How can you manage team member burnout during long-term projects?

Often team members won't share (or they don't know) they are burning/burnt out. One of the common ways that burn out may be identified is if someone's behaviour and/or performance is dropping. Perhaps they are making more mistakes than usual or turning up late to meetings. Checking-in on them is so important to be able to manage any underlying issues before they get worse.

Effectively managing team burnout in lengthy projects is essential. Establishing open communication channels, setting realistic expectations, and promoting work-life balance are foundational. Distributing workloads wisely, acknowledging achievements, and fostering a supportive team culture contribute to resilience. Identifying Burnout: Watch for changes in behavior, decreased performance, increased absenteeism, or lack of engagement. Physical symptoms like headaches or fatigue may also be indicators. Communication breakdowns or increased conflicts within the team can signal burnout affecting interpersonal dynamics. Prioritizing both the well-being and performance of your team is key to sustained success.

Self Care Awareness and Action (aka Sharpening your Saw) Physically, Mentally, Social/Emotionally, and Spiritually. Also leveraging Strengths. A Strengths/Needs-based company culture is best beginning with leadership!

You have t resource appropriate, plan conservatively and accurately, then manage accordingly. Overly ambitious plans, almost always lead to some members burning out to some degree. That ultimately leads to slippage, errors or both. Common sense should be the mantra.

One aspect of burnout that often gets missed is the quiet worker. This is a person in your team that is usually checking on everyone else behind the scenes, is the one that the rest of your team normally opens up with and “unloads on”. This person will often be middle of the pack for performance, however is the “glue” to the team. Ensuring early on to identify this individual, and providing them an outlet for their emotional baggage that they pick up is paramount to not just them, but the entire team being able to deliver and perform while minimising burnout.

This is management's responsibility to provide the team with a safe space to communicate openly as people, not only as professionals. The newest good practice of corporate wellbeing is to set up #community check-ins in the team.

It is so important to remember, no matter how big the project, your team members have to come first. A good leader builds in stress valves, makes sure to be team-focused, actively listens and pays attention to the team, makes sure there is a way to incorporate rewards and fun, and leads with empathy. When you lead in this way, and communicate goals and needs clearly, the team will work hard, but help each other through the project.

Yes- communication, encouragement, feedback, accountability and appropriate pay raises where appropriate all be so useful in maintaining people engaged and sold on the long term vision!

Set the tone for safe communication around projects by asking open-ended questions related to feedback. What is working? Where do you need help from another team member? What is creating frustration for you in this project? What else needs to be shared? These questions celebrate mini-wins. They help normalize that some things will be working, some things won’t, honesty is critical. They encourage help-seeking behavior. And they open the door for worries or things that need to get discussed that might stay under the rug of space isn’t given.

As a facilitator of balanced business, I can recommend my latest article on the subject spotlighted in my profile. It explores 7 practices for balancing your business as an integral part of your life.

I agree that micromanaging can be toxic. Also, keep in mind not everyone knows how to delegate so sometimes taking a small pause to teach a valuable life skill like that in the midst of a heavy workload will make so much of a difference!

There will be times where skill alignment, resource balance, or other factors negatively impact your capability to achieve this. When you find towels in this position as a manager, honest complain about how this isn’t best aligned, however it is your team’s responsibility to get it done. This will provide a space for acknowledgment of any misalignment, frustration, and then allow the team to focus on moving forward successfully and getting back to good.

We often view “work-life balance” as a scale. This is a very poor way to understand this concept. Everyone has their own needs and definition of what this looks like. For some, the balance will be 80-20, others will need to take regular breaks, vacations, and step away moments, while still another model will be one big break to fully disengage from work, before they come back fully charged and energised. Empowering your team to do some self-reflection on what their needs are, then working with the team as a whole to plan as best as possible to minimise gaps in delivery will help demonstrate a focused buy-in to everyone’s work/life balance. This will also build trust between the team, and you.

There is no such thing as a "work-life balance"! Work is a part of life. The path to mental health in business starts with this recognition. A person doesn't magically switch to a second heart / brain / pair of hands when coming home from work. We have one life each, and one body and mind to take care of.

Flexibility. If people are more productive in the morning, let them. If people surge at later in the afternoon embrace it… Our minds work differently. This 9-5 is a bit too rigid in some circumstances, it’s about trust, communication and planning. Involve everyone in the Team, talk about strengths, pain points and encourage people to share ideas and make decisions. Encouraging decision making will foster ownership of the shared work. This can increase motivation to the shared goal!

Teams have potential to become communities - to provide deep support and be there for each other on a personal level, as well as professional. This is part of a sustainability evolution taking place slowly in the most developed countries as we move away from hustle culture and consumerism to a more balanced life, including at work.

Some members might be in the middle of something while this project is ongoing. Providing a space where Team members can lean in and take some of the pressure off that person in the short term, knowing that that team member will show up for their colleagues in future. That level of support builds strong relationships ands recognises the reality of life going on whether work is pressurising or not .

Best tip to prevent burnout: accept that your work rhythm is non-linear, and be ready to treat yourself kindly during the downtime, as this is the restoration space that you need.