With how hectic the pandemic has been, the usual stress that healthcare professionals experience every day has expanded to reach extreme levels. Burnout is no longer an occasional happenstance from a few bad days of work—it’s an everyday occurrence. Severe burnout in healthcare workers doesn’t only impact their own lives; it can cause a ripple effect that impacts other staff members along with clients. As their boss, you should take time to learn different ways to help your healthcare employees with burnout. In doing so, you’ll play an important leadership role as your employees cope with their heightened stress levels.
Check in on Your Staff’s Mental Health
The easiest way to prevent or manage a burnout situation in your faculty is to have open, transparent conversations about stress and burnout. Ensure that staff can freely communicate their stress with other staff members and yourself. Simple conversations and check-ins can show your employees that you care about them and value their health.
Provide your employees with stress management resources along with contact information for mental health professionals if they ever feel that they need it. Even something as simple as hanging flyers around the workplace can anonymously help your staff during a crisis, especially if they were unaware of any special mental health services or partnerships that you may provide.
Reward Your Employees
Sometimes, the most fitting way to reduce feelings of burnout and high stress is to show appreciation to your employees through gifts, raises, and vacation time. Since it may be hard to ensure that all employees are taking a healthy amount of time off when you need all hands on deck so often, showering them with free stuff may remind your staff that you care about them.
Gifts for employee appreciation could include personalized t-shirts or company-branded gear. In a smaller medical office, you may consider purchasing individual gifts for each employee. Rewarding your employees can let them know that you see how hard they’re working and how much they do for the company. In turn, this gives their work more meaning and reduces feelings of burnout.
Maintain a Positive Workplace Environment
It can be hard to stay positive during these turbulent times but keeping employees optimistic about the future and straying away from negativity in the workplace are essential ways to help your employees with burnout. With a leader that stays strong in the face of adversity, your staff has the tools to fight off overwhelming negative feelings and keep moving forward beyond their burnout.
Staying positive can become a difficult task, so make sure you take care of yourself to avoid burnout as well! A burnt-out boss may struggle to lead their team properly. Know when you need to take care of yourself to keep your ship afloat.
