Tag: burnout

Posted on

9 crucial employee burnout statistics & trends (2023)

Summary

  • Fifty-nine percent of US workers are burnt out in their current job. – More 

  • Workplace stress was at a record high in the past year. – More 

  • More than half of the workforce cannot find a work-life balance. – More 

  • Employees with the least financial security are most likely to be burnt out. – More 

  • Employees aren’t using well-being perks and benefits. – More 

  • Hourly and shift-based industries are more prone to employee burnout. – More

Employee burnout is by no means a new concept. It was first introduced in 1974 by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. He described it as an “onslaught” that staff members experience as a result of “excessive demands” on their energy, strength, and resources, rendering a person “inoperative.” 

Decades have passed since then, and our personal and professional lives have become more fast-paced, increasing the risk of burnout and work-related stress. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed burnout as a syndrome and an occupational phenomenon in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).  

The WHO says burnout is caused by “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It is said to have three dimensions:

  • “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
  • increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
  • reduced professional efficacy.”

Less than a year after burnout was recognized by the WHO, the COVID-19 pandemic caused people to lose their jobs and frontline workers to fear for their safety, and many people’s homes doubled as their workplaces. This sent job burnout levels through the roof. 

Workplace burnout is a symptom that negatively affects employee well-being, wreaking havoc on the work environment as well as employee output. Here’s a look at some of the latest burnout statistics to help you better understand and tackle it.  

More than half of US workers experience burnout

The American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus (Aflac) conducted a study between August and September 2022 and found that most US workers experience burnout. Thirty-six percent rated their level of burnout as moderate, 15% as high, and 8% as very high. 

These levels of work burnout are significantly higher than those reported in 2021 (nine percentage points more) and are two percentage points higher than 2020 levels.  

Workplace stress is at an all-time high

Stress is one of the main drivers behind burnout, so it is important to look at employee stress levels when trying to understand the prevalence of burnout.  

The latest Gallup State of the Global Workplace report found that workers around the world were experiencing record-high levels of daily stress. Pre-COVID, 38% of respondents said that they experienced stress during much of the previous day. When COVID hit, that percentage rose to 43%, and it rose to 44% in 2021 — the highest Gallup has ever recorded. 

Work-life balance is in jeopardy

A workplace culture and environment that provides workers with a sense of satisfaction and well-being helps people achieve a better work-life balance. Striking that balance means having the time and energy for family, personal relationships, and leisure, as well as employee engagement at the workplace. 

Harvard Business Review found that 55% of employees have been unable to establish a work-life balance. They also found that personal relationships have been negatively affected, with workers not being able to maintain a strong connection with family (25%), colleagues (39%), or friends (50%). 

According to psychologist Michael Leiter:

“These survey responses make it clear that a lot of people are having serious disruptions in their relationship with work […] It’s not surprising that people are more exhausted — people are working hard to keep their work and personal lives afloat.”

The most “financially fragile” are the most burnt out

Aflac’s study shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the groups with the most financial struggles are the ones that exhibit the most burnout symptoms — namely younger workers and Hispanic populations. US workers who reported “at least moderate levels” of burnout include:

  • 71% of Gen Z 
  • 69% of Hispanics
  • 65% of millennials
  • 57% of Gen X
  • 38% of baby boomers

They also found that more women reported feeling burnout (62%) than men (57%). The study also found that people who had more than one job were more likely to experience burnout than those with one job. 

Webinar: How to Manage Burnout of Younger Employees

Burned-out employees are struggling with mental health issues

According to the WHO’s guidelines on mental health at work, the workplace can be either a protective or a disruptive force for employees’ mental health. Workplace stressors and burnout have been found to go hand in hand with a number of mental health challenges, according to research done by Aflac. The most prevalent issues are anxiety, depression, and trouble sleeping.  

Webinar: How to Support the Mental Health of Hourly Staff

Job satisfaction, performance, and employee retention are negatively affected by burnout

Burnout also spells bad news for employers. It has been strongly linked with lower job satisfaction and job loyalty. It also affects workers’ opinions on whether or not their companies care for them. This effect can be seen when looking at the difference between employees who experience moderate, high, and low or no levels of burnout:

Job satisfaction rate “I believe my employer cares about my physical & mental health” The likelihood of looking for another job
High burnout 55% 47% 56%
Moderate burnout 57% 51% 29%
Low/no burnout 80% 67% 18%

All of this results in employees who are less productive at work. Nearly half (46%) of employees self-reported that their mental health situation has had a negative impact on their job performance. Similarly, just over half (51%) of employers interviewed said that the poor state of employee mental health has had an impact on the organization as a whole. 

This negative effect on mental health is felt somewhat stronger by hybrid workers (52%) and remote workers (49%) when compared to their on-site (41%) co-workers. 

Webinar: How to Stop Employee Turnover

Employee well-being programs aren’t utilized

In an attempt to safeguard employees’ physical and mental health, organizations are implementing different types of health and wellness perks and benefits for their employees. These include:

    • Paid sick days for the benefit of their mental well-being, to tackle emotional exhaustion, or when feeling overwhelmed.
    • Stipends for health and wellness expenses such as gym membership, therapy, healthcare costs, etc. 
    • Courses on stress management
    • Flexible work hours to help employees better manage their work-life balance.

