees toward burnout:
1. Expecting Constant Connectivity.
Leaders and managers who send and respond to work messages after hours set a precedent that this behavior is expected. Similarly, when leaders fail to use their vacation time, it creates an environment where employees feel they must always be plugged into work.
2. Unrealistic expectations.
Organizations that are trying to grow, or struggling to stay afloat, might set mission-critical goals for their top-performing employees. But if employees don’t have the time or resources necessarily to get the job done, they can quickly feel stressed and overloaded, and see quitting their job as the only solution.
3. lack of transparency.
Organizational transparency means that managers and leaders are open about organizational goals, expectations, and overall direction. When there is a lack of transparency, employees are unsure whether and how their work is aligned with the broader organization. This can create confusion, frustration, and anxiety for employees, and over time they may come to feel disillusioned and undervalued.
4. Lack of Manager Interpersonal Skills.
Effective management requires a high degree of interpersonal skills like empathy, active listening, and feedback. Managers who lack these kinds of skills will be less effective at recognizing when their team members are approaching burnout and working with them to develop a plan of action.
Burnout is a complex problem that happens as a result of the interplay between personal and organizational factors. It’s a problem with no quick fix or one-size-fits-all solution.
At True Measure, we help high-achieving leaders overcome burnout through personalized, sustainable and realistic practices that help prepare the mind and body for success. We’d love to help you too!
