Millennials Don’t Crash and Burn, They Resign. The New Signs of Employee Burnout
If the “Great Resignation” has taken you by surprise, you’re not alone. Many leaders have failed to recognize the signs of employee burnout because it looks very different from their own.
Employee burnout is not a new phenomenon. Boomer and Gen X leaders likely experienced it themselves, powering through their own periods of prolonged stress and excessive work hours by developing massive coping strategies to manage their frustration and exhaustion. Many are now expecting their direct reports to do the same and the Great Resignation has proven that’s not likely to happen.
Millennials, who account for over a third of the US labor force, value improved work-life integration and aren’t sticking around long enough to experience the classic “crash and burn” their senior supervisors recognize as burnout. When they smell smoke, they’re ready to evacuate. Millennials have no compunction about changing jobs in pursuit of what they value: better work-life integration, a more attractive salary, schedule flexibility, parental leave, etc. They also do not see burnout as a personal problem they need to solve. Smart leaders shouldn’t either.
Employers who fail to recognize their responsibility for preventing employee burnout will likely lose their top talent and risk undermining the recruitment of new talent. It can cost a company up to 213% of a departing employee’s salary to replace said employee. Leaders need to ask themselves, “Does our culture reflect what we say we are committed to? Do our actions and policies reflect and reinforce that?” The answers to these questions impact millennials’ decisions to stay or go, as well as the company’s bottom line.
HR professionals would be wise to help Boomer and Gen X leaders understand this and endeavor to help leaders track the data that points to burnout:
- Increased number of sick days used (especially in mid and higher-level managers)
- Employee use of disability or leaves of absence — especially due to mental well-being
- Employee satisfaction and/or engagement scores — look at the numbers, are the ratings going down?
- VPN usage — are employees online more now than before the pandemic? If employees are working but not creating results, sound the alarm.
Managers need to be trained to recognize the “overwhelm tells” of their direct reports. There are obvious data to help them see burnout coming before it arrives:
- Have your direct reports taken vacation time?
- Are they unplugging on vacation and/or weekends?
If their direct reports are not, they may be lost in an endless cycle of catch-up. Something is wrong and these indicators signal a higher likelihood for burnout. When an employee who is spinning in an overwhelm cycle forcibly grinds themself down in an attempt to deliver to commitments and deadlines, quality drops off, problems occur, and interpersonal communication breakdowns follow. And this is where judgment, shame, gossip, and in-house hostility take hold.
Leaders need empathy to connect with and have compassion for their employees. Some managers are naturally empathetic, others need to be trained. Managers who are engaged in authentic relationships with their employees are the ones who have the possibility of noticing burnout symptoms first and are in the best position to ask their direct reports what they would like support to look like. Because employees are more likely to respond to the offer of support than they are to seek it out.
What looks like a people conversation is ultimately a business conversation. Companies fixated on results over relationships lose productivity, revenue, employees, and a shared vision and ethos in their workforce. This is not to say relationships should be valued above results, because they must be integrated; they support one another. Relationships are the foundation of results. Without well-formed relationships, results are hindered.
The companies who understand this will reap the benefits. Those who don’t will be left behind cleaning up messes.
About the author…
Anna Conathan is a writer, storyteller, public speaker, and a life and leadership coach who works with writers and creatives looking to cultivate and share their authentic voice with the world. As the Chief Creative Officer of Luscious Mother and LUMO Leadership Coaching, lumoleadership.com, she works passionately to help other women define their own version of luscious motherhood.
Anna’s been featured on Forbes and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, and she is a frequent contributor to the Luscious Mother blog. She received an Honorable Mention from Winning Writers for her poem, Out of Sync at the Kitchen Sink, which she recently recited in this video on Instagram.