In one study, Deloitte found that 68% of workers surveyed are not using the well-being resources and perks that their organizations are offering them. This is because they find them “too time-consuming, confusing, or cumbersome.” 

Shift-based industries have some of the highest burnout rates

One study surveyed employees from various industries to see which ones have the highest rates of burnout. The hotel, food services, and hospitality industry topped the list, with 80.3% of employees feeling burnt out by their workload. 

The next highest are manufacturing (77.4%) and medical and healthcare (76.8%). Wholesale and retail ranked sixth highest at 75%. 

One of the main causes of burnout? Your boss

Gallup found that the biggest contributors to employee burnout are “unfair treatment at work,” an unmanageable workload, unclear communication and support from management, and unreasonable time pressure. 

These factors are something management can address to reduce their staff’s burnout.

Download our whitepaper on how to reduce burnout of hourly employees

We’re living through a burnout epidemic, and as employers and human resources professionals, you have an important role to play in helping your employees and your organization. In our whitepaper, How to Reduce Burnout of Hourly Employees, we dive a bit deeper into the causes and costs of burnout as well as how to reduce it. 

Download the whitepaper here. 

Posted on

6 proven ways to prevent nurse burnout

Summary

  • Nurse burnout is a serious issue in the healthcare business and has several negative consequences for all parties involved.

  • Long work shifts, stressful work, high patient-to-nurse ratios, a shortage of nurses, and a lack of sleep are some of the causes of nurse burnout.

  • To prevent nurse burnout, leaders should address nurse concerns, support nurse wellbeing, encourage breaks, offer flexible hours, optimize nurse workflows, improve nurse-to-patient ratios, and work collaboratively with nurses.

As of February 2021, 47% of nurses wanted to leave their jobs in the US since their work was negatively affecting their health and wellbeing. The numbers are worse during the coronavirus pandemic, with 6 out of 10 health workers reporting that the pandemic has negatively impacted their mental health. Clearly, burnout is becoming a sad reality among nurses.

Nurse burnout has several negative consequences. It not only impacts their health, but it can also reduce the quality of treatment provided to patients, increasing the risk of medical errors. The emotional fatigue burnout creates also leads to high turnover rates for healthcare institutions, as was found in a study by the journal of applied nursing research.

What causes nurse burnout?

Nurse burnout happens due to several reasons, a few of which include:

  • Long work hours: Nurses are being given long work shifts with no time to rest. This takes a toll on nurses, as longer shifts are correlated with higher levels of burnout.
  • Stressful work: Nurses constantly have to deal with stressful medical situations, especially ICU and critical care nurses.
  • Staffing problems: In a recent survey, 83 percent of responding hospital and health system executives predicted nursing staff shortages. This shortage places higher demands on currently-employed nurses.
  • High patient-to-nurse ratio: The higher the number of patients being treated per nurse, the higher the chances of nurse burnout. A study noted a direct relationship between a high patient-to-nurse ratio (i.e., over 8:1) and medical errors.
  • Poor sleep quality: Research shows that 67% of nurses reported having experienced sleep problems, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. A lack of sleep can negatively affect nurse health, leading to burnout.

Clearly, leadership must step up to prevent nurse burnout. Here are a few things they can do:

Address nurse concerns

Leadership can acknowledge, empathize, and address nurse concerns to make nurses feel valued. Nurses must be encouraged to openly share their concerns regarding burnout, so leaders can have a go at resolving them.

This can be done by allowing nurses to voice their concerns via an internal online forum or during one-on-one or team meetings. Shift feedback tools are also great for enabling nurses to leave feedback after each shift, so leaders can monitor nurse concerns and identify any early signs of burnout.

For instance, leaders can empower nurses to voice their concerns by giving them the opportunity to participate in decision-making, especially when it relates to their work. Nurses can be involved in discussions related to how patients should be treated, cleanliness and hygiene, break policies, standard of care, and more. Research has found that nurses are more likely to be fully engaged if they’re given autonomy and control over their work and if their opinions are valued by leadership, helping prevent burnout.

Support nurse physical and mental well-being

Leaders must ensure they’re paying heed to their nurses’ physical and mental well-being.

Employee well-being can be supported through sponsoring workout classes, partnering with gyms to encourage regular workouts, hosting meditation classes, starting a wellness program, or creating social events like potlucks or workplace birthday celebrations.

The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association developed the Caring for the Caregiver initiative, which includes a focus on gratitude for nurses’ work, workplace safety, and wellbeing. As part of this initiative, they created a podcast called the Medical Professionals Empowerment Program, or MedPEP. Each episode contains tips to improve the health, wellbeing, and effectiveness of medical professionals.

Another great option to support nurses’ mental well-being is to provide on-demand psychological counseling services to help nurses cope with stress and emotional fatigue. Rush Health took a proactive stance by anticipating the risks of burnout and providing 24/7 psychological support to their employees for free. They’ve since reported a dramatic increase in the utilization of these services, especially participation in psychotherapy, coaching, and stress management training, which went from a few hundred employees in August 2020 to more than 1,500 in December 2021.

Encourage nurses to take breaks

While the law may not make it mandatory for employers to provide breaks, leaders should ensure nurses aren’t overworking themselves. Breaks ensure nurses are well rested to perform their duties with care.

Encourage nurses to take short breaks every 2 hours. These can be breaks between 5 minutes to 20 minutes long, so they’re counted as paid breaks. Breaks longer than 30 minutes could be unpaid.

