Can employee recognition reduce burnout?
Burnout this time of year is common but overall levels of work burnout have been increasing year on year. It’s now so prevalent that it’s classified as a diagnosable condition according to the World Health Organization – and that was pre-pandemic.
After living through a pandemic for the last few years, the exhaustion is amplified. Many people are feeling empty, annoyed, unfulfilled and unenthusiastic about things that once made them happy. In a work scenario, many employees are feeling unappreciated and unaccomplished. For some it’s so real they are choosing to quit as a mechanism to change the burnout trajectory.
But could a simple tool like recognition help stem the burnout fuelled despair that leads to great employees walking away from great companies?
According to the experts – the answer is yes.
In this Harvard Business Review article, burnout is described as a product of an imbalance in one or more of six areas of work life.
Those who feel weighed down by their workload, with no opportunity to delegate or pushback, or rest and recover to restore the balance, are prone to complete overwhelm. When an employee knows they are not able to effectively deliver on expectation - even if it is unrealistic - they may feel anything from a sense of disappointment in themselves and others, to severe anxiety about job security or likelihood of a promotion they have been aiming for. They may be hard on themselves for not getting things done or simply lose the propensity to deliver to their usual standards. Whatever it is, nothing about this sense of overload is good for the employee or the company.
The second impact on burnout is a perceived lack of control – and we have all felt that with lockdowns and health mandates changing how we work. It may be your team are lacking a sense of autonomy, they may be feeling the unpredictability of resources and support as we all navigate this new terrain or they may just feel like decisions are being made without their input. Whatever it is, a sense of control is important when it comes to wellbeing.
The third thing that leads to burnout is a disconnect between the effort and energy an employee puts in, and the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards they receive in return. Where these match up, employees are likely to see the value in expending their time and focus. Where they are mismatched, employees start to feel unappreciated and undervalued.
A sense of community is another area that impacts burnout. Trust and psychological safety are often top of the list of things employees look for from a company. They want to feel supported, valued and part of something bigger than themselves, part of a community. While employees often don’t choose their team mates, who they work with on a project or even the other parties involved, they thrive when these groups come together and really listen, value each other’s input and differing views, and have a solid understanding that a unified approach will benefit all.
Another impact on burnout is equitable treatment – or a lack of equity across the board. If an employee is praised for their work, but sees another team member not receive the same appreciation, it can add to the burnout load. Similarly, if an employees does something great and it goes unnoticed, while another person does something similar that gets highlighted and rewarded, their ability to balance out the mental overload is diminished.
And fairness is not just about praise. Employees may feel that someone else constantly gets additional support, resources, time to complete their work, however this is not extended to all. They may feel others take priority for their managers time and input, while their own calls for support are denied. All of this adds to the likelihood that the employee will feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
The final impact is a mismatch in values. Everyone wants to feel their values are reflected by the company they work for. They want their work, the thing they spend 40 hours a week (or way more 🙄) focussing on, to be aligned with their personal values and motivations. Where there is a significant difference, performance can diminish. Our underlying beliefs and values are deeply ingrained and while they can change over time, as can the company’s values, this sense of alignment is fundamental to employees being able to bring their full selves to work.
How does recognition reduce burnout?
A well-designed recognition program is not a one stop shot in the arm to fix everything. There is no vaccine for burnout. However, an effective recognition program does positively address many of the areas that lead to burnout.
Recognition creates a platform for transparent and equitable reward, with great work being highlighted for all to see, regardless of who delivers it. One of the common things that happens with ad-hoc reward is the confident, social team members get high praise as their efforts are often more visible. However, most companies have high performers who are quieter in nature or not as confident talking about their achievements and they get missed when it comes to rewarding.
A formalised recognition program also allows leadership to see gaps in how teams are being appreciated. They can see those that shower their team with suitable reward and those who need a little coaching in how to better value their team.
Recognition builds a deep sense of trust and community. When employees feel valued for the work they are delivering, they feel seen and appreciated. This builds deeper connections between managers and their teams as employees know their discretionary effort will not go unnoticed. They will be more willing to jump in and be part of a solution as they know it is authentically appreciated by leadership. How do they know? They are frequently recognised for similar behaviour and trust this will be repeated.
This is exacerbated with peer-led recognition. Manager recognition is powerful but to some degree – to the cynics – can come with a sense of obligation. Employees may feel their manager ‘had’ to recognise them as they are a manager. When a peer calls out great behaviour discretionarily, with no requirement for them to do so, there is a bond of appreciation that forms between colleagues, contributing to a sense of togetherness. Employees thrive on the sense of community and feel unified in overall objectives.
Recognition moments, when delivered through the right software, are posted for all to see. They are shared on a social wall, published through collaboration tools like Slack or Teams, can be streamed to the company intranet and may even be shared on monitors through worksites. This transparency builds a natural sense of equity into a program with those who are recognising, more cognisant of fairly distributing the praise so those quiet achievers are not inadvertently demotivated. While recognition can’t address workload, resource or deadline equity, it goes a long way to making teams feel equally appreciated and rewarded for their efforts.
Recognition is all about highlighting behaviours that align to company values. it showcases great examples of value-based behaviour and builds an organic understanding of what the values really mean. An employee can see by the moments managers are recognising, what is important and will either look to align with these values, or identify any mismatch.
Recognition makes the true values of the organisation clear for all to see. It makes them more than just words on a wall and brings them to life for employees to connect with. And those that don’t, may be the employees that are misaligned with the company and make the decision to find a culture they feel more in tune with.
As for workload and sense of control, they are a more functional, one-on-one conversation. Addressing prioritisation, delegation and time management for employees who are on the edge can have a significant impact. Burnout, or pre-burnout exhaustion, can deliver a hazy dose of brain fog so sometimes all an employee needs is to sit down with a manager and re-prioritise, see what can be handed off and what can be pushed back. Not only does it help with getting the work done, it will also give the employee a sense of control over their to do list.
Rediscovering a broader sense of control may be a matter of setting some boundaries – for the employee themselves or with others. Those who have a tendency towards perfectionism particularly, might need to set some rules for themselves like not answering emails at 10pm even if they are from the boss, or not taking meetings before 8am. There may also need to be a conversation had with said boss around expectations on responses - but the perceived expectation the employee has may not actually line up with what the boss assumes will happen.
Dan Ariely did an interesting study where he asked senders of emails to categorise their expectation for a reply as either ‘drop everything and answer now’, ‘by the end of the day’ ‘by the end of the week’ or ‘by the end of the month’. He also added in a ‘no response necessary’ category and was surprised that about 20% of people sending an email did not expect a reply at all. So when having these conversations about expectations, it may be more of a communication difference than actual unrealistic expectations.
That being said, allowing each employee the space to define their personal and work time, or clarifying these expectations, can give them a renewed sense of balance and help bring them back from burnout town.
True burnout isn’t just a matter of an employee feeling tired or overwhelmed. It’s much more than that and the solution is more than just a few extra days off. It can also be collective so proactively addressing the contributing factors is good for your team and your business.
And who knows, you may just get recognised for your efforts 😉.
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