In the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, remote work has become the norm in most companies. Consequently, the risks of hyperconnectivity and the challenge of balancing personal and professional life are increasing. At the same time, the health situation remains worrying, and employees fear for their jobs.
Companies must adapt their approaches to preventing psychosocial risks (PSR) to this new context. How can this be done, especially when management is likely to increase pressure on teams due to upcoming cash flow difficulties and declining revenues?
Increasingly, burn-out (professional exhaustion) is being associated with bore-out (exhaustion from boredom) and brown-out (exhaustion from loss of meaning). Among the spectrum of psychological difficulties employees face, these syndromes have specific characteristics that make them particularly hard to detect. Employees are caught in a spiral that gradually isolates them, and they generally refuse to admit their difficulties.
1 in 10 Employees at High Risk of Burn-out
In its prevention guide, the General Directorate of Labor (DGT) defines burn-out as the final phase of a process of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. This exhaustion results from prolonged exposure to situations requiring significant emotional involvement.
How Does It Manifest?
Burn-out is often revealed by a physical blockage following numerous psychosomatic symptoms. Most often, it begins with sleep difficulties. Emotionally, employees feel like spectators to what’s happening to them and can no longer share their difficulties. Simultaneously, the worker notices their inability to accomplish even simple tasks, further increasing their loss of self-esteem.
Considered a syndrome, burn-out lacks a precise medical definition, making accurate assessment difficult. According to Public Health France, 30,000 people are affected in France. In reality, the number is likely much higher if we count those approaching final collapse. It’s a growing phenomenon: in 2016, the occupational disease surveillance program (MCP) found that 3.6% of women (compared to 2.3% in 2007) and 1.4% of men (compared to 1.1% in 2007) among workers were affected by psychological distress.
Often, the onset of burn-out surprises those around the affected person, particularly in the workplace, as those most affected typically possess qualities that are usually positively valued:
🟢 Conscientious, with a high work ethic
🟢 Demanding, especially of themselves, aiming for excellence
🟢 Helpful, assisting other team members
🟢 Ambitious, sparing no effort
One barely notices their strong need for recognition and tendency not to take time to breathe.
A Sudden Onset
The sudden onset of burn-out often leads to an initial work stoppage that gradually brings the employee to realize their condition. That’s why the Opinion Way survey for All Leader Initiative intelligently focused its questions on cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms that herald the breakdown. Exhausted employees who don’t want to admit it can still self-assess concentration difficulties, outbursts of anger, or physical tensions.
Conducted before the lockdown, this study reveals the specificity of the Paris region (19% of respondents feel completely overworked compared to 11% nationally). Moreover, 25-34 year-olds are particularly exposed: 27% have concomitant and frequent symptoms and are thus in a harmful spiral leading to burn-out, compared to 11% across the entire sample.
Prevention
In companies, the prevention of psychosocial risks (PSR) is highly codified. Indeed, PSRs must be evaluated along with other occupational risks and integrated into the single document. They are analyzed in the annual report on health, safety, and working conditions and are also subject to social dialogue during annual negotiations on quality of work life. More broadly, PSR prevention is part of the obligation for safety and prevention (L.4121-1 of the Labor Code).
Beyond compliance with the legal framework, burn-out often affects valuable employees for the company, as we’ve seen. All conditions should therefore be met for effective prevention. Yet, the problem is growing, notably due to work intensification, over which HR has little control. To prevent these risks, discover the guide to best HR practices.
What Should Be Avoided?
Ultimately, what needs to be avoided are all emotionally demanding situations that don’t allow for recovery. Employees in direct contact with clients or who have an interface role between two teams are particularly exposed. All employees must be made aware in a very concrete way, obviously starting with managers. This involves simple recommendations:
🍋 Take a break between meetings
🍋 Listen when an employee is having difficulties
🍋 Welcome emotions and allow disagreements to be expressed
Clarify…
As much as possible, the limits of the organization, responsibilities, and tasks should be clarified. In a period where costs need to be reduced, management will need to set priorities, consider feedback from the field, and even organize breathing spaces. Particular attention will be paid to gaps between discourse and realities that can put employees in a value conflict. This will help preserve the company culture for better recovery.
While at-risk employees are generally very (too) demanding of recognition, the entire company will benefit from humanizing relationships by recognizing not only individuals but also results and efforts.
Identify
When the burn-out spiral begins, employees tend to isolate themselves and deny their difficulties. This attitude seems paradoxical, but it’s explained by the fact that burn-out is a syndrome of adaptation failure. The employee does more and more to try to meet the ever-increasing demands of their work. Admitting difficulties means admitting failure and thus risking collapse. If those around them become too insistent, the employee may break the connection rather than accept help.
This characteristic naturally makes identifying the risk of burn-out extremely delicate. However, the manager can be sensitive to cognitive, emotional, and physiological symptoms as described by the Burn-Out Prevention Institute and included in the All Leader Initiative study.
👉 Taking up a new position
👉 Professional transition
👉 Return from long absence (expatriation, maternity leave, etc.)
👉 Significant organizational transformation
Listen, Analyze, Inform, Act, and Communicate
To help managers and HR, we propose implementing an employee feedback solution. Regular anonymous surveys allow measuring key indicators related to employee sentiment. These will help identify groups particularly impacted by organizational changes.
At Zest, when employees provide verbatim feedback, we automatically analyze the data using Natural Language Processing (NLP). Through artificial intelligence, we identify employees potentially in distress. When the situation warrants it and in accordance with your management rules, we can lift anonymity and work directly with your teams responsible for burn-out prevention.
Given the difficulty of detecting weak signals remotely, it’s essential to remain attentive to be able to take action.