Katrina Emery, a MICU nurse working on her doctor of nursing practice (DNP), started a “restorative break initiative” to ensure nurses get the breaks they deserve and also to shift the culture to one where breaks are mandatory. She started the initiative as data shows that 35 percent of nurses rarely or never take a break, and almost half of the nurses didn’t know the number of breaks allotted in their shift. The nurse scheduling software used by leadership should automate and administer breaks so nurses are aware of the breaks they get and also commit to them.

Offer flexible hours

Offer flexible scheduling so nurses can pick the shifts they’d like to work. Working on shifts of their choice where they work with coworkers they get along with, or at times that suit them, can help prevent burnout.

Flexible scheduling becomes easy with an employee scheduling software that empowers nurses to pick and swap shifts at the click of a button with managerial approval. Try to limit scheduling staff for long shifts greater than 12 hours since long shifts increase the risk for fatigue-related incidents and increase the time workers are exposed to infectious diseases.

In a recent study, 55% of nurses reported that more control of their schedule would decrease exhaustion, and 60% mentioned that they would have a better work/life balance if they were involved in their shift scheduling. Clearly, if leaders want to prevent nurse burnout, they must allow flexible scheduling by giving nurses control over their schedules.

Optimize nurse workflows

Nurses don’t always focus on their core priorities. Burnout can happen when nurses do too much work outside of their core domain. Workflows need to be optimized in a way that allows nurses to focus on what they’re best at.

For example, a nurse may be doing too much administrative work, which might be unnecessary and counterproductive. Working to optimize workflows so nurses can focus on their core duties and delegate the rest of the work to the right people can help prevent burnout. Using an electronic health record system for administrative tasks might help in automating repetitive workflows, freeing up time for nurses to take care of patients.

Improve nurse-to-patient ratios

Not only are proper staffing levels important for CMS compliance regarding things like PBJ reports, but they are also important for nurse well-being. The more patients each nurse looks after, the higher the risk of burnout. Improving nurse-to-patient ratios could help prevent burnout and also benefit both patients and hospitals.

By improving nurse-to-patient ratios, it’s possible to improve mortality rates in hospitals. A study found that with every nurse hired, there was a 7% reduction in mortality rates. Clearly, there’s a strong case for improving nurse-to-patient ratios, and while improving nurse-to-patient ratios may require bringing on additional staff, the investment can offset other expenses, such as high nurse turnover, poor patient satisfaction, and even poor patient outcomes.

One way to go about improving nurse-to-patient ratios is to utilize demand-based scheduling. Automation like this uses historical foot traffic and demand data to optimally build schedules around appropriate nurse-to-patient ratios. Managers can easily match the right amount of nurses to projected demand every day and make edits in real-time when conflicts arise, ensuring hospitals are never over or understaffed.

Leaders should collaborate with nurses

Leaders should work collaboratively with nurses to support nurse well-being. They should constantly monitor burnout rates through regular check-ins with nurses and step up to control burnout rates. Controlling nurse burnout becomes possible through the use of technology, having open dialogue with nurses, making them a part of well-being initiatives, and recognizing and appreciating their contributions.

To find out more about how workforce management prevents nurse burnout, contact us today or sign up for a free trial to see how nurse scheduling software can help.

Posted on

Is work from home not all it’s cracked up to be?

coronavirus, remote work, COVID-19, remote workforce

Three weeks ago I returned to the office. That return matched my start date at Wickens Herzer Panza. I decided that it’d be difficult, if not impossible, to learn a new firm and its systems, and build camaraderie and teamwork with my new co-workers, if I’m working remotely. Thus, I made the decision to break free of my self-imposed COVID-19 cocoon and start working most days in person in the office.

I thought about this decision as I read this article in the Wall Street Journal: After Covid, Should You Keep Working From Home? Here’s How to Decide.

Consider these conflicting stats.

  • 54 percent of employees say that they would want to work remotely if permitted post-COVID-19.
  • Yet, over 60 percent of employees report that remote work has increased their time spent in meetings and their work hours, and nearly 50 percent report that it has decreased their work-life balance.
In other words, employees are in favor of remote work as a concept, but in practice, they may not understand that it is doing more harm than good.
Without a real physical separation between work and nonwork, people won’t ever stop working. They will be on the clock 24/7, ultimately burning themselves out at great cost to themselves and their employers. The most recent episode of Depresh Mode with John Moe expertly addressed this issue.
What does this mean for your remote employees? It means that they are likely working too much, some to the point of burnout. If you value your employees’ mental health and wellbeing, factor it into your decision when and whether to bring your employees back to your physical workplace, at least part time. They might think they want to keep working remotely, but they may not necessarily know what’s best for them.

In the meantime, if your employees are going to continue working remotely, consider these tips to help them maintain the balance they need to avoid overworking and burning out.

1.  Set a schedule for your employees and strongly encourage them to stick to it. Alternatively, make available technology that allows employees to designate when they are available and not available. In either case, it must be clear to managers, supervisors, and coworkers that these boundaries must be respected except in the case of a 911-level emergency.
2. Require that employees take breaks during the workday, including a lunch break.
3. Prioritize days off so that employees can recharge their batteries.
4. Remind employees who might be struggling with their mental health of the services you have available for them, including an EAP and counseling and other mental health services via your health insurance plan.
Posted on

Workforce management tools to help address modern workplace challenges

HR tech; hr manager; workforce management software

As the world throws curveballs at businesses, new workforce management tools are created as old ones may become irrelevant or even more daunting to use. 

