Many HR professionals would agree that the year 2020 was the most challenging year to date when it comes to managing human capital effectively. The COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to adapt in a variety of ways, including restructuring workforces, transforming product offerings and operations, and doing everything possible to keep businesses open while physically distancing employees from one another. These challenges, among many others faced during the ongoing COVID pandemic, has led to burnout among many HR professionals.
We’ll address HR employee burnout in this post. Specifically, we’ll discuss:
- Identifying the Issue
- What HR Leaders Can Do to Improve the Situation
- How Company Leadership Can Better Support their HR Team Moving Forward
Identifying the Issue
As an HR leader, you need to be able to understand burnout in yourself, your HR teammates, and all employees at your company.
HR professionals are often expected to be the most empathetic people in an organization. If someone is having a stress/anxiety or interpersonal related issue, HR will often be their first stop. This can lead to something called compassion fatigue. Showing empathy is a skill, but it’s not an easy one. Even the most empathetic people can feel drained of energy when they are showing compassion to multiple people in a short amount of time. This is one of the primary reasons that so many HR professionals are feeling burnout.
During 2020, HR was asked to make a lot of hard decisions. They were also charged with communicating these decisions to employees. Telling everyone that they need to work from home and isolate themselves from as many people as possible is no easy task. And in worst case scenarios, HR leaders were tasked with implementing large-scale furloughs or layoffs. On top of this, federal regulations became a moving target for HR leaders during COVID. Adapting to FFCRA in the midst of transitioning to remote work or altered operations was a super challenging task. After making these tough decisions, dealing with any pushback from staff, and navigating incredibly complex compliance challenges, it’s no wonder that burnout has become so common for HR employees.
What HR Leaders Can Do to Improve the Situation
As an HR leader experiencing burnout, it may be time to consider burnout best practices that could apply to anyone in your workforce. Think about the advice that you would give to any non-HR employee who might approach you with concerns about feeling burned out. What would you tell them? Take that advice, and apply it to yourself. Here are some things you might consider:
- Don’t be afraid to take time off. HR employees too often feel like they have to be extra conservative with their vacation days. They feel like they have to set an example of when it is or is not appropriate to take time off. Throw this idea out the window! If you are experiencing burnout and you have PTO available, use it! Even if travelling is unrealistic right now due to COVID, taking a few days off and spending time exercising, doing hobbies, or relaxing with family and friends can go a long way towards quelling burnout.
- Find a listening ear. It’s very possible that the employees best equipped to listen and show empathy about employee burnout are your HR coworkers. If you don’t feel comfortable discussing your burnout with them, reach out to friends you have in the industry. Think about who you worked with at a previous job, who you met at a conference in recent years, or someone you might be connected with on LinkedIn. Join and online community of HR leaders in your local area. You’ll be surprised at just how willing people in your professional network will be to help you by listening to your challenges and providing guidance.
- Ask for the help you need. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. HR employees don’t need to be examples of perfection. It’s okay to feel down and unmotivated during these troubling times. There is no shame in this. Whatever help you need, get it. A few months or years from now, you’ll thank yourself for doing whatever it took to get yourself back on track using healthy strategies.
How Company Leadership Can Better Support their HR Team Moving Forward
As counter intuitive as this might sound, HR isn’t always equipped to solve every people-related challenge in the workplace. Often the support of company leadership – the CEO, Founder, President, etc. – is needed.
Company leadership should go above and beyond to acknowledge HR accomplishments during this difficult time. Awarding the “employee of the month” title to someone in HR, sending a hand-written thank you note, or even a “shoutout” included in an internal company communication will go a long way towards making your HR team feel recognized for the hard work they have performed over the last year. Could you go as far as gifting your organization’s HR leader a gift certificate to a spa or have lunch delivered to their home form their favorite restaurant? Get creative in showing your HR teammates just how much their effort means to your company during this challenging time.
Also important, company leadership should consider potential gaps in employee benefits. Could your employee assistance program be expanded? What does your company’s mental health coverage lack? Understanding these gaps in benefits and acting on them will go a long way towards ensuring your entire team’s mental and physical health are cared for, and especially your HR staff during this challenging time.
Key Takeaways
Burnout among HR employees is becoming very common in the wake of the challenging year 2020. Compassion fatigue, combined with the weight of having to make and communicate so many challenging decisions, are the primary reasons for this burnout. HR employees can help themselves overcome burnout by doing the following:
- Don’t be afraid to take time off.
- Find a listening ear.
- Get the help you need.
Company leadership should also take the initiative to help their HR team overcome burnout. Two ideal strategies for achieving this are:
- Going the extra mile to make sure HR is acknowledged and thanked for the challenging work they have been performing over the last year.
- Ensure that there are no gaps in benefits coverage that are limiting your team’s ability to take care of themselves and their mental health.
Launchways Provides HR Leaders the Support They Need So They Can Focus on Strategic Initiatives
At Launchways, we partner with organizations to help alleviate the administrative and compliance burdens placed on HR professionals. With Launchways’ support, HR leaders have more time to work on strategic initiatives rather than getting bogged down by tactical day-to-day items. Learn more about how Launchways helps HR leaders.