Scary Stuff! Pretty scary statistics announced on the news last night! The latest AUT survey of New Zealanders found that 1 in 5 Kiwi workers suffer from burnout! Burnout is real and classified as an “occupational phenomenon” by the World Health Organisation and included in it’s International Classification of Diseases! What is a disease? Disease wipes out people, animals, plants, anything living. This is some scary stuff! Can we afford to ignore this?

How does New Zealand compare to the rest of the world?
Unfortunately burnout is no surprise with what the world’s been going through since the start of COVID-19!

In New Zealand we are so much better off than most of the world in that for the most part we seem to be living “normal” lives! We can go out to work, are social, go to cafes and restaurants, walks, be on the water, etc. Something I’m personally very grateful for!   

Even though we are better off, we are still struggling with burnout! But…the scarier bit for me is, given we are better off, we’re actually worse off as a nation! Kiwis are on average experiencing burnout twice as much in comparison to the rest of the world.

What does burnout look like for us:

  • Higher job anxiety
  • Higher depression
  • Psychological problems
  • Physical problems, ie can’t sleep
  • Performance drops
  • Lack of being able to control our emotions
  • Cognitive function suffers, people start forgetting things
  • Wake up tired and exhausted (tired at the end of your working day is normal) but not waking up this way before your day has begun 

Cry out for help!
I’ve personally been affected by burnout and so has many people I know personally! It’s not a pretty sight and for some they go from being outstanding high performing individuals to just a mere image of their real selves!

I know we are all responsible for our own well-being, but companies have a responsibility towards their people too!

Be attuned to when others around you are crying out for help!

Emotional Intelligence
I’ve been talking a lot about Emotional Intelligence over the last few months and am working with some amazing leaders to help them grow as emotional intelligent leaders!

Just last week I had a leader tell me how different the “feel” is at their organisaton as a result of some of the strategies I have encouraged them to implement! It has made a difference to their people and to their culture!

Emotional Intelligence is so much more important now than ever for leaders to lead with EQ and not just IQ.

Shortage of great talent
We have a shortage of workers in all industries! Employers struggle to find people and losing great people at the same time! Invest in your current people! Help your leaders to grow their emotional intelligence so they can create better cultures within your organisations and use their emotional intelligence to help us help each other through the burnout!

Here’s some more interesting facts about burnout:

  • It takes on average 3 months to recover from burnout
  • Employers who are more empathetic and caring are 300% less likely to have employees experiencing burnout

Can you afford to lose your great people to burnout? Most leaders would say no!

In addition to the people in your organisation, what about you as Business Owner, CEO, GM or Senior Leader? You’re not immune to burnout either! In fact the statistics also show many of those suffering burnout are managers!

Simon Sinek said: Leaders are the ones who have the courage to go first, to put themselves at personal risk to open a path for others to follow!

Have the courage as leader, don’t ignore the burnout statistics! Do something about it!

If you’re keen to chat about how we can help you or your team grow emotional intelligence and help with burnout Contact Faieka