Luckily, new technologies are constantly being created to address these challenges. 

Geofencing 

With more employees clocking in on their phones, it could be possible for them to clock in anywhere. Geofencing — a capability in which time and attendance tools can put a fence around a location that that workers cannot clock in unless they are on premise — is one solution that’s gaining momentum. 

Karen Piercy, a partner in Mercer’s Philadelphia office, said that she’s recently seen more clients ask about geofencing when looking for vendors. While it used to be something that clients were not directly seeking when looking for a vendor, now it’s something on many wish lists. 

Also read: Companies may pay the price for poorly managed payroll practices

Fighting burnout and fatigue 

One of the biggest challenges of recent years is the quick pace of transformation and innovation, said Jan Bruce, CEO and co-founder of meQuilibrium. These changes can impact the way that employees work on a day-to-day basis. Even before COVID-19 hit the U.S. in early 2020, companies and employees were struggling with how to deal with change effectively.

She gave the example of distribution workers, who years ago may have gone about their day with a clipboard and a manifest and did their daily deliveries based on that paper document . Now it’s more likely they used an iPad, where tasks can be updated whenever it is convenient. In the future, it’s possible that self-driving cars are instructed where to go, and the employee is essentially only used to offload products. 

People don’t change as quickly as technology does, which can lead to change fatigue and burnout, Bruce said. Change fatigue refers to people feeling tired out by constant change, and burnout refers to people feeling overwhelmed by not having enough resources to deal with these changes appropriately.  

Bruce suggested that resilience training software can help employees deal with change better. Resilience refers to not necessarily working harder but adopting the skills to solve problems or address a situation as efficiently as possible with the resources available. 

Additionally, managers have a role, as well. It’s not all on the employees. Managers should understand how employees as a group are feeling and learn the overall climate of the workforce, Bruce said. If workers are stressed, managers can explore the question of what is causing burnout and hindering their productivity. 

Also read: How technology can help your employee engagement strategy

For this, Bruce recommended using a HR tool or software that provides managers data-driven insights, rather than something that simply shares tips and guidance. Good workforce management tools here will deliver actionable insights to managers. 

Adopt workforce management tools with personalization 

In the context of burnout, personalized tools can help in many ways. Bruce said the right tools could help people track their stress levels and get instant feedback from a chatbot if someone is seeing a pattern of feeling more stressed than usual. 

Users could get insights like that they’re always a little more stressed on a certain day of the week or after a specific type of meeting or event. From there, they can identify a specific stress point and go on from there trying to deal with it better, Bruce said. 

Personalization is also something that applies to the broader spectrum of workforce management tools and technology. 

HR tech; hr manager; workforce management software

Machine learning is gaining traction

The Gartner report “Six Emerging Human Capital Management Technology Trends” explored different tools and technologies likely to become commonplace in the near future. One of these tools is machine learning in HCM, likely to see mainstream adoption in the next five to 10 years, according to the report. 

Machine learning is broadly applicable to most, if not all, HCM processes, the report stated, and in order to be successful, organizations must have access to rich data sources, including historical data. By adopting this tool, organizations may be able to take advantage of the many benefits from helping people and processes evolve to guiding talent planning and investment decisions. 

The report also included some warnings regarding the impact of machine learning. “Beware of the limitations of machine learning in HCM. A decision based on bad data or a bad analysis will usually result in an unexpected/poor outcome,” it stated. 

Additionally, deploying machine learning as a one-off initiative is not the most effective use of the tool, the report said. It’s better used consistently for continuous improvement over time. 

Voice of the employee technologies

The Gartner report also highlighted “voice of the employee,” or VoE, technologies, which are able to collect and analyze the opinions, perceptions and feelings of employees through means such as surveys or feedback tools. It is estimated that these tools will see mainstream adoption in five to 10 years, according to the report.

These solutions offer a way for managers to measure and improve employee engagement and retention, and they better allow managers to identify any commonplace issues among staff.

One important recommendation Gartner has for organizations interested in this technology is to build a VoE strategy with data privacy and security requirements in mind.

Also read: Shift feedback software is an immediate conversation starter

Chatbots for bots

Organizations have been incorporating AI-enabled chatbots in their HR systems for years, but that becomes difficult to manage when there’s a different bot for each HR function, said Will Manuel, partner at Mercer.

One of the newer innovations is bots for bots, he added. Socrates.AI is one of these software technology companies that helps manage the bots an organization uses so that the way questions are being answered is consistent across bots. 

“Otherwise, even though you’re leveraging new technology, you’re still creating silos. And integration is better,” Manuel said. 

 

Posted on

Workforce tracking solutions do not always track with company culture

HR tech, spy, monitor

Workforce tracking solutions for employers continues to grow, especially as remote work has become more commonplace in 2020.

One reason for this is that organizations worry that employees aren’t as productive when they’re working remotely and that managers can’t peek around the office to see who’s working and who’s online shopping, said Matt Stevenson, partner and leader of Mercer’s Workforce Strategy and Analytics practice. 

Additionally, now there’s just more data as more people work online. For example, with more health care delivered through telehealth now, he said, there’s much more data on patient interactions that used to just be recorded in doctors’ notes. And it’s possible to connect this data with actual patient outcomes. 

