Traditionally, most workplaces operated during set office hours—often 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But with remote and hybrid work now becoming the norm, employees are picking up the phone to call customers, answering emails, and solving issues well outside of these traditional time slots. Studies show that employees who work from home spend 10% longer logged in each week and that employees that work from home work on average 1 more hour per day than those that work in office settings. Moreover, a Microsoft study shows that 50% of workers are burned out. As a result of these situations, employee burnout is increasing.
Automated Wrkflows can help reduce burnout by simplifying several areas, such as supply chain tracking, list management, proposal development, quality assurance, and much more, seamlessly complementing staff efforts. Wrk’s unique automation platform is designed to operate alongside your team effortlessly, with minimal time to launch and a maximum boost in productivity and employee morale. Read on to learn more about how you can protect your business from employee burnout with the help of automation.
The Warning Signs of Employee Burnout
All employees have days when they are tired from a long work day. However, burnout is different and there are distinct signs that business leaders need to be aware of.
For example, an employee that is burnt out will likely be more irritable and fatigued, and will become frustrated more easily with routine tasks. Other signs might be that employees may not be contributing as many ideas or not communicating with others as they were before, or that their quality of work or output may drop off dramatically. They may even drop the ball on important deadlines or start calling in sick more often.
If your team works remotely, which is the case with about 32% of Canadians and 44% of Americans, it may be even more challenging to tell if they are burning out. However, even those working from home can put up red flags, including not being available for video chats, staying silent during meetings, or developing a more negative attitude toward their responsibilities.
Everyone can experience burnout
Burnout impacts not only the productivity of your employees but also your bottom line. It can cost your company a lot.
In fact, lack of engagement from burnout costs employers 34% of their staff's annual salaries, leads to higher staff turnover, and has left U.S. companies down as much as $550 billion per year.
Okay, so you've identified the issue of burnout among your staff. What do you do to fix the problem? Hiring and training new staff to help spread the load is an option, but costly and time-consuming. A report from the Society for Human Resource Management estimates the cost of a new hire at more than $4,000 and that it takes 42 days on average to fill an opening.
Another potential option is crowdsourcing platforms like Upwork or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to outsource on-demand tasks. But this opens the door for low-quality work, a loss of business control, potential security risks, and long turnaround times.
Automation, especially Wrk's hybrid approach, can help your current processes while giving your employees a better balance between work and life.
Automated Wrkflows As Supports
Automation is a word that might make some employees nervous. Some people may assume it means that it will make them less relevant or valuable, but it's quite the opposite.
Another common misconception of automation is that it is limited to certain functions. However, our Wrkflows are designed to operate alongside your staff and simplify daily tasks across a wide range of departments, from Sales to Customer Support and beyond.
For example, Sales Data and List Management Wrkflows automate list building, CRM data entry, and lead scoring so that your team can significantly reduce the time they spend crunching numbers and, instead, spend more time converting leads. In addition, client onboarding processes like building proposals, approving contracts, and setting up client accounts can be very repetitive and time-consuming for your HR team. Our tailored HR-focused Wrkflows can remove this repetition and give your team time to focus on more important, high-level tasks.
Marketing is another critical function that can demand a lot of staff resources and time. You can perform routine tasks such as market research and personalized email marketing campaigns with our easy-to-use Wrkflows.
From Exhaustion to Empowerment
You likely chose your key staff for their talents, not for their ability to do repetitive tasks. However, many daily tasks they're responsible for are repetitive and could lead to employee burnout. Automation is a way to introduce simplicity and free up your team so they can shine.
Imagine if your staff had more time, energy, and resources to develop better relationships with existing and potential clients—not to mention the scope to bring new ideas to the table. Research by economists at the University of Warwick found that happy employees are 12% more productive. And it's not just tied to salaries and financial bonuses. The study found that companies investing in employee support boost staff happiness and that happier employees take advantage of that by doing more.
In short, automation provides your team with a priceless gift—time. With more time, your staff won't feel as rushed to finish tasks that machines can do, and they'll have more resources to develop new ideas that will help your bottom line. And then there are bonuses: employees who are more engaged are 87% less likely to seek a job elsewhere. Happy employees share their good moods with customers and help bring in top talent by telling others about the supportive work environment.
Ultimately, our platform provides simplicity and allows your team to use time to their advantage. With the support automation provides, your team is less likely to experience burnout because they can log off at a more reasonable time and establish their own version of a healthy work-life balance.
Save Your Team From Employee Burnout With Automation
Employee burnout is real. It's not only a blight on your employees who become less happy and productive when burnout sets in, but that drop in productivity and engagement can erode your company's bottom line, not to mention morale.
The problem of mundane tasks eating up staff resources can be solved with automation. Whether you're looking to streamline your sales or marketing processes, easily track your supply chain, or make quality assurance seamless, Wrk can do it all.
Check out our various Wrkflows to learn more about adding simplicity and free up more of your team's time to help drive success.
