No one is safe from burnout. Creatives eventually run out of juice, skilled workers end up exhausted, and entrepreneurs may run out of ideas and thus causing their businesses to stagnate. While burnout is a reality for people of all walks of life, women in particular are suffering more than others.
McKinsey and LeanIn.org’s most recent Women in the Workplace report reveals that 42% of female corporate workers felt burnt out in the past few months. This is seven points higher than the statistics for the corporate men involved in the survey, 35% of which have reportedly suffered burnout.
Why Do More Women Than Men Feel Burnt Out?
Some may assume that women experience the same stresses and pressures that cause them to get burned out as men do, and that the higher percentage from their end has something to do with their biology. This is definitely not the case, as per a report from Harvard Business Review that explores a key reason why more women feel burnout compared to their male colleagues.
The HBR article reveals that, while female employees are burnt out by the same experiences that their male colleagues have gone through, they are more likely than men to fight the burnout. Women managers and leaders, in particular, do so by providing valuable support to their teams and supporting workplace efforts to support diversity equity and inclusivity. These efforts help reduce the possibility of burnout among their employees at their own expense.
This problem is compounded by the issue that not all organisations are doing anything to support their female employees. Work that fights burnout is largely unrecognised or incentivised. This exposes companies to the risk of losing key employees and managers due to burnout, possibly taking the colleagues benefiting from their support with them.
How Companies Can Help Address Employee Burnout
At this point, it is obvious that an organisation has to take action to fight burnout and avoid losing key employees. Managers, especially women in the role, need more focus as they are at the frontlines of fighting burnout among their team. Here are a few ways that their company can do to support their efforts and directly address burnout:
- Recognise manager’s efforts.
Employees in the managerial role take the full brunt of fighting burnout to keep their people happy and performing properly. It is important that their company recognises what they do; even better, they should be rewarded for their efforts. Either way, this lifts their manager’s spirits, alleviating stress and tension and encouraging them to keep up the good work.
- Provide managers with adequate support.
Not all managers are properly equipped to deal with the burnout creeping into their team. This, in itself, accelerates their pace towards getting burned out, so it is essential that their company directly addresses this by providing them the support that they need. They need to be provided with the tools and training to make it easier for them to fight off burnout.
- Set clear working norms.
Work has become more flexible recently, thanks to the normalisation of remote work brought about by the ongoing pandemic. However, the flexibility gave companies the false impression that their employees may be available at any time, resulting in distressing off-hours communications. Companies can keep work from invading their employee’s personal time by setting working norms – that is, limiting work and related communications within reasonable hours and setting realistic response expectations.
As the numbers have shown, women suffer burnout the hardest. They work harder to combat burnout, so it is vital that their organisation step in to provide them the necessary support and keep them from working their spirits to exhaustion.