Also read: Labor analytics add power to workforce management tools

In health care and beyond, organizations are beginning to invest more in this technology, Stevenson said. As workforce tracking becomes more commonplace, there are some key considerations employers must keep in mind to use it correctly.

Track productivity, not activity

There is a lot of metadata that organizations and vendors can track, like how many clicks per day or meetings per day an employee has. Either party can tap into this data and interpret it, but one important consideration is they are tracking the right thing, said Matt Stevenson, partner and leader of Mercer’s Workforce Strategy and Analytics practice. 

“if your’e just tracking activity and micromanaging activity, that probably won’t end well. But if you have a way of seeing whether activity is a leading indicator of productivity, that’s fantastic,” Stevenson said. 

He gave the example of judging athletes’ “productivity” by how much time they spent on the field rather than how many goals they scored. There is  a big distinction between activity and productivity, and it can be a difficult distinction to make in the workplace.

Also read: Monitor Responsibly: How Employers Are Using Workplace Surveillance Devices

Consider how much you trust who you’ve hired

John Lacy, chief operating officer at Idea Grove, said that at his organization, they do not believe in workforce tracking. Rather, there should be a culture of trust.

employee monitoring; workforce tracking; productivity; employee trust

“We don’t believe monitoring tools of that nature are necessary to ensure people are doing their jobs. It comes down to the culture we’re building. When we looked at going fully remote, that question came up as not so much ‘What technology do we need to track them?’ but ‘How will we know work is getting done?’ and ‘How will we know we’re still meeting client needs?’ ” he said. 

“It came back to that level of trust,” he added. “If we don’t trust [employees] to do what they need to do — whether they’re working at the office or from a remote location — we believe we’ve hired the wrong person.”

To ensure that people are getting work done, Idea Grove instead uses a series of tech tools that help with project management. Team members track their progress on projects with the project tracking tool Teamwork. They communicate with each other via Slack. And the organization regularly gets employee feedback about how employees are feeling about the office culture through the culture tracking tool Officevibe. 

 Lacy also said that the organization uses The Great Game of Business to help educate employees on how to run a business, how their work contributes to the organization and how exactly their successes can lead to rewards and bonuses. 

“A philosophy I truly believe in is that everyone can understand business. It’s not that hard,” he said. “A lot of companies hide that from their employees, but we want to empower employees with that knowledge so that they understand that if they want long-term employment with the company, we have to make sure we have a company that is healthy, profitable and engaging, and they can participate in that directly.”

Avoid micromanaging

A real risk of workforce tracking is the presence of micromanaging, Stevenson said. He suggested “nudging” as a solution to micromanaging. 

For example, perhaps a company found out that employees’ sending emails after 10 p.m. led to burnout and lower productivity. If a manager finds out through workforce tracking that an employee is regularly sending emails at this time, the solution wouldn’t be to have a stern discussion with the employee and tell them to stop. Rather, the employee could receive “nudges” through pop-ups on their computer that encourage them to sign off at a certain time.

Also read: Employee performance shines bright with valuable, continuous shift feedback

There’s a good deal of research supporting that nudges help with behavior change rather than direct orders. Stevenson said. 

With this logic, what organizations should do first is find that link between activity and productivity. Once they’ve figured out that link, they could use that insight to create nudges rather than try to directly guide employee behavior, he added.

“It’s a two-fold problem,” he explained. “What predicts the things you care about, and if you have those predictions, what do you do about it without making things worse?”

The conversation about micromanaging ultimately comes back to trust, Lacy said.

“Everything starts with culture,” he said. “If you’re in an environment where trust is not the baseline, I could see a more command-and-control type manager having trouble with not knowing if everyone’s doing what they need to do.” 

“My advice to them is to take an inward look,” he added. “What is it about your internal self that is not trusting your team to get its work done?” 

How to calm employee’s concerns

Some employees may have concerns about workforce tracking, which comes down to is company culture and how employee data is being used, Stevenson said. Some cultures may breed more suspicion in employees while others are more trusting. 

Also read: Give managers the time they need to sharpen up their all-around skills

Things get tougher in organizations where there is a more adversarial relationship between employees and employer. “And, in my personal opinion, that’s where you may see more labor organizations showing up,” Stevenson said. 

He gave the historical example of Henry Ford and the creation of assembly lines. Strikes would often happen when factory operators sped up production. A similar trend happened with coal miners, who were paid by their output of coal every hour. They would strike when the number was supposed to go up, if they were concerned it was unsafe for them to do so. 

Using “speeding up the assembly line” as a metaphor for “increasing productivity” in the 21st century, Stevenson said that when organizations attempt to “speed it up” by tracking emails or whatever other metric, people notice. 

“If you’re the sort of organization that will take this data to speed up the assembly line, you’ll get pushback,” he said. “If you’re on the sort that will use this data to make the product on the assembly line better then you won’t get push back.”

Further, he added, sometimes it’s legitimate to speed up the assembly line and look for higher productivity. What’s key here is how an organization shares the benefit of increased productivity. If it speeds up productivity and shares the profits with employees, those employees may very well be satisfied. But if profits mostly go somewhere else, like to shareholders or executives, then there will be less of a positive reaction, he said. 

