Written By: Lauren Howard
“Listen, I was miserably burned out from a job once . . .”
I was on the phone with my direct boss. I called him to talk about a decision that had been made that would not only be really bad for the company, but that we didn’t have the human power to back up.
It was made without consideration by the CEO, who was infamous for making wild assumptions about what our clients wanted without researching what they needed.
I was lucky to be the one most often responsible for dealing with the angry clients or messaging the decisions internally.
To be fair, I was cosmically tired. And I’m sure my comments were very direct. And he was right about one thing, I was absolutely burned out, even though I didn’t know it yet.
Still, the things he felt empowered to say next ring in my head to this day.
He started telling me about how he had so much trouble handling the pressures of his job when he was burned out from working so hard, and that maybe I just needed a break.
See, he had been where I was and understood. See?
I was offended at the time, but now I’m enraged.
He was acknowledging that I was struggling and putting the onus on me for how I was juggling things, not on them for the environment.
At the time, I internalized that to mean that I should keep my mouth shut.
That I shouldn’t talk to them about the problems that I see because I was the only one who thought they were problems. If I handled them better, they wouldn’t be problems. That I should just smile and go with the flow because I’m probably just overreacting.
But now?
If your employee is burned out, especially due to the employment climate that they’re working in, it’s YOUR fault. You are either understaffed, under-resourced, or both. The only conversations that you should be having about that are to apologize profusely and show your actionable plans to do something.
Don’t throw pizza parties.
Don’t offer them a few “mental health days” that insinuate they would be better able to handle things if their mental health were stronger.
Fix the problem. Or don’t and stop pretending that your people matter to you. The lip service about your dedication to your team when it’s not backed up by action is far more detrimental to your people than just telling them that you don’t actually care.
Founder & CEO at elletwo
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