Burnout is a dangerous and costly condition that should not be taken lightly. If you’ve noticed any signs of burnout within your team, it’s important to take action immediately to prevent any long-term consequences to the health of your employees as well as to your organization. Check out these five tips for how to fight burnout and keep your customer success team healthy and effective.
5 Ways to Fight Burnout
Build an Open and Supportive Work Environment
As a customer success leader, you are responsible for setting the right tone and creating the right environment for your team to be successful. It’s important that you establish an open and positive line of communication with your employees that allows them to feel comfortable speaking with you as well as with their peers about difficult topics. Lead by example, showing empathy and support when needed, providing advice without judgement, and encouraging employees to work together to solve problems rather than trying to go at it alone.
Encourage a Positive Work-Life Balance
A positive work-life balance is not just important for the mental wellbeing of your employees, but it’s also important to your company’s bottom line. According to a study by Deloitte, organizations that promote a healthy work-life balance report two times more productivity than those that do not. You can help your employees achieve a positive work-life balance by encouraging them to prioritize their personal lives over their work lives. For example, allow them to leave work early to attend their children’s sporting events or school programs, implement a no-email policy for off-work hours or vacation time, and encourage them to eat lunch away from their desks and take short breaks during the day to recharge.
Optimize Workspaces for Mental Health
You know that it’s important to provide your employees with a safe workspace that is clear of any physical hazards or dangers, but did you know it’s also important to provide a workspace that protects their mental health? You can achieve this in a variety of ways, such as rearranging desks to provide maximum access to windows and sunlight, offering standing desks or ergonomic workspaces, or creating spaces that are dedicated to break periods and encouraging your employees to take advantage of those spaces. And don’t forget about your remote employees! Provide them with a budget to optimize their at-home workspaces with things like ergonomic furniture, proper lighting, and other tools to create a productive and healthy home office.
Provide Access to Mental Health Tools and Resources
One of the best ways to help your employees fight burnout and other mental health concerns is to provide them with access to information, resources and tools. It wasn’t until recent years that the topic of mental health even became mainstream, and unfortunately, there is often still a stigma attached to it, so many people either don’t understand it or simply choose to ignore it. By arming your employees with tools to help them recognize signs of burnout, information about self-care and stress-coping mechanisms, and access to mental health professionals or programs, you can help your employees not only identify signs of mental health distress, but provide them with access to treatment to manage these concerns before they get out of control.
Promote Healthy Habits
Mental health and physical health go hand-in-hand. When your employees are mentally struggling, they are more likely to make poor choices for their physical health like binge-drinking, overeating or smoking. And vice-versa. So, it’s important to encourage your employees to develop healthy habits for both their physical and mental health. For example, you can promote physical health by providing gym memberships, offering healthy snack options or simply encouraging employees to take short walks around the building during break periods. You can promote mental health by organizing community-outreach opportunities, offering a day off for each day they spend volunteering, encouraging socialization through team-building experiences, or providing opportunities to attend mental health workshops or speaking engagements.
While you cannot control your employees’ mental or physical health, you can provide them with a healthy work environment and access to the proper tools and resources they need to help themselves. And don’t forget, Totango is here to help make your life and your employees’ lives easier with everything you need to design, build, run and measure your entire customer journey. Get started for free today at Totango.com/sign-up.
