Avoiding burnout for remote workers

How does burnout occur

Burnout is one of the main issues faced by businesses with a remote work model. 38% of remote workers report burnout, and 86% of remote workers report high levels of exhaustion. This is a clear indication of the severity of the issue. Remote worker burnout occurs due to the following:

• Little to no communication with others in their company. This leads to workers feeling like they have to handle all workloads and tasks by themselves, putting immense pressure on them that can ultimately cause burnout.
• The stress of workload and deadlines without appropriate support. It can be hard for managers to find the correct balance of providing support to a team when they are working remotely.
• Isolation and lack of interaction. For in-office workers, there are parties, happy hours, outings and fun days in the office that break up the work load, encourage socialisation, and cause stronger working relationships. Remote workers do not have this, and it leads to feelings of extreme loneliness.

Avoiding burnout in remote workers is key to the success of your business. The most effective way to do this is to motivate your workers. Titan Security Europe has operated as a remote company for over a decade, and are well versed in motivating remote workers.

The business issues

The issues businesses can face as a direct result of remote worker burnout are as follows:

• High staff turnover. Burnout leads to quitting and quitting leads to staff turnover. Too high a staff turnover reflects badly on a business. 
• Underperformance. Burnt out employees will not produce work to their usual standard, in their usual time. Underperformance from even just a few employees can lead to underperformance as a company.
• Disloyalty. Burnt-out workers who do not feel supported by their managers may become disloyal, no longer caring about effort for tasks and even searching for other jobs elsewhere.
• Carelessness and negligence. Two out of three cybercrimes occur as a result of negligence, such as weak passwords or devices left unopened. Burnout can lead to this kind of carelessness – even with no malice behind it  and this can leave your company open to some massive threats.

Benefits of motivation

To avoid burnout for your remote workers, the best move is to ensure that you motivate them. The benefits of adequately motivating your workers are as follows:

• Improving motivation improves teamwork, as employees feel like 
•  valued members of the team.
• Respect for you as a leader will grow.
• You will see improved task turnover. 
• You will create a safe working environment. 
• You will secure employee loyalty. 

Methods to motivate

Embrace flexibility of working hours

• In-office, you as an employer will notice that some employees are more motivated during the mornings, and some during the afternoons.
• This remains true in remote work, to an even larger extreme – a lot of people are most productive outside of the typical 9-5 working system.
• Outside of scheduled compulsory meetings, allowing for flexibility in the working day – allowing employees to work when they choose, so long as they hit their required hours – will improve motivation and decrease burnout. 

 Check in regularly

• Schedule specific times into your day wherein you reach out to individual employees to check in on them.
• Check in on their tasks, how they are coping, and on them themselves too.
• Assure employees that these check-ins are a no-judgment zone. Employees can tell you about struggles either in work or in their personal lives that may be impacting their work, and as a result, you can accommodate for them.
• This leads to employees feeling supported, which in turn prevents burnout from occurring. 

Hold workshops

• Through conversation, online forums, or anonymous input systems, identify areas where employees are struggling.
• Run company-wide workshops during working hours in which this area is re-taught and practiced. 
• By holding specific workshops to work on skills and tasks that employees are struggling with, you continue to support and motivate them to be the best that they can be. This prevents burnout and improves both loyalty and teamwork.

Incentives

• Offering incentives that reward your employees for good work motivates them to do their very best.
•  Incentives can come in many forms – for example, gift vouchers given out for milestones an employee reaches (amount of clients acquired, amount of tasks completed, etc). 
• Rewarding employees for hitting goals gives them more reason to work on them.

Weekly catch-ups

• A team wide meeting on either a Monday or a Friday, wherein employees can discuss issues, concerns or struggles they have to get support from their managers or fellow colleagues is a very effective way of avoiding burnout and ensuring motivation.
• This should be a space where all employees are invited to share any concerns they have, no matter how big or small they are. You may find it effective to take struggles mentioned in these catch-ups more than once, and turn them into previously mentioned workshops.
• These catch-ups make employees feel valued and seen, increasing loyalty to the company.

Virtual happy hours

• Set up Zoom, Teams, or otherwise virtual meetings on a Friday. Finish the work day an hour early as a reward for the hard work put in for the week, and instead run a social hour. 
• These will be purely social meetings think back to quiz nights that families used to do during the lockdown. 
• What is done in these meetings can be adapted to fit your employees – it is just the socialization outside of work aspect that is important for fostering a good working environment and strong working relationships.

Competitions 

• Previously mentioned incentives can be used as inter-team competitions.
• For example, if the current aim within a department is to get as many partnerships with other countries as possible, offer an incentive as a prize to whichever team member secures the most partnerships by the end of a month.
• This brings fun rewards to work and will motivate any worker to keep going if they think they can get something fun or interesting out of it. Friendly competition can also foster better working relationships and improve teamwork.

Avoiding burnout is essential to building an effective remote work model while preserving the success of your business. It is therefore worth putting in the time, cost and effort to ensure that your employees are motivated enough to combat any burnout that may befall them otherwise. 

Conclusion

Beyond motivating your employees to avoid burnout, it is equally important to be open and supportive to employees actively experiencing burnout. Specifically the workshops and check-ins will be times when employees will feel able to approach you about burnout they are dealing with, so you can work with them to get them out of it.

Every employee is essential to your business  ensure that they feel as such and burnout will never become a big problem for you.