9 Indoor Activities For Employees' Burnout

Positive and friendly energy is always good for work. A happy team will not only put in extra effort and hard work, but also project positive vibes which are appreciated by everyone and can boost your office environment.

It is really essential that your employee should feel happy while coming to work. This can be achieved by building a great employee-employer relationship through celebrating various events.

If you are unable to build a good relationship, it will cost you employee productivity and maybe result in employee burnout.

What Is Employee Burnout?

It is a special type of work-related stress where an employee could be in a state of physical or emotional exhaustion. It can lead to reduced accomplishment and personal identity loss. 

According to some experts, other conditions such as anxiety and depression are behind employee burnout.

Signs Of Employee Burnout

There are seven major signs of employee burnout that you can observe quickly and ask your employee to get treated, or you can ask them for a break. These signs are:

• Emotional, Mental and Physical Exhaustion

• Decreased Productivity

• Disengagement

• Isolation

• Increased Absenteeism

• The emergence of Physical Symptoms

• Higher Sensitivity to Feedback

Indoor Activities To Prevent Employee Burnout

Employee burnout can be reduced by some simple activities with which you can engage your employees and make them feel happy at work.

These activities are important as about 14.7 percent of your employees are experiencing mental health issues. These fun activities can result in 30% high productivity and a more focused team.

• Take Breakfast Together

A simple way to get your team to interact with each other is to have a half-hour break in the morning for breakfast which can reduce stress and improve mental well-being.

This will also help your employees reach the office on time because they will not have to hurry about breakfast at home.

Furthermore, it will help employees boost their productivity. According to research, 93 percent of Americans think that breakfast is the most important meal of the day; still, only 44 percent take it on a daily basis.

Arranging a breakfast can allow you to provide your employees with a healthy diet. This can boost their energy level and brain power by 20 percent. (WHO)

They can simply bring healthy food from home or buy it from the office canteen. Have a get-together at breakfast and start your day with a boom.

• Arrange A Cooking Class

You can arrange a cooking class at your office once a month. It will take out hardly an hour or two but will help your employees interact with each other and be relaxed.

According to Julie Ohana, LMSW and founder of Culinary Art Therapy, cooking is good for mental health as it is an act of mindfullness, patience, creative expressions, and communication, and it helps to raise one's self esteem, since the cook can feel good doing something for their loved ones.

Moreover, a research after analyzing 377 articles and 11 studies, it concluded that community-based cooking interventions could yield a positive influence on self-esteem, socialization, and quality of life.

During the class, you will notice that some of them are busy cooking, and helping the chef, while others are watching the process and having a healthy discussion with each other.

• Introduce New & Old Employees

There is often a gap between old and new employees, which keeps your office away from building a great work environment.

The best way is to introduce your new employees on their day of joining the whole team and conduct a healthy interactive session. Your old employees had to play a role while onboarding a new employee in the office. Ask your old employees to play their part and make the new employees comfortable with them.

• Organize Feedback Sessions

Most of the time, employees want to share something and provide their feedback, but the office culture does not allow them to do so.

According to research conducted by Qualtrics, 77 percent of employees want to provide feedback at least once a year. Moreover, even more, employees want to provide feedback four times a year.

Taking feedback from employees and valuing their suggestions makes them feel valued and relaxed. And employees who feel that their feedback is being listened to are 12 percent more likely to recommend their employers and are 4 times more likely to stay in the company.

So what's important is to make sure that your employees can share with you their feelings and any issues they are facing related to work or other than work.

You should also encourage burnout-related conversations with the employees, as only 21 percent of employees say that the management is open to conversation about solutions to their burnout. And according to 56 percent of employees, their HR department does not encourage conversation related to burnout. (FlexJobs)

Ensure that you are being polite with them so that they can feel at ease while talking to you and can happily share what they think.

Try to be a leader, not a boss. This will boost their confidence and will make them feel valued. 

