Your Team Is Burned Out, and You Didn’t Know?
This is fine. Everything’s OK. Right?
Senior managers are often the last to know that their loyal team of high performing star-players is on its knees and desperate for respite and change. Their output is 'fine', projects run relatively smoothly, they don’t complain, they don’t bring you problems and the clients are generally happy. What’s the issue?
Well, if you’re reading this, there’s a chance that despite things being ‘fine’ you’re worried that your team might be showing signs of burnout, and you want to know if there’s something relatively painless you can do to avoid it (or fix it).
The short answer is yes, there’s plenty you can do about it. But you’ll have to do more than just read a blog post and actually take some action.
Just in case you’re not familiar with the measures and indicators that can help avoid such situations, then let me at least press upon you the basic principles to take away:
The work you take on has to match the capacity you have available to do it properly without damaging your people;
You need to understand what it looks like when commitments don’t match capacity (and it’s not about whether you make targets or meet standards);
You have to accept the reasons why that situation might have come about;
You need to understand what you can do to fix it;
You then have to do those things and make sure the situation doesn’t arise again.
When your commitments start to exceed your team’s ability to meet them, you may see the following signs:
More short-notice or deep-and-meaningful conversations with customers and clients than usual;
Re-negotiation on timeframes for project milestones – whether or not they actually result in changed deadlines;
Re-work, returns, loss, queries and errors;
Clients increasingly taking liberties and expecting more of you for no extra cost or time;
Raised eyebrows from team members at the mention of new projects or the detail within them;
Small grievances between team members and corrective measures related to performance;
Atypical requests for personal accommodations on hours, workload or deadlines;
Increased staff turnover and absenteeism.
If you feel you’ve seen more than two of these things happening in a six-month period, your team is likely to be under capacity for the current workload and is probably already suffering. And, rather than complaining, they’re quietly hoping that you’ll take notice and make changes before things get serious.
The point here is that you cannot assume that staff will bring these problems to you; you need to keep your eyes peeled.
Here are some of the reasons why these things can happen:
You have more hours committed to projects or activities than you have staff hours and FTEs;
People are working on tasks because they are available rather than because they’re the best person to do them;
You probably have unfilled vacant positions after staff have moved on;
Clients and customers feel able to squeeze more from you than you offered.
So why have those things come about?
You (as the senior manager) don’t actually know what those FTE figures currently are and you’re either making an incorrect estimation or working from old information when planning workloads;
You haven’t nailed the specific task timeframes for the project, or (again) you’re guesstimating or working from old information;
You’re grabbing at projects and clients (for whatever reason) rather than managing an optimal workload in a sustainable workplace.
And what can happen if you don’t address your capacity gap?
Quality will eventually decline (something that clients / customers will always refer to more quickly than your previously awesome reputation);
Someone else will pop-up in your sector to take advantage of your misfortune, and they’ll take your work, even if they aren’t the most skilled or experienced option;
You’ll cut costs and grab at less prestigious work for less money;
Your bare-bones operation will be left open to risks and threats, and be even less stable;
Staff morale will spiral downward, and people will exit if they’re able, further diminishing capacity;
Those who can’t exit will suffer, sometimes to a tragic extent.
Yes, that’s the worst-case scenario, but worst-case doesn’t mean least-likely. When we don’t fix a known problem, that’s the direction in which we inevitably start to slide.
The thing you can do immediately to help address this is to take the time to measure some specifics and quantify the picture as it is right now, not as it was in some golden period before a global pandemic.
Start with the basic measures of your staff capacity: what are your FTEs, and are all your key positions filled?
Then quantify your existing commitments: how many FTEs and exactly which skills are currently assigned to projects, and for how long?
Then compare your capacity to your commitments.
If this gives you the heebie-jeebies (and it will), you’ll need to determine the following:
Do you have unfilled vacancies? If so, why? How long have they been unfilled? Why has it taken so long to get somebody in the post? Is there an alternative option that can help with capacity until it’s filled?
If you have no unfilled vacancies, have skills and time been assigned to the committed projects correctly? If they have, are there just too many projects happening at once? Why is that?
Or, are some clients over-stepping the service that’s been agreed, introducing un-contracted tasks and new requirements that absorb more than the agreed contracted time? Do they load their internal operational problems and directorial whims onto you and treat you like an in-house team of their own? At what point will you refer them to your contract and re-negotiate? Do you need help with that? Do you know where to get it?
If you’re not missing deadlines or quality targets despite the mismatch between capacity and commitment, who’s doing all that work? When? How??
Do you use additional contract / freelance capacity when things are busy? If not, why?
Is there a single point of failure or stress that’s causing staff turnover and reduced capacity? If there is one, you’ll probably already know all about it. So why haven’t you nailed it? Do you need help with that? Do you know where to get it?
As a senior manager, you need to be the one to think about these. But if you find yourself at this point, you can guarantee that the team you think might be burning out will already know the answers. So speak to them. I can help.
Your HR team will also have a whole pile of objective data that can help with these tasks, but there’s also external support from people like myself to help develop meaningful measures and work with you and your teams to make them work.
The worst kind of data to look at when you’re wondering about burnout is whether your team is performing as expected. There are too many damaged people delivering good work, and that’s an enormous societal and generational issue. For some, this unnecessary part of modern work culture has resulted in tragic outcomes.
Now you know some of the early signs of burnout, a few of its causes and even a couple of basic fixes, you should really elect to be part of the solution.