How to help your team avoid burnout by managing their own ‘human bank balance’

Mental wellbeing issues are a huge problem for UK plc right now. More than 21 million working days were lost to work-related conditions such as stress, depression or anxiety in 2023/2024, according to the Health and Safety Executive.

Photograph: iStock/JLco Julia Amaral

Those responsible for leading the way on creating safe, healthy and happy work environments, such as C-suite, HR and safety and health practitioners, continue to look at how they can better care for their people. It’s about being a good employer, but it’s also about being a successful business or organisation. Happy, healthy teams are more productive ones.

So, let’s consider the individual at work. We each have a ‘human bank balance’. This is our personal capacity – our energy levels, drive, enthusiasm and emotional wellbeing – that we manage each day as a quantifiable resource. How we draw from and pay into it affects our ability to perform in the different areas of our lives.

And our human bank balance, what I call the ‘Bank of Me’, cannot be easily segmented between the different parts of our lives, such as our work and our family. We have all experienced walking into work after a difficult weekend or morning at home. Then who hasn’t returned home with a dark cloud over their head, put there by something that has happened at work?

Our wellbeing, shaped by many things, not least our experiences at home and in our workplaces, is critical to how we perform, and this has made it a key consideration for employers. The link between wellbeing and productivity is very well documented, but we are seeing more evidence this year of its central importance in how organisations thrive in an uncertain, complicated world.

As with so many work-related issues, opinion is divided over where the responsibility for managing wellbeing in an organisation lies. Maybe this is because wellbeing is such a broad concept. It is generally defined as how people feel about themselves and their lives. It is more than just the absence of illness and is influenced by a person’s physical and mental health. Wellbeing is also about happiness and life satisfaction.

Clues to how organisations are managing workplace wellbeing can be found in the job market. Increasingly, we are seeing adverts for ‘senior health, safety and wellbeing manager’ and ‘health, safety and wellbeing advisor’. From occupational health towards safety, health and wellbeing, we can detect a move to more preventative, proactive strategies for managing the risks associated with low levels of workplace wellbeing, such as sickness and low morale.

There are clues, too, in industry-wide activities. Safety, Health & Wellbeing Live (SHW Live) has become a popular event in the calendar for occupational safety and health professionals.

Many organisations now develop strategies and staff structures for managing safety, health and wellbeing together. Some safety and health practitioners might not agree with it, but preventing accidents at work is now addressed by many employers alongside emotional wellbeing and how happy we are in the workplace.

Jane Sparrow is director at The Culture Builders. Photograph: The Culture Builders

As a reader of Safety Management, this may be you. You are probably advising your leadership team or clients on what many would call a more ‘holistic’ approach to caring for people at work. I work with organisations on leadership, culture and change management, and my conversations with CEOs tell me that workplace wellbeing is very much at the front of their minds. They want to shape a work culture that promotes positive wellbeing. This is when I will often refer to the ‘Bank of Me’ and initiatives they can put in place that boost people’s personal capacity, and productivity.

‘Red’ and ‘black’ zones

And an excellent starting point is to develop an understanding of the things that send us into the ‘red’ with our levels of energy, emotions and enthusiasm, and those that keep us in the ‘black’ and feeling healthy, energised and positive. Things that put us in the red include:

• Lack of purpose
• Sense that we are not valued
• Unhealthy diet
• No exercise
• Stress
• No ability to learn
• Unnecessary conflict
• Distractions
• Lack of sleep
• Worry

Consider that list for a moment. What can you and your organisation do to help your team reduce these issues? Now, consider the things that put us in the black:

• Exciting work
• Great leadership
• Clear direction
• Down-time
• Eating well
• Achievable work
• Supportive teams
• Trust
• Knowing people care
• Learning
• Positive relationships.

Avoiding burnout

Is there anything you can do in your role to encourage these things? To illustrate this, we can look at the advice I give to organisations on how to avoid burnout. Microsoft released data on a global study not so long ago that headlined with the fact that around 50 per cent of employees are viewing themselves as burnt out. Burnout, says the World Health Organization, is “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. It is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, says Mental Health UK. It can occur when you experience long-term stress and feel under constant pressure.

Photograph: iStock/SolStock

You have become permanently overdrawn and you’re in the red every day. Not a nice place to be. So, how can we draw down from that list of good habits above, that put us into the black, to address the issue of burnout? Let’s look at achievable work, down-time and supportive teams. Here are three pieces of advice to weave into your organisational wellbeing strategy and guidance for line managers:

1. Set limits – if your team is working hard, make sure they’re not doing so in damaging ways. Be more mindful to monitor people and watch for the signs of fatigue. Be conscious of workloads – just because people say yes, this doesn’t mean they can actually cope. Core areas, such as physiological wellbeing, focus and motivation are ones to watch closely. Are people taking breaks, are they able to ‘do one thing well’... are they still energised by what you are doing as an organisation? Your managers can play a part, helping people to slow, pause or stop at the right moments – not too many long days, no endless weeks packed with meetings, not too much stress and pressure.
2. Make moments – the Swedish nation gave us the notion of ‘fika’ – quality time with those that are important to us. This might be a ‘group hug’ with a mid-morning cup of coffee. We should never let this slip when times are tough. In fact, this should be dialled up, helping team members to support each other and to feel connected and supported. Your managers can make time for their teams to talk, and do this on both an ad-hoc and a regular basis. Don’t make every meeting about work and be ready for people to use this time to offload how they are feeling. It’s all time well spent.
3. Be kind – this is a simple steer; turn up your empathy and be ready to ask yourself what else is going on for someone. Remember, we often only realise people are going through burnout when they finally hit rock bottom. This is about being more adept at talking about emotions and pushing past the ‘I’m fine’ comment. It is about making people feel safe to talk about motivation and the issues that are dragging it down, checking your own assumptions and giving people more leeway. It’s about simply showing that you care.

These steps alone will not solve all the issues that people are facing around burnout – there are so many factors that we need to work on. However, they will help you to create a team environment that is supportive and inclusive and takes account of how people really are. Consider the ‘Bank of Me’ concept at organisation, team and individual level. Creating a culture and work conditions for healthy, happy teams requires visible leadership, organisation-wide buy-in and a shared responsibility for looking after ourselves and our fellow team members.

A strategy that creates such a culture, managing wellbeing effectively as an organisation, teams and individuals, will play an important part in reducing those work absences and driving up productivity.

For more information about The Culture Builders and Bank of Me, visit:

theculturebuilders.com

linkedin.com/company/theculturebuilders/

@janiesparr

T: +44 (0)1256 369 203

E: [email protected]

Jane Sparrow is director of The Culture Builders and co-author of The Bank of Me.