Burnout is real, especially among top performers

Employee engagement is a major concern for HR leaders. Year after year, concerned managers and researchers discuss Gallup’s shocking statistic that seven out of 10 U.S. employees report feeling unengaged. Recent data from research by Yale University and published by Harvard Business Review shows that one out of five employees reported both high engagement and high burnout. They call this group the engaged-exhausted group. These engaged-exhausted workers are passionate about their work, but also have intensely mixed feelings about it — reporting high levels of interest, stress, and frustration. The risk for companies is that this is happening across the sales organization among their top performers. 

Solution:
Sales Managers and HR can help by examining the demands they’re placing on people to ensure that employee goals are realistic. Many are rebalancing workloads of employees who, by virtue of being particularly skilled or productive, have been saddled with too much.

​The other opportunity is to provide employees with ways to build their energy stores to operate at a higher level of engagement. What this requires is an understanding of an individuals' ultradian rhythm - times where we have the most energy and clarity of thought - and align our work accordingly. In sales, prospecting and proposal writing are both important and necessary, but require different things from us in terms of our energy and can be day part dependent. Here are some ideas to grab our engagement back: 

 - Sleep research shows we all focus in 90-minute increments and need a rest period after
- We are creatures of habit - create energy rituals that don't drain you mentally
- Match caffeine intake with water intake. Caffeine is a diuretic and dehydration saps energy
​ - Drop the notion that you should work evenly and hard all day long. This has worked never
​ - Give yourself permission to take time off, go for a walk, or read a book vs. social surfing

​To learn more about how your organization and boost their energy and engagement, download this fact sheet for our Create a Sustainable Edge program or call Bill Walton Sales Training at 917-439-3271.