Experts say if you want to reduce employee burnout, start by improving your leadership. Why should you overburden yourself with work that you are not paid for?
When Priscilla Wangeshi secured a job as a cashier at an electronics and furniture shop, she knew her employer would constrict her workload to her job description.
However, weeks in, she was met with another reality, where she was informed that she would still help out in other roles without a question.
While she was not compensated for the overtime or even the other roles given to her, Ms Wangeshi shares that her workload increasingly became more than what was stipulated in her job description.
“I would even offload lorries, a task that was too difficult for me,” she says.
Day in and day out, as her desk piled high with tasks and deadlines that seemed impossible to meet, she resorted to overworking even past her scheduled times for fear of being fired.
“This was the culture of the organisation. No one complained to the managers for fear of being retrenched or reprimanded by the human resource manager. In fact, when one of my colleagues complained and was fired, we all developed butterflies in our stomachs,” she reveals.
Nonetheless, when her husband died, Ms Wangeshi says her employer gave her time off to grieve but deducted her earnings since, “she had not been working”.
“When I went back to work, I was told that I would be deducted from my salary because I was on leave. Yet, employees were being paid while on leave,” she says.
This was the stroke that broke the camel’s back in her case and she called it quits after resuming work.
Just as it was in Ms Wangeshi’s case, in the fast-paced world of modern work, the pressure to perform and deliver results has reached unprecedented levels.
Employees find themselves caught in a whirlwind of heavy workloads, unrealistic deadlines, and excessive job demands, leaving them feeling overwhelmed and stretched to their limits.
This delicate balancing act between productivity and well-being has become a significant challenge for both organisations and their staff.
George Simiyu, an author cum human resource expert, defines a heavy workload as the number of duties and responsibilities that is more than what you can handle forcing them to overstretch.
Often than not, the employee is overwhelmed since these duties are not in their job description.
Mental exhaustion
While passion can drive employees into loving what they do, too much of it becomes poisonous. The result? Employees suffer from mental exhaustion, skyrocketed stress levels, and the dreaded burnout.
“An employee’s thinking will be greatly affected and in turn, their productivity will be strained. Also, there will be too many errors compromising the quality of output being delivered leading to a lot of time being wasted,” he says.
As the poison seeps corroding the joy of work, Mr Simiyu aptly points out that job satisfaction dwindles, transforming once thrilling tasks into dreary chores.
In the long run, it will be expensive to run the company due to the frequent repetition of work already done and submitted.
Tell-tale signs
Lorna Murunga, astute human resource and administration manager at Labh Singh Harnam Singh Limited, draws an intriguing parallel between employees grappling with heavy workloads, unrealistic deadlines and excessive job demands and the cryptic writings on Belshazzar's (Nebuchadnezzar’s son) wall.
Like a perceptive leader, she understands that the signs are deceptively simple yet carry profound implications.
Just as those ancient inscriptions conveyed an important message, these signs speak volumes about the struggles faced by employees.
It takes a discerning eye to decipher the hidden meaning and take decisive action.
“When an employee takes many leave-days, their work is full of mistakes, labour turnover is high, absenteeism, boredom and loss of morale are among the subtle signs.”
Their moods and attitude are also a screaming sign.
Salvaging
However, Ms Lorna advises that all is not lost and employers can re-evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their employees and be able to align their deliverables.
“Communication in any thriving organisation should go two ways, where employers stipulate what is needed from their employees, and the latter sharing their sentiments on the work given,” she explains.
Staffing needs to be moderate. Unlike Ms Wangeshi’s case, a thriving organisation needs to fit all employees in their job description.
Ms Murunga points out that while understaffing makes employees overwork, overstaffing can drill holes into an organisation’s pockets.
Mr Simiyu notes that frequent workload analysis helps the company know what any employee can handle.
“In turn, employees will be able to know what is deemed a priority in every task given, their responsibilities and how they can collaborate with their colleagues in the different teams. Teamwork makes the dream work,” he says.
At the heart of managing heavy workloads, excessive job demands and unrealistic deadlines is self-care.
Mr Simiyu shares that this is an integral part of promoting better mental health and productivity of an employee.
“Having a healthy work-life balance and insisting on staff maintaining it goes a long way in curbing overworking,” he says.
