Work Burnout Series #3: How can managers help with burnout? Pay Attention

As an employer, why should you care about your employees’ individual health? I’m guessing that as a conscientious manager, you already want your employees to be healthy. Beyond that, your bottom line might be suffering if you don’t. 

I’m Bronwyn, a depression therapist who sees a fair amount of work burnout. I’ve written articles on what to do to prevent burnout and have been interviewed on how to recover from work burnout. Especially in the US, work culture tells us that the more you work, the better you are. We are encouraged to sacrifice ourselves, our families, and our communities at the expense of being a good employee. Fortunately, some workplaces are catching up and realizing that this actually harms them in the long run. 

Why is it short-sighted to ignore work burnout and encourage overworking?

I’m sure you already know this, but as a reminder: Burnout is like getting sick. If you pretend you are not sick, it just means it takes you longer to recover. Stress is linked to so many individual health problems! Agnese Mariotti’s 2015 article in Future Science OA on The Effects of Chronic Stress on Health goes into detail about this. She says, “Diseases whose development has been linked to both stress and inflammation include cardiovascular dysfunctions, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune syndromes and mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders.” That’s a significant list! These are not findings that give a lot of confidence to the grin and bear it mentality. This is a list that confirms the devastating impacts that stress can have on our individual health.

There are plenty of good research articles on how to address work burnout. John Pladdys, PhD wrote an excellent article in 2024 on mitigating workplace burnout. Pladdys outlines a number of important activities that employees can engage in to prevent burnout. He also talks about the importance of leadership creating a culture where maintaining employee health is supported and not deemed as weak. Quoting Steffens et al, Pladdys says, “If organizations are able to foster and maintain a healthy workforce, they may be able not only to reduce employee’s suffering but… benefit from greater productivity.”

As Pladdys notes, it matters what culture is fostered in an organization. Building on these principles that both organizational leadership and employees are responsible for preventing burnout, I will highlight one important thing managers can do to support employee health and prevent work burnout: pay attention to your employees. (Pro tip: If you are Highly Sensitive, you are biologically set up to do this well already.)

As the studies mentioned above show, taking care of employee health can lead to increased productivity. Training employees is a huge expense, as is employee absenteeism. Ensuring employees are healthy enough to work and stay employed for years can save you money. What does this mean practically?

What managers can do to prevent work burnout: Recognize quality work and gifts in employees

In the early 2000’s, I was hired as an Administrative Assistant at the Sitar Arts Center, an after school arts center in Washington, DC. Three months later, I was promoted to Program Associate. Was this an accurate reflection of the duties I was performing? Absolutely. Was it something that would be easy to skip? Yes to that as well. But my manager was paying a lot of attention. With a heart for service and a masters in nonprofit business management, she knew that taking care of her employees not only fit her values but was good for the organization. Part of taking care of her employees was to pay good attention to their gifts and strengths. And it paid in dividends! It was this attention that created an organization that has grown exponentially since its founding and continues to expand today. 

What managers can do to prevent work burnout: Make collaborative assessments

One of my friends nearly quit her job because she was so burned out. Her manager, however, was paying a lot of good attention. Her manager did good homework and heard what my friend loved about the job and what was absolutely depleting. And the manager, in an effort to keep this good employee, offered to change her job description. My friend could keep the responsibilities she loved and stop doing the things that were sucking the life out of her. My friend didn’t quit, and her burnout went way down. 

This kind of collaborative assessment and problem solving needs to be routine in management. You can’t eliminate everything for everyone, but there’s a lot of room for creativity in how to support excellent work. It’s also not only up to a manager to be asking these questions. Tackling this collaboratively not only gets better answers but fosters trust, another important piece in reducing work burnout. 

Here are some good questions to be asking as a manager to help with work burnout:

What is this employee good at? 

What would allow them to use their gifts and skills further? 

What does this employee need in order to be more satisfied and engaged?

Are there things they don’t enjoy that could be shifted away from them?

It’s not easy to be strengths-based. We are wired for negativity, and it’s easy to see where someone is failing. But if we do the hard work of supporting strengths, it can really pay off.

Preventing work burnout doesn’t have to be rocket science. If you can pay attention, you can make an impact.

About the Author

Founder and owner of Bronwyn Shiffer Psychotherapy, I love supporting women and Highly Sensitive People to address work burnout. I’ve provided workshops on work burnout to hospice staff and been interviewed on what to do address work burnout.

In addition to counseling for depression, I provide anxiety therapy and therapy for HSPs. Based in Madison, WI, I offer telehealth therapy throughout Wisconsin, virtual therapy in Boston and throughout Massachusetts, and online therapy in Washington, DC.