 

Posted on

Decentralized scheduling in nursing helps care for health care professionals

nursing; health care professionals

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of treating health care workers well. A population of employees that was already at high risk of burnout, the pandemic has added even more pressure on certain medical professionals who must endure higher workloads, abide by stricter reporting and safety routines, and witness the carnage of a pandemic. 

Nurses are one group of these medical workers. Even before COVID-19, burnout among nursing staff was a concern, with one 2017 study finding that nearly 50 percent of nurse respondents saying they have considered leaving the field for reasons such as feeling overworked, being swamped with paperwork and not feeling satisfied with their job. 

Best practices to keep nursing staff engaged include deciding the right shift length for your workforce, hiring the right number of full-time versus part-time employees and determining if centralized or decentralized scheduling in nursing works for your organization.

Also read: Shift scheduling strategies can be improved through technology

Centralized versus decentralized scheduling in nursing 

With a centralized model, the organizations manage staffing and scheduling through one central office, while with a decentralized model, these decisions are made as an individual hospital or unit. 

The decision between centralized and decentralized scheduling in nursing is partly based on geography and if the hospital system exists in one city versus many time zones, said Matt Stevenson, partner and leader of Mercer’s Workforce Strategy and Analytics practice. A centralized model can work for a location or several locations in one city. It allows two locations from the same hospital system to use the same centralized staffing pool, and nurses can potentially move from one location to another instead of getting sent home if they’re scheduled for an overstaffed shift. 

There are also efficiencies in terms of how payroll. Financials and training are handled the same way across locations, he added.

However, this may not work if an employee has to drive long distances to get from one location to another, he said. That’s why a decentralized model may work better for a hospital system that is multistate, rural or widely spread out. 

In addition, from the cultural perspectives, many hospitals don’t prefer a centralized model because they’d have less control and they’d be at the mercy of a centralized system for staffing needs, Stevenson said. If they don’t get extra staff that way, they’re out of luck. A decentralized model provides more independence.

nursing; health care professionals

Forecasting patient census 

There are different types of hospitals that may have different scheduling concerns, but one challenge they share is that they can’t predict how many patients come through the door in a given day or how sick they’ll be, Stevenson said. While hospitals can depend on some big-picture trends, they aren’t always reliable, which causes a lot of stress internally. 

If nurses are understaffed, that may mean that nurses are overwhelmed and overworked. If nurses are overstaffed, that may mean having to send people home without working or getting paid.

Systems are getting more sophisticated about forecasting patient census — how many patients are expected to come in during a given time period, Stevenson said. And those hospitals and health systems that do it better will help the morale of nurses and other health care workers, he added. 

Scheduling and managing full-time versus part-time nurses

Nursing organizations fall onto different parts of the continuum of mostly full-time employees versus mostly part-time employees, and having more of either can be advantageous for different companies, Stevenson said. 

Full-time nurses generally stay at an organization longer, but hospitals must pay them more and give them a full-time schedule. Using more part-time nurses means more flexibility in the schedule but can also mean more turnover. 

Also read: How to avoid overstaffing through wage tracker software

The challenge here is that each supports competing priorities — one financial and one operational, Stevenson said.    

“Finding the sweet spot of the right mix between full time and part time is really tough, and we find it different for every hospital,” he said. “Those organizations that can figure out the sweet spot will win every time.”

For hospitals trying to figure this out, the first aspect to consider is what the labor market looks like in the area. Are there more full-time or part-time options available?

Second, it depends on how the hospital is set up and how many recruiters and trainers there are on staff. With more part-time employees, there will need to be enough people to find, interview, hire, and train talent. A hospital may not be able to change the full-time to part-time ratio if the staff infrastructure of the organization does not support that new mix.  

Finally, it depends on how a hospital sets up its nurses’ shifts. Are they mostly six hour, eight hour, or 12-hour shifts? If a nurse works many shorter shifts, they tend to be part-time. 

How to set up nursing shifts 

The length of shifts depends on factors such as the type of care nurses are providing and the age of the workforce, Stevenson said. In general, younger workers are more open to 12-hour shifts. Also, employees start to get burned out at hour 12, so caring for high-acuity patients with challenging medical conditions and unpredictable needs may not be the best option for them. 

On the other extreme, four or six hour shifts present more opportunities for infectious disease to spread, he said. If a patient has something infectious, the fewer number of nurses who care for them in a given day, the less likely that will spread their infection to more people. 

Posted on

The use of technology in managing burnout in your hourly workforce

business travel burnout

Social psychologist Christina Maslach, known for her pioneering research about occupational burnout in the 1970s and ’80s, spoke at a conference for medical professionals in Chicago in 2017. I was lucky enough to attend.

I think about her session every time I read or research something about burnout — which, as most everyone on LinkedIn knows, is an increasingly common subject to come across in the news. 

One of her most vital yet obvious points at the 2017 conference was that while the term “occupational burnout” wasn’t coined until the late 1970s, that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist before the ’70s. People just didn’t talk about it. 

Not even academia took it seriously in the 1970s. Maslach first published her seminal research on burnout in a non-academic publication, resulting in a large amount of reader feedback from employees who had experienced burnout.

While the conference session focused on burnout among medical professionals, many of Maslach’s findings also apply to a group of employees that receive much less attention than salaried medical staff: hourly shift workers. Just like academia didn’t take burnout seriously decades ago, I wonder if some organizations still have the same attitude toward this hourly, generally less-educated group of employees. 

