It’s bad enough when one employee is experiencing burnout, but much worse when a whole team does! Learn more about team burnout and how the ActivTrak approach can help you beat it.
According to an Indeed survey, 52% of all workers are feeling burnt out and two-thirds of workers believe that burnout has only increased over the course of the pandemic. Individual employee burnout is concerning, but team burnout can be just as detrimental to your organization’s success. It’s essential for managers to recognize team burnout when it’s happening, determine the cause, and take early steps to remedy the situation.
We know that data-driven insights are key when it comes to dealing with many workforce issues that arise, especially burnout. Let’s discuss what team burnout is, learn what team burnout signs look like, and explore how the ActivTrak approach can help you avoid team burnout in your organization.
Choose where to start:
- What is Team Burnout?
- The Difference Between Employee Burnout and Team Burnout
- How Team Burnout Negatively Impacts Team Performance
- How to Prevent Team Burnout
- ActivTrak Can Help Teams Get Back on Track
What is Team Burnout?
Team burnout is a state of chronic stress and disengagement among employees on a team. It’s often caused by prolonged periods of a large workload or elevated stress from high expectations such as aggressive deadlines or goals that are difficult to achieve. When a team pushes beyond their normal capacity for an extended period of time, they may become disengaged from their work and start showing signs of burnout.
Signs of Team Burnout
Much like causes will vary by team and organization, signs may also differ. However, a few common signs of team burnout are:
- Missed deadlines across multiple assignments, projects, and teams
- A decline in high-quality work from your teams
- An increase in employees working long hours, or a decrease in work hours and taking more time off
- Lack of communication, collaboration, and feedback from team members
- Redundant work across roles and other inefficiencies
If you notice any of these burnout signs within your team or an individual employee, you should immediately take action for the well being of the individuals and others who may become burned out if left unaddressed.
What's the Difference Between Employee Burnout and Team Burnout?
Employee burnout is when a single employee feels stress, exhaustion and disengagement from their role. Team burnout occurs when multiple employees on a team experience burnout at the same time.
In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognized employee burnout as an occupational phenomenon and syndrome. They define employee burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It results in low energy and exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s role, and lower job efficacy.
Gallup reports that employees who are frequently burnt out are 63% more likely to take sick days, more likely to visit the emergency room, and 2.6 times as likely to seek out a different job. All of this disengagement, even from just one employee, can negatively affect a company’s bottom line and overall culture.
You may notice burnout starts in an individual employee, but the issues can quickly manifest in the rest of your team members if work stresses don’t improve. When symptoms of burnout are detected early enough, you can work directly with the employee to cut off burnout at the source.
In many cases, team burnout is a sign that there are deeply-rooted, organization-wide issues that must be addressed in order to get team members re-engaged and back on track.
How Team Burnout Negatively Impacts Team Performance
Individual burnout is bad enough, so you can imagine how damaging it can be when three people, five people, or even ten people all experience burnout at once.
When team burnout spreads, organizations put their entire team’s health and well-being at risk. Burnout can trigger gastrointestinal issues and contribute to heart disease, plus it even leads to nearly 120,000 deaths each year. It’s also estimated that burnout can cost organizations between $125 billion and $190 billion every year in healthcare costs. From a mental health perspective, burnout is also closely linked with depression and anxiety. These statistics reveal just how much team burnout can significantly affect team members’ personal lives.
In the workplace, team burnout can lead to a severe decline in confidence, workforce productivity, and engagement for your organization. In fact, a recent WHO study found that companies could stand to lose $1 trillion due to productivity losses caused by team burnout. Disengagement leads to lower employee satisfaction and retention, fewer meaningful customer relationships, and less success for your business overall. A case of team burnout cannot go ignored, so managers must roll up their sleeves and figure out where the problem lies and how to fix it. That’s where employee and team activity data comes in.
How To Prevent Team Burnout
When it comes to team burnout, the best course of action is always data-driven decision-making. The ActivTrak platform offers a streamlined burnout solution that gives managers the insights they need to make effective changes to their work environment and eliminate team burnout.
Our burnout risk analysis feature analyzes workload balance, and includes in-depth data on working hours, utilization summaries, and employee productivity trends so you can pinpoint who is at risk of burnout and needs more support. This visibility allows managers to recognize early signs of burnout before they spread, identify the root causes of burnout, and swiftly make changes to address the issues.
With the ActivTrak approach, managers will be able to better understand productivity and employee engagement trends for their teams, whether they are in a remote, in-person, or hybrid work environment. ActivTrak also enables managers to become effective coaches for their employees, arming them with the data-driven insights they need to check in effectively with their burnt-out team members and build the right path forward. Team members can also gain insight into their own work habits and collaborate with their managers to prevent or mitigate team burnout together.
ActivTrak Can Help Teams Get Back on Track
Finding out how to help your team with burnout can be a difficult task. In order to ensure that your organization is successful and prioritize your team members’ physical health and mental health, stay alert for team burnout signs and take action as soon as they appear. With ActivTrak’s workforce analytics software, you’ll gain full visibility into your team’s dynamics and unlock key insights that will help you manage and mitigate team burnout.
Pro-Tips
- Team burnout may look similar to employee burnout, but the effects are much more severe and can indicate deeper issues in your organization.
- Keep an eye out for team burnout signs— missed deadlines, exhaustion, and high disengagement.
A workforce analytics platform with a data-driven approach can make detecting and addressing team burnout faster, easier, and more streamlined.