Burnout Is Real and You Have To Watch Out For It

Research tells us that as burnout rates are at historic highs, and businesses are  finding practical ways to retain staff — or at least that should be the case.

As burnout continues to burn businesses, the problem is that the strategies that work best often seem backward. Take for example the strangest Great Resignation strategy, which is also the most effective, or Google’s wildly simple trick to increase productivity, which also decreases burnout.

We see that, when it comes to employee retention, even the most obvious strategies frequently fail. Meanwhile, seemingly illogical approaches can be extremely effective.

Finding a workable answer is essential. And not just for companies looking to prevent burnout’s negative effects, which include decreased productivity, higher employee turnover, and harm to the culture of a workplace, but also for those who experience burnout’s myriad symptoms firsthand, from chronic fatigue to brain fog, lack of focus, and even trouble sleeping.

Research tells us that as burnout rates are at historic highs, businesses are  to find practical ways to retain staff — or at least so they should be.

We can all agree on the common remedy, which is vacation time, and we should all take more of it.

After all, a break from work, the strain at the office, the weight of ongoing pressure, and never-ending duties is a much-welcomed relief. Many people imagine a carefree beach vacation with no obligations, time at home with nothing to do, or an amazing adventure that will magically divert them from any lingering stresses long enough for them to magically vanish into thin air. However, many people have vacation time to burn and burnout to combat.

Even while we go on vacation in the hopes of recharging our figurative batteries, the truth is that we frequently return with even less tolerance for the things we already have little tolerance for. We come back exhausted, alienated, and much more uninterested than we went in.

A week — and years — of labor that makes us have to do what we have to do must come after a week of doing whatever it is we want to do. Feelings of unhappiness could intensify in light of that sharp difference.

Vacations are not the best approach to lessen burnout, according to recent research from the Harvard Business Review. That said, cutting back on vacation time is not the solution.

Really, more vacation time is.

According to what the Harvard researchers discovered, workers require a significant amount of time off in order to recharge and come back to work with a fresh outlook and increased motivation.

In other words, taking a break from work is the answer to burnout. The conventional vacation, as we know it, is not the only remedy for a contemporary workplace, though.

.Absence makes the heart grow fonder

It’s not a common application of the classic quote, and yet when it comes to work, it works.

Especially in the case of a sabbatical. Because even though an extended amount of time off sounds like a dream, the reality is that after a point it gets old.

As humans, we need time for the excitement of our time off to wear off. For our to-do list to diminish. And for boredom to creep in.

For example, if you played your favorite song on repeat, you would eventually want to hear something else. As fun as it would be to eat at your favorite restaurant every day, there would only be so many days until you got tired of it and began to desire something else.

There are only so many movies and shows we want to watch on Netflix. Only so much time our family and friends have to spend with us. Only so much we can do to entertain ourselves during the day before we actually begin to miss work.

That’s right, I said it. After enough time, you might actually miss work, the intrinsically rewarding feeling of being productive, the chase, the colleagues, the clients or customers, and in the case of an unpaid sabbatical, the money.

Burnout recovery doesn’t have to burn business

Vacation time can be enough of a burden on businesses that struggle to carry on in the absence of staff. So the idea of an extended leave can simply seem out of the question. However, as Harvard researchers suggest, sabbatical leave can come in many forms. And it surely doesn’t have to burn your business to help your employees recover from burnout.

For example, while there are both paid and unpaid sabbaticals, there are also working sabbaticals where employees have the opportunity to work remotely — and independently — from anywhere in the world, whether that be their living room or a land far away.

The difference with a working sabbatical is that while remote work has become increasingly commonplace, that doesn’t always mean that staff have the freedom to work from other time zones, or even just work on a schedule that works best for them.

By giving employees the time and space to live more freely and enjoy their lives more fully, employees are not only more satisfied with their role but more grateful for it.

Sabbaticals do more than recharge staff — they elicit gratitude

It’s within this time away that we begin to regain (or simply gain) an appreciation for the jobs we have, the people we work with, and what our role affords us — mentally or financially.

In other words, what a sabbatical affords us is the ability to appreciate what we have and what our positions afford us in life.

It gives us perspective, and with that, it helps us reconnect to our why. The reality is that most aren’t necessarily in love with the work that they do. But when they can see that it gives them the things they want in life — whether that’s the money to live in a home they love, the flexibility to be a present parent, or the space to enjoy life outside of work — they realize why they do what they do because they see what they do it for.