Addressing Employee Burnout with HR People Analytics

Discovering the significant causes of the now-common employee burnout and how HR people analytics can help

What factors contribute to employee burnout? Companies have been asking themselves this question for a long time. Some have measured it well, while others are still hunting for solutions. According to research, one of the primary causes of employee burnout is a lack of work-life balance. Another study suggests that not having adequate time to focus on the job contributes to burnout. At the same time, some blame burnout on excessive collaboration and poor line managers.

Therein lies the issue! When it comes to employee burnout, each organization has its own set of causes that are generally unique to them. But one thing they all have in common is that they are all dealing with dissatisfied employees who are forced to quit.

But why should you care about employee satisfaction?

According to a survey, organizations with highly engaged staff are 21% more profitable. They are also 17% more productive than organizations with disengaged employees. Another study on employee engagement discovered that corporations in the United States lose between $450 and 550 billion per year because of disengaged workers.

However, you don't need specialists to inform you that your staff is unproductive due to workplace burnout; simply compare your past productivity figures. However, an analysis of this nature is capable of much more.

Making Use of HR People Analytics

Big data analytics may assist you in identifying the issue, understanding the cause of the problem, and making data-driven decisions to fix it. According to a recent Gartner survey, however, just 16% of companies use technology to measure employee growth and engagement. And the companies doing so are using the powerful data to improve employee satisfaction and manage burnout, attrition, and recruiting, among other things.

Leveraging HR People Analytics

A global business that was experiencing problems with one specific team where employees refused to stay used organizational email data in conjunction with workforce analytics to solve the problem. The organization discovered from the insights that there were teams where the line managers had so much on their plates that the team members had to engage with other groups directly and mostly autonomously. Due to the excessive workload, some team members resigned or planned to quit.

The organization recognized that when a team member's connections at work outnumber their supervisor's, it becomes disruptive and burdensome for the team. The corporation resorted to people analytics solutions for insights. The organization brought in a team lead after learning about the issues and soliciting feedback from team members. While serving as the initial point of contact for the whole team and other teams, the lead filtered duties to the line manager.

Another example of an employee engagement project performed by a multinational corporation discovered that its workers had a habit of sending excessive emails outside of working hours. Though some may be accustomed to it, this is unquestionably a bad habit contributing to staff burnout. Following the discovery of this behavior with the help of HR analytics, the multinational corporation could handle it by making it obligatory not to send emails after working hours. It also made it a habit to get to the root cause if any employee did so. This drastically reduced the number of emails sent after work hours, assisting management in addressing the looming issue of staff burnout.

Identifying at-risk personnel, whether it's employee burnout, attrition, or anything else, has always been challenging since standard HR data, which is often subjective and sometimes outdated, is of poor use in forecasting it. Since corporate email and chat platforms are the most prevalent means of company communication, people analytics solutions examine email metadata to determine whether an employee is in danger of burnout. It employs analytics to determine critical variables such as over-collaboration, line manager effectiveness, time management, and staff productivity.

To summarize, employee well-being is no longer simply a notion; it is a deciding factor for many people before joining a company. It improves not only reputation but also performance. And what better way to accomplish it than to get to know your people better?

Bivek Minj graduated from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication with a degree in English Journalism. He serves as a Content Writer at ZL Tech India's Marketing department. He comes to the industry with a desire to learn and grow.