“As technology and automation advance to simplify the lives of skilled laborers, the needs of low-wage hourly workers are forgotten,” wrote WorkJam CEO Steve Kramer in a recent article. He stressed a few reasons why low-wage workers might be experiencing burnout and what their needs are. He also noted that increasing productivity expectations, no predictable hours and chronic understaffing are a few of the major reasons for hourly employee burnout. 

Employers are not powerless against this burnout, though, he wrote. He suggested technology as a potential solution for managing burnout. 

Some digital tools, for example, allow frontline workers to give feedback and constructive criticism to managers and higher-ups. Other tools allow employees more agency in the scheduling process. Also, digital, personal training exists that can help employees learn new skills. 

Also read: Employee Burnout Is No Fairy Tale

I would like to argue that managing burnout among hourly workers is not as simple as “run to the shiny new technology.” If a manager gets anonymous feedback that they’ve created a stressful work environment, what if they’re the type of manager that wouldn’t do anything to change? 

If employees express that productivity goals are unrealistic for individual employees, what if the company sees that as employee laziness rather than a valid concern? If an employee has issues with whatever digital tool is used by their manager, will company decision makers actually think about replacing it with something less problematic? 

As Vox writer Emily Guendelsberger points out in her essay, “I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout,” enhanced technology has improved the lives of many skilled, educated workers. Meanwhile, the same advancements allow employers to track worker productivity down to the second — a reality that helps create burnout in hourly workers.

business travel burnoutIn 2019, after the newspaper she worked at closed, journalist Guendelsberger decided to work three different hourly jobs (in an Amazon warehouse, at a call center, and at a McDonald’s) to see how tech was now being used and to gauge how working in these jobs had changed over the years. 

Here’s one of the changes she noticed:

“When I used to do service work, we still mostly used paper time cards; you could make your case to the manager if you were late, or maybe stay a few minutes beyond your shift to make up for it. At many modern service jobs, the digital time-clock system will automatically penalize you for clocking in a minute after the start of your shift or after a break.”

This is just one example, but it shows how the lack of humanity in digital systems could potentially punish someone for being human and making a small mistake occasionally. Could there be any way for digital tools to treat employees like people and give them some leeway? Not leeway to come in 15 minutes late every other day, but to come in five minutes late every once in a while. 

While I don’t doubt that technology has the potential to help any type of employee, I’d encourage company decision makers to think critically about the impact of certain technology on low-wage employees. Rather than romanticize the potential of tech, try thinking about it rationally. Ask yourself a few questions: How are my expectations impacting employees’ stress levels? Could this burnout lead to health problems in my employees? Do I expect my hourly workers to work like humans or machines? Are the hourly wages my company offers keeping up with the rising expectations of how much these people must do on a daily basis? 

The modern working class of America are fast food, retail, warehousing, delivery and call center workers, as Guendelsberger noted. “These jobs are not just a source of teenage pocket money; they’re something adults are trying to survive on,” she wrote. Burned-out fast food workers might suffer physically by accidentally burning themselves or suffer mental stress from constantly putting up with rude customers. 

Just like we should care that white-collar professionals and medical professionals may make mistakes due to burnout, we should care that working class employees go through the same. Burnout isn’t just an affliction of the middle or high-class employee.

Posted on

On-shift scheduling doesn’t have to be a headache for managers or employees

shift scheduling for hourly restaurant workers, shift swap

Most hourly employees have dealt with shift scheduling problems at one time or another.

I’ve witnessed it first-hand with my kids. After a 10-hour Saturday night shift at a restaurant slinging beer and burgers until 2 a.m., I would hear one of them quietly creep into the house. OK, they were actually pretty noisy coming in and banging around in the kitchen. As I dozed back off I just prayed that they wouldn’t fall asleep after popping a frozen pizza in the oven.Rick Bell Workforce

The good thing was they got home safe and sound. And the kitchen was not charred to an ember when I woke up the next morning. After that kind of a late-night shift I expected them to sleep in late.

Nope. No sleep for the weary in the restaurant biz.

Somebody had to pull themselves out of bed and work brunch at 10 a.m., and guess who was on call? Yep, my sleep-deprived, bleary-eyed child. Not just once. Or twice. This insidious sleep deprivation technique was a regular occurrence.

I mean, who is doing this on-shift scheduling? What sadistic clown is shift scheduling an employee who closed at 2 a.m. the night before to be back on the clock to pour mimosas and serve bacon and two eggs over easy at 10 a.m. that same morning? Oh, right. A restaurant owner. Or the manager, who likely is on the same scheduled shift because, well, restaurant managers are just a different breed.

I know, restaurants and hospitality exist in the fast lane — fast cash, fast life for many employees. Seriously, how many industries lavish itself with weekly industry nights?

The cruel and unusual shift scheduling was a regular occurrence back in the day when I punched a time clock as a bellman at a resort hotel in San Diego. Work the late shift until the final check-in at midnight then back in at 6 a.m. for the early checkouts.

I’ve even heard the mad scramble to find replacement workers when I’m getting a roll of quarters at the service counter of my grocery store. The manager, who is a really kind, caring woman, is frantically on the phone to staff her Saturday evening shift because so-and-so just called off sick and two others are already on vacation. (Why am I getting quarters on a Saturday evening? Don’t ask.)

