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5 Amazing Tips For Managing An Offshore Team

Are you experiencing feelings of mental or emotional exhaustion or burnout? Well, you’re not alone.

A huge chunk of individuals working in the corporate world have probably experienced days when they have felt powerless, overburdened, excessively stressed, or underappreciated. If you start to experience symptoms like these, it’s possible that you’re heading down the path towards suffering from burnout.

The shift into a work-from-home setup has caused work to pile up, mainly because there are employees who juggle their responsibilities at home and with their job commitments.

Meanwhile, the mere thought of returning to the office after almost two years of constant quarantines and working from home required utmost emotional and psychological adjustment for everyone. Not to mention, companies that practice micromanagement are more likely to cause and observe declining productivity from their staff. In other setups, employees are forced to work extended hours. Worse, some do not receive proper compensation for working over time.

Talking about work-related burnout in general, it is a side effect that is more prevalent in high-stress and high-demand jobs such as customer service and sales. 

Working as a customer support agent is no bed of roses. They are required to address the issues raised by customers, exhibit empathy, and think about the long queues awaiting their time, effort, and attention on a daily basis. It should therefore come as no surprise that customer service agents are the most likely to experience extreme levels of stress and loss of motivation at work.

The question now is, how can you ensure that your customer care team does not become exhausted? What are the repercussions of having a workforce that feels burnout? 

What Is Burnout In The Workplace?

What is burnout in the workplace?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), burnout is an occupational condition. As a general rule, symptoms include a sour attitude toward a coworker, a loss in productivity and energy, and a general feeling of exhaustion.

Should you consider burnout as a serious issue? Definitely!

Burnout has a negative impact on all aspects of your life, including your personal, professional, and social relationships. Since burnout has so many repercussions, it is critical to address it as soon as possible. 

Nonetheless, how does this affect your business’s sales and the efficiency of your customer support team?

Burnout can have a negative impact on a company’s bottom line by lowering the immune response of employees which could then lead to increased absences. Productivity likewise diminishes while turnover rates rapidly increase.

Burnout in Salesforce: Effects

Consistent and successful sales enable a business to maintain its presence in the market and continue to generate revenue. While sales is a results-driven workforce, their integral role in your company makes it even more crucial to look out for their best interests.

Let’s delve deeper into the impacts of burnout in the workplace so you can better help your salesforce and even your customer support representatives.

  1. Mental health conditions

Overcoming burnout is something that an individual suffering from it can overcome on their own. In fact, it can get worse unless the underlying causes that led to extreme stress are identified and duly addressed. Ignoring the early signs of burnout, could cause greater harm to a person’s overall wellness in the near future. Among the more serious effects of untreated burnout and extreme stress include depression, anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure, irritability, and heart disease. Others develop substance abuse or misuse.

  1. Reduced productivity

When it comes to the overall success of a company, how much of an impact can burnout have?

Employees suffering from burnout are less productive and less effective at their jobs. Their productivity diminishes as a result, as they aren’t able to perform at their fullest capacity. It also has a negative impact on efficiency and motivation, both in and out of the workplace. Individually, this has the effect of decreasing motivation, problem-solving skills, and attention span. Burnout pushes employee retention, work quality, and eagerness to a downward trajectory.

  1. Higher turnover rate

Employee turnover has a negative effect on the business since it increases hiring expenses, takes up more time in the recruitment process. Once your employees exceed their threshold for stress and exhaustion, they become too tired and unhappy to even want to stay. At the same time, if staff see that their colleagues are being overworked and undercompensated, it discourages them from continuing their employment with the company.

It is critical to carefully look for signs of being burnout and excessively stressed on all employees to avoid such occurrences from taking place. Conduct individual and group interviews to assess their level of happiness and satisfaction with their performance and themselves in general, the team they are working with, and the company. One-on-one dialogues with staff help pinpoint pain points and weak areas both on the part of the employee and the organization.

5 Tips to Prevent Burnout In the Workplace

As the owner of a company, you have a responsibility to ensure that your staff are happy and healthy. The prevention of burnout in the workplace has the potential to provide a favorable working environment in which both individual and collective performance may flourish. So, the question now is how to help employees with burnout?

Below are the five ways to prevent employee burnout.

Take a break

Being a customer service agent is not easy. If you want to lower the risk of burnout in your workplace, make sure you allow your staff time to take breaks in between their work schedule. Fifteen minute breaks during the first and second half of the day can make a huge difference. 

Give employees ample time to recuperate from the stress of their jobs. Leaving them to face piles upon piles of work and responsibilities without a minute to stretch and get some air increases the risk of developing sleep problems and cardiovascular diseases.

A workplace culture that promotes long working hours, seldom time for breaks, and job roles that invade personal time are a thing of the past. Without the input and effort of employees, it is impossible for companies to attain success. Hence it is every employer’s responsibility to ensure they delegate a fair amount of workload to their staff and encourage them to strike a perfect balance between their job and personal endeavors.

Improve employee engagement

Research shows that engaged workers are far less likely to suffer burnout and are also significantly more likely to feel connected and pleased with the company where they are employed. Employee engagement is significant for a variety of reasons, the most important of which contributes to the development of a more positive work culture, decreases employee turnover, boosts productivity, improves work relationships among coworkers and customers, and helps the company to gain more profit.

Strengthen social connections

People who have meaningful social relationships report higher levels of happiness and report being in better physical health. Physical and emotional wellness are both beneficial to enhancing employee performance and efficiency. In turn, business expansion becomes more attainable since staff are more than willing to develop social bonds with one another and coordinate to attain a single goal.

Coffee and food are two things known to bring people closer together. Why not schedule monthly coffee or lunch breaks to give employees time to share about themselves and get to know each other better. 

Make their work purposeful

It is far more probable that an employee will be engaged and motivated if they believe that the mission of their organization is congruent with their purpose in life. This decreases the likelihood of employees filing their resignation one after the other.

Finding meaning in one’s job may improve an employee’s overall well-being because it enriches both their professional and personal lives. Employees’ mental fitness and well-being are impacted when they have the sense that their job contributes to something bigger and useful.

Focus on their abilities and strengths

If you place employees in roles that allow them to use their skills to their full potential, you may find that they become highly valuable to your organization. It’s possible that this may make them more satisfied with their work, and encourage them to go outside their comfort zone. If your agents believe that their unique skills and experiences are being put to good use in the company, they may be more motivated to put in extra effort. Hence, employers who are aware of the areas in which their workforce excels are in a better position to delegate responsibilities appropriately.

Wrapping Up

Burnout does, in fact, result in a decrease in productivity on the part of the individual worker as well as the organization as a whole. Whether a person works in the healthcare sector, the BPO industry, or the e-commerce industry, they are non exempted from suffering from excessive amounts of physical, mental, social, and emotional exhaustion.

There are substantial steps that can be taken to prevent an employee from reaching the point of burnout. Make it a habit to meet with each of your staff individually and check on them. Ask them for an overview of their workload along with an honest feedback on their overall work satisfaction. You can also ask about their family, what their home life is like and what their hobbies are.

The aforementioned tips may be of help to you in gaining an understanding of how to cope with burnout in the workplace.

Of course, the most effective method for addressing burnout is to stop it from occurring before it begins to develop. Burnout in the workplace is something that many people experience, but it wouldn’t be an ideal sight to normalize constant work-related exhaustion. It is something that can be prevented or treated, and doing so is vital to preserving a healthy atmosphere within your team.

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