Page 3 - The Leadership Line: June 2021

4 Ways to Manage COVID-19 Burnout in the Workplace

Whether your employees work from home or are onsite, chances are good that they are experiencing a high degree of
burnout. Being patient and understanding will help ensure that your employees will not be looking for work somewhere else
because you were unreasonable. Leverage the opportunity to establish more trust with your employees.
Trust is confidence that your teammates are working towards the same objectives you are. That they’re doing this with
diligence and professionalism.

1 Check in with each employee regularly and share your experiences - Making the time to touch base and see how your
direct reports are doing can help you identify if they are struggling. Instead of asking “How are you doing,” try “What do
you have on your plate right now.”

2 Model work-life balance - During the pandemic, it is increasingly common to work longer hours or prioritize the needs
of others over your own. Encourage employees to turn off work communications during PTO, holidays, and off-hours.
Reassure staff that it is ok to have other priorities outside of work.
3 Change Up Assignments – Keep employees’ interest piqued by keeping their workload varied.

4 Err on the side of over-communicating - While you cannot remove all the stress of the unknown, proactively commu-
nicating policy changes, organizational updates, and deadlines can be extremely helpful to employees.

Do not take it personally. Check in and give credit.
Keep things in perspective. We all bring a different lens to As you work on implementing the feedback, check in with
situations and have different personalities. Some of us are the colleague who provided the feedback and thank them.
direct, some of us are subtle, some are in-between. I might Ask them how they feel you are doing. You will show them
perceive a comment completely different from you and that you valued their feedback and took it seriously.
is okay.
Take what is valuable and take action.
By asking for feedback, accepting feedback, and acting on
It is your choice to decide what to do with feedback. As it, you are setting an example for your team members. Your
you take in feedback and consider it, you may agree with willingness to accept feedback will help open them up to
some points and disagree with others. Act on what you feel your feedback creating a culture of reciprocal feedback that
is valid. Commit to making a plan to improve. This might improves your team as a whole.
mean asking a trusted mentor to hold you accountable for
improvement in a certain area. Do not completely ignore
feedback that you disagree with. Write it down and refer to
it periodically to see if you relate to it sometime down the
road or ask your mentor if they feel the feedback is valid.
We do not always see ourselves or our actions clearly.