Unfortunately, it seems that pretty much every hourly employee short of a union pipefitter is subject to such short-sighted shift scheduling. Want to burn out your hourly employees and watch them leave for greener pastures? Give them a day’s notice, schedule them that evening and then tell them they need to be back in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed early the next morning.

We are finally seeing a groundswell of support from many states and municipalities for predictable shift, or fair workweek legislation but any sort of federal fair workweek law is unlikely for years to come.

Come on, people! This is not complicated! Your employees have lives. You have a life. Well, unless you’re a restaurant manager. Make the shift scheduling process as painless and humane as possible. For starters:

No on-call shift scheduling. Ever. Telling employees to call in before a shift to see if they are needed and then sending them home if the shift turns out to be slow is incredibly hard-hearted. Don’t be hard-hearted.

Provide your employees with work schedules well before they are supposed to show up. Like two weeks before. Minimum 10 days. That gives them time to switch shifts should an emergency or a really good party pop up.

And you know what? Go digital. Paper-based timekeeping? Really? I know, it’s hard to break a routine that’s been in place since, oh, the Bicentennial. But seriously, check your timekeeping software options.

One thing that I constantly harp on is engagement and communication. Engage your employees through sensible, predictable shift scheduling. Your workers are happier because they’ll have a predictable life. As predictable as life can be, I guess.

And it’s not a stretch to say that a happier workforce means a more engaged workforce, which cuts down on burnout and puts the clamps on the bane of all hourly employers – turnover.

It may not prevent your kid from torching the kitchen with that forgotten frozen pizza in the oven, but they won’t be nearly as bleary-eyed the next morning, either.

Posted on

Hourly Worker Burnout Is a Major Problem. Stop Overlooking It.

The CareerCast stress report analyzes 11 factors that represent the most common stressors including deadlines, public scrutiny and physical demands.

When you hear the word “burnout” in the context of the workforce, a specific image comes to mind. You might picture a lawyer or consultant logging 80 hours a week and managing high-intensity clients, pushed over the edge by a messy court case or a business trip gone wrong.

You’re probably less likely to picture the service worker giving you your burger and fries or health care provider caring for your aging parents at home, overcome by prolonged periods of mild stress. However, shift workers are equally, or perhaps even more, prone to burnout than corporate professionals.

As technology and automation advance to simplify the lives of skilled laborers, the needs of low-wage hourly workers are forgotten. Corporations feel pressured to increase productivity, which creates a chronically stressful environment for workers who are on the frontlines dealing with customers every day.

The Wave of Burnout in Hourly Workforces

Burned out employees are now commonplace in industries requiring an hourly workforce. White-collar workers may take certain job elements for granted, such as predictable hours and flexibility over where they work for the day. But these perks rarely exist for hourly shift workers. Shift managers receive pressure from higher-ups to build schedules that maximize profits and minimize the number of employees needed on a shift, meaning schedules promote high stress and often differ from week to week.

Erratic scheduling is made worse by chronic understaffing, thanks to low unemployment – ultimately leading to increased demands on the existing workforce. For the first time ever in the U.S., the number of open jobs has been higher than the number of people looking for work for 17 straight months. Low-skilled workers such as nurses and restaurant workers are in the highest demand as more people go to college and more baby boomers reach retirement.

This has led hourly workers to form different relationships with their work. For once, low-skilled workers have leverage in the job market and may be inclined to find new workplaces if their own current conditions are not optimal. In July, 3.6 million people quit their jobs – the highest number ever in a single month.

Employers should be feeling more heat than ever to improve work conditions and worker satisfaction. Doing so needs to start with empowering your workforce through better management practices that give employees control and recognition. Using a digital workplace is a powerful, cost-effective way to ensure your workers don’t burn out.

Leveraging Digital Workplace Tools to Prevent Burnout

Promoting worker engagement can be the difference between burned out workers on the verge of quitting and satisfied employees. Digital workplace tools enable managers to spend more time engaging with customers and employees and give back some of the power frontline workers lack. By optimizing these areas with new technology, you can set up your workforce and customers for lasting success.

  • Keep communication fluid. Just as it’s important for workers to receive clear communication from higher-ups, it is crucial for managers to accept feedback from those working the frontline. An internal communications platform simplifies the process for getting in touch with employees and opens up opportunities for your workforce to connect, share and receive important information. These tools can also boost retention by ensuring that employees receive the recognition they need to stay satisfied through measures like badges, gamified leaderboards and mobile communication.
  • Allow agency in scheduling. Burnout among hourly workers is often attributed to stress over scheduling, particularly in industries where employees may not know their hours for the week until the day before. This is exacerbated by paper schedules that hinder last-minute changes. A digital workplace allows employees to request time off and swap shifts with coworkers directly, giving them a healthier work-life balance and a more predictable schedule.
  • Create opportunities for upskilling. Providing ongoing training to build new skills is an excellent way to ensure employees feel satisfied at work. Unfortunately, it’s often neglected because it can be time-consuming to build and deliver, and therefore costly. Digital tools enable employers to deploy low-cost, personalized training across your company to boost engagement and productivity.

Though retention and workplace management seem trickier than ever, employers are not powerless against the labor shortage, nor the wave of burnout. Instead, use this as an opportunity to stand out as an excellent employer by taking your management processes to the next level. Doing so positions you as the upstanding employer that workers will turn to when another has driven them to burn out.