• Arrange A Chess-Competition

Another great way is to arrange different entertaining competitions. May it be a chess competition, checkers, scrabble or any other strategy game. Various studies have found that board games like Chess and Go can help with depression, anxiety and stress.

According to another group of studies, it is observed them involving employees in team-building activities like games can reduce stress. However, they should not be forced into it. You should open the door and let them choose to participate or not.

Although, you can encourage their participation in the game by participating yourself. This will help employees feel at home, and you will also be able to judge the critical thinking abilities of your employees.

• Have An Hour Of Discussion

American Institute of Stress (AIS) states that about 80 percent of office employees feel stress which leads to burnout. And out of those, almost half say that they need some sort of help and support to manage this situation.

On every Friday or alternate Fridays, you can go out and call all your team members and have a general conversation about their health, family, and plans. Share your plans, family happenings and some personal events of your life so that your employees may feel intact and they can also share their views in return.

Socializing with your employees can reduce burnout to a larger aspect. A research conducted in Ecuador concluded that social support creates a huge impact on burnout and health conditions.

• Promote Inter-Departmental Interactions

Allowing your teams to interact is another way of helping them socialize in the office that ultimately reduces burnout. 

Most offices restrict their employees from interacting with other departments and limit them to specific members of the team.

However, you should allow them to interact with different departments. It will create a sense of learning new things, which helps employees keep themselves engaged at work. Ultimately, this interaction will help you build a multi-talented, strong team.

• Encourage Journal Writing

According to Dean Joanna - Health Specialist at Dissertation Assistance UK, expressive writing techniques can help reduce mental health and boost your thinking ability.

A study by the University of Rochester Medical Center supports the above findings as, according to them, journaling daily can help you overcome stress, reduce anxiety and cope with depression.

All you need is to provide all the employees with a diary and ask them to write about their day before leaving the office. This way, they will be able to put their stress out in the journal, which will make them feel relaxed.

• Bring In Seasonal Fruits

Another great way is to get some fruits with you and call all your employees in the hall. Ask them to cut it, make milkshakes, or whatever they like.

Let them enjoy and eat the fruits however they like. Meanwhile, you can start some discussions related to any game or sports that can engage the employees who are not participating in the fruit activity. You can practice this once every 3 to 4 months.

Employee Burnout Facts & Statistics

• According to research conducted by the American Psychiatric Association, employees with similar conditions can suffer from 35 percent of productivity loss. (Mclean Hospital)

• This contributes to a loss of $210.5 billion to the US economy every year in regards to absenteeism and reduced production. (APA)

• Researchers estimated a loss of $1 trillion a year to the global economy in the same cause. (WHO)

• A survey concluded that more than half (52 percent) of the employees are feeling burned out. (Indeed)

• United States face nearly 120K deaths per year due to workplace stress and related health conditions. (HBR)

• It is found that burned-out employees are seeking a new job 2.6 times more than a normal employee, and they are 63 percent more likely to take a sick day at the job. (Gallup)

What causes employee burnout?

Usually, it is considered that burnout is caused due to higher expectations and a load of work. However, employees experience a high level of burnout when they feel they are not being treated rightfully at the workplace and their efforts are not being appreciated.

What are the five stages of burnout?

1. Honeymoon phase

2. Onset of stress phase

3. Chronic stress phase

4. Burnout phase

5. Habitual burnout phase

What professional has the highest burnout rate?

According to THE Journal, teaching is among the professions with the highest burnout rate.

Is burnout a mental illness?

Yes, burnout is classified as a mental illness caused by stress at work.

Should you leave the job if continue to experience burnout?

If your job is causing you burnout continuously and you feel it is affecting your mental health, this may be the time to switch the job or ask your management for fewer responsibilities

Singing Off…

It is obvious that if your team is facing burnout, you will suffer from a great productivity loss. The best thing is to consider the above-mentioned indoor activities and make your employees feel relaxed and comfortable. Let them consider the office as their second home. This way, you can help them keep away from mental health issues and avoid employee burnout.