You might only seem that you have got a handle on your job
You might be the top sales representative, or the best project manager your boss can count on. You turn up for work on time every day, you give your input on meetings, and you do all that is required of you efficiently. It may seem that you have got a handle on your job — which is why you might surprise everyone when you want to quit.
On the surface, they are their boss’ star employees, but according to a survey by CEB, deep down about one-third of them are probably feeling disengaged and are looking for a new job. This phenomena is known as ‘brownout’.
You’ve all heard of burnout, but have you heard about its sibling? According to Telegraph, executive coaches and business psychologists have been talking about ‘brownout’, which might arguably not be as serious as burnout, but is much more prevalent in the working world.
Brownout, which is a term derived from the part of a life cycle of a star, has been called the “worst stage of burnout” by 99u. While burnout is temporary, brownout can have long-term, lasting effects. A brownout usually creeps up on you, and is not a sudden, stressful breakdown like burnout. It is the sinister counterpart that kills you softly.
And unlike burnout, brownout is much more common than you expect. A US coaching firm Corporate Balance Concepts recently looked at 1,000 executives: it estimated that five per cent of them suffered from burnout while 40 per cent suffered from brownout.
Employees affected by burnout become unmotivated and lose passion in their jobs. It often occurs for high performers who do not even look like they are in obvious crisis. As Harvard Business Review suggests, these employees might seem to be performing just fine. They don’t seem to mind working OT and grinding day in and day out. They perform their work efficiently and contribute brilliant ideas in meetings. However, they are operating on a “silent state of continual overwhelm”.
If you are an employee:
As the proverb goes, ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. You might find yourself committing so much to your job that your work-life balance is at stake. Here are some signs and consequences of brownout, according to Kibler:
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You feel drained from a continuous, never-ending mountain of work.
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Your physical well-being is suffering due to lack of sleep and self-care.
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You start to have a decreasing interest for personal hobbies you used to love.
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Your relationships with family members feel distant or strained and your social life is lacking.
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You have an increasing lack of ability to participate in non-business conversations.
If you are an employer:
“A brownout is hard to detect and is not characterised by a major crisis,” says Michael Kibler, founder and CEO of Corporate Balance Concepts. You won’t see this ‘silent killer’ coming, and worst of all, it affects your best employees.
According to Forbes and Huffington Post, here are some reasons why your top employees will lose passion in their work:
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You have stupid rules
It’s understandable that a company has some rules — but too much into the nitty gritty and it will drive people crazy. Nobody likes to be told how many exact minutes they are allowed to chill at the coffee corner, or if they have to ask permission to take a smoke break. Take a page from Google: Employees can gym or do whatever they want during work hours as long as they deliver their work.
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You fail to challenge
Star employees are looking to grow, they don’t want a job where they are just counting down the hours till they go home. They don’t want to work within a little box of the same responsibilities day in and day out. If they are looking for new opportunities, it means that you did not provide them with appropriate projects that would help to develop their skillset.
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You control
Everyone hates micromanagement. If you do lots of hand-holding and prod into their every decision, your top performers will feel like you don’t trust them to do things their own way. Similarly, they aren’t challenged and can’t give their best if you dictate how they do everything; it is an insult to these star employees’ intelligence and drive. You hired them for a reason, so let them do their job.
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You overwork them
An efficient employee is extremely reliable and productive, so a manager probably feels like he or she can assign more and more work to that person. Just because they can get through work fast, doesn’t mean they should do a mountain-load more than others (and get a similar paycheck to those who do lesser). If the employee is clocking in day after day of OT, he or she will start looking for a new place that offers a better work-life balance.
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You tolerate poor performance
Treating everyone equally might be the ‘diplomatic’ and fair way to treat kids in school, but this tactic will make your top performers lose confidence in you. Why should they continue putting in their best efforts if there is a slacker who does the bare minimum? Treating everyone equally shows that you allow weak links to exist, and your top employees will go away feeling that no matter how well they perform they will all be always treated the same and this would drag them down. Employers need emotional intelligence to appropriately address the performance issues.
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You don’t care about people
More than half the people who leave their jobs do so because of their relationship with their boss. To retain employees, managers need to balance a professional relationship as well as a human one. If you don’t understand their difficulties or recognise their accomplishments, you will have a high turnover rate. It’s hard to work for a robot nine hours a day, for someone who doesn’t care that you really need that urgent leave because your child is running a high fever at home.
Managers tend to blame turnover problems on everything and everyone else other than themselves. As Dr. Travis Bradberry, author of bestseller Emotional Intelligence 2.0, says, “People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers”.
Kibler explains that if you develop “true partnerships” and engage with subordinates on a personal level and care for their career development, you will retain the most loyal employees and this would greatly benefit the organisation.
