How to protect your team from burnout with these tips

How to protect your team from burnout with these tipsHow to protect your team from burnout with these tipsBurnout is a growingepidemicin our workplaces, and its affecting leid just employee well-being, but the corporate bottom line. Forty-four percent of full-time workers in the U.S. say they feel burned out at work at least sometimes - if not very often or always - according to a recentGallup report. This contributes to an estimated annual loss of nearly $2,000 per employee from lack of sleep alone, as one study in theJournal of Occupational and Environmental Medicinedetermined.As burnout continues to pervade our workplaces, managers must act to ensure their teams are protected from its harmful effects. Managing a burned out team can be challenging even for the most experienced leaders, but if you find yourself in this position, theres more within your power than you might realize. Heres how you can help look after your colleagues productivity and well-being.Follow Ladders on Flip boardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreManage the whole humanYour direct reports dont work in a vacuum, so when stressors start to affect their performance and morale, its all the more important for you as their manager to understand how they perceive their workload - or as researchers from Harvard Business School call it, their inner work lives. Our research suggests that most managers are not in tune with the inner work lives of their people nor do they appreciate how pervasive the effects of inner work life can be on performance, researchers Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer wrote about their study published inThe Harvard Business Review. Set aside your own expectations of what you think their workloadshouldbe instead, ask them how you can make their physical and emotional experience of the workday better. Consider allowing some more breathing room for certain deliverables to alleviate unnecessary ti me pressure, or let them take a few hours or a day off after a sprint of working long hours (we call this aThrive day) to rest and recharge.Realign your teams expectations - and your own - through compassionate directnessMany stressed out employees feel that too much is expected from them on too short a time frame. Even worse, only 60 percent of workers say they know what is expected of them at work, Gallup found in their 2017State of the American Workplace report. This ambiguity and uncertainty can contribute to alack of control and predictabilityover their jobs, both major risk factors for chronic stress, asDr. Sanjay Guptaexplores in his new HBO documentary, One Nation Under Stress. The best way to approach this as a manager is to check in with your direct reports withcompassionate directness. A warm, open dialogue can help recalibrate expectations on both sides, course-correct any standstills, and encourage solutions to help keep the workload on track while safeguarding your c olleagues well-being.Help your team detach in the evening - and reattach in the morningBecause of smartphones, employees are attached to email 24/7 and may feel obliged to be on call whenever work pings. But mentally detaching from work during non-work hours fosters higher life satisfaction and lower burnout. Encourage your staffers to take the Thrive Microstep ofcalling an end to their workdayand staying offline after that point in the evening. Just as important as detaching from work at the end of the day is reattaching the next morning Arecent studyfrom Portland State University found that employees who take the time to mentally reattach to their work before diving into the days duties are more engaged and energized throughout the day. These positive qualities lead to higher productivity and satisfaction, so build some dedicated focus time into your mornings so your colleagues can prioritize their workload and mentally center themselves for the day ahead.This article originally appeared on Thrive Global.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people