How to Turn Disruption into Opportunity by Addressing Employee Burnout

As questions of requiring vaccinations to return to site, and hybrid work models are top of mind and will be well into 2022, most employers are far from breathing a sigh of relief. No one has the luxury of thinking, we got through a tough year and we’re resilient so we don’t have to worry about burnout. Future-ready business models continue to change as frequently as they are implemented, sometimes before.

In the wake of the pandemic, an unprecedented number of workers are still managing ongoing disruptions caused by hybrid return to site and remote work along with health concerns and caretaking demands as we face a new surge.

With the terms The Great American Burnout and The Great Resignation beginning to dominate media headlines, it’s more important than ever to understand what contributes to employee well-being and productivity and assess and mitigate the chronic risk of burnout.

Burnout leads to higher costs and turnover. An estimated 89% of employees say that their workplace well-being is declining and 41% of the global workforce is weighing leaving their current employer this year.

Sweeping global changes still weigh heavily on people with 52% of the workforce seeing an increase in burnout and 20% expected to suffer from PTSD. 1 in 3 adults have symptoms of anxiety—of those adults, 60% have both anxiety and depression.

The statistics are staggering. The reality is, the impact doesn’t just go away once all-hands-on-deck emergencies have slowed down and you’re seeing signs of progress. If employers are not prioritizing organizational resilience strategies to support employees who are still managing burnout when they need it the most, you’re headed for a powerful reckoning. One that will negatively impact your bottom line.

Here’s what you may not know: meQuilibrium is a system for resilient growth that utilizes 4 strategic pillars of organizational resilience to help individuals, managers, and teams to have the right plan at the right time.

1. Risk Detection and Intervention: 90% of our healthcare spend is on mental health and related chronic conditions, and stress-related disorders. Given the magnitude of risk factors today you need a system that identifies and triages people based on their level of risk and delivers the right resources at the right time.
2. Primary Preparedness: In today’s business climate with the constant overload and transformation, it’s critical to empower the workforce with a universal, primary set of skills to protect and prepare. Organizations that succeed in optimizing asynchronous skills that optimize potential—empathy, focus, problem-solving, and self-focus—create a herd immunity effect and a critical mass of understanding and awareness. By providing the right tools that emphasize psychological safety, empathy, and self-care, burnout loses its grip and gives way to lasting employee well-being.
3. Cultural Commitment: Your organization's work culture and desired behaviors are mutually reinforcing. Communication, trust, and performance are the linchpin. The more successfully you incorporate an organization-wide commitment to the power of resilience, the more successful your leaders will be.
4. Analytics & Insights: Deep data analysis and validated insights are the keys to assessing and monitoring impairments such as work-life balance, isolation, grief, and trauma. Organizations and leaders benefit from enterprise-wide, real-time predictive, meQuilibrium analytics and insights that spotlight what’s going on with people. Your people. The more you know about strategic subpopulations that have increased risk in terms of change readiness, empathy, and confidence, the more your organization is living its mission and values.

The difference between organizations that turn burnout risks into opportunities is their mindset. Reaching positive outcomes means mitigating the chronic risks of burnout on an individual and organizational level. By measuring progress, then repeating those steps to build momentum you become a consistent support system for employees in a world of constant flux.

When you set people up for success and protect them from the consequences of not adapting, it’s a win-win that reduces the impacts of burnout through the science of organizational resilience. Organizations that don’t risk making the same costly mistakes that take them farther from progress.

If getting ahead of burnout and the science of organizational resilience aligns with your strategy, reach out to a meQuilibrium specialist. We’re here to help you leverage your ability to predict, prevent, and protect against burnout with unmatched business intelligence.