The term "burnout" has become all too familiar and is a silent epidemic. Employee burnout lowers productivity, focus and affects the bottom line in all organisations — from big corporations to lean startups. At YuLife, we believe that personal wellbeing and professional success are not mutually exclusive. That's why we're excited to break down an insightful webinar we held in June 2024 featuring Katie Maycock, a seasoned expert in employee well-being and the founder of GYST Wellbeing.This blog will walk you through Katie’s expertise in the subject and lay out a few of her key strategies for managing burnout in the workplace — no matter which stage your business is in. Catch the free webinar recording here to learn even more about workplace burnout. Katie's Journey: From Chronic Stress to Global Success Katie Maycock has burnt out 3 times — going from a high performer to not even being able to read emails.Katie’s journey is a poignant reminder of the toll burnout can have on anyone. Having experienced burnout repeatedly, Katie found herself at a crossroads when her health began to rapidly and suddenly deteriorate. At just 27 years old, she faced horrible side effects like swollen joints (to the point she couldn’t climb stairs!), all the way to multiple occurrences of shingles. These effects of chronic burnout forced Katie to quit her job — twice. One day, she woke up to find an open cold sore stretching across her entire face to her ear. This was the alarming red flag that told her she needed to spur into action and tackle her chronic stress and burnout once and for all. Since then, Katie has led many organisations on journeys of their own to finally tackle the root cause of their employee burnout and build healthier, more effective workforces. Through her consultancy, GYST Wellbeing, Katie empowers organisations to proactively address stressors before they escalate, fostering healthier and more productive work environments.What is burnout? Burnout is often used interchangeably with feeling stressed out or tired. But it’s more than experiencing bouts of stress or overwhelm. It’s characterised by a prolonged state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. During the webinar, Katie delves into the nuances of burnout, shedding light on its symptoms, triggers, and actionable strategies for prevention. But she also makes one important distinction to how we’ve previously identified burnout around the world. Unfortunately, “if you go to The World Health Organization, they’re going to tell you that it’s an ‘occupational health phenomenon that happens when people physically, mentally and emotionally feel exhausted from prolonged stress that happens in the workplace’ [...] and I think it’s really not fair to put the whole onus on a workplace. It’s really not fair to put it on the HR managers,” Katie expresses. Because: “Realistically…it’s not a workplace problem — it’s a human problem.” While burnout is prevalent in workplaces and negatively impacts businesses, it’s not just in the workplace that burnout happens, or only the workplace that inspires burnout in individuals. And we need to start looking at it as Katie said: a human problem. Because, for the most part, it’s a combination of various factors that can come from people’s personal lives. Acknowledging that is a vital step to beating burnout on a global scale. So what is a human-first approach you can use as a business? 3 places to start beating burnout in your business 1. Root Cause Analysis: To avoid burnout, it’s vital to hold regular pulse checks as part of a quarterly or monthly routine — especially if people start expressing feelings of overwhelm or stress. In the webinar, Katie expressed how she often sees a huge lack of understanding and awareness in workplaces when it comes to factors that influence burnout. To truly tackle burnout, workplaces have to first investigate what the root causes of stress are in their unique workpalce. The underlying causes of stress in the workplace — whether it's inadequate resources, unrealistic expectations, or poor work-life balance—are the direct factors that lead to burnout, because stress is always the precursor. Therefore, use pulse surveys or regular one-on-one sessions to get a sense of what areas of the workplace or employees’ personal lives are stress-inducing, what their stress levels are and what your organisation could do better to either restructure or support them through difficult times.2. Engaging Leadership: Company leaders, especially the senior leadership team, are the trendsetters in your organisation. What employees see them do, they feel compelled to act similarly in the office. This can be a good and a bad thing depending on how aware your SLT are of their impact and how well they take care of their wellbeing and stress. “You need to get the senior leadership team behind you,” Katie emphasises. “I feel for HR managers because they come up with these amazing wellbeing strategies, these amazing training and development courses, they want to execute them! And senior leadership teams are like ‘yeah, yeah do whatever you want to do’. Nothing is going to change unless every single senior leadership person on your team is going to take ownership of doing what they need to do for their teams.” Many leaders are simply “too busy” to get behind these various wellbeing programmes and efforts that HR is putting in. Katie suggests creating some sort of programme that creates clear objectives for them and maybe even offers them rewards — or (simply but most effectively) gathering the data showing how much money and time they’re losing by not focusing more on wellbeing in the workplace. 3. Aligning Wellbeing Strategies with Business Strategy: A successful wellbeing strategy isn't one-size-fits-all—it must be tailored to meet the unique needs of an organisation's workforce, and should equally align with that organisation’s wider business goals. Katie dove into the importance of aligning wellbeing initiatives with those strategies, and even taking it a step further to align with the wider demographic and culture of your business. If you take on a wellbeing programme that offers 4-day workweeks, reduced work-hours and work-from-home options but all of your projects require a ton of in-person collaboration and there are hugely ambitious targets on your staff’s plate, those two elements conflict — creating resistance, stress and feelings of inadequacy.“[It] comes down to getting every single senior leadership person in the company together talking about: is the business strategy actually realistic to where our team is right now?” Katie explains. This alignment is what will ensure your wellbeing efforts resonate with employees, it will boost employee satisfaction and enhance your organisation’s overall performance — ultimately generating the meaningful results you’ve been searching for. Watch the full webinar with Katie Maycock here. Want to dive even deeper into the workplace burnout epidemic? Workplaces need to especially acknowledge the role of HR when it comes to beating burnout at work. While HR is often required to deal with the effects and solutions of burnout—and navigate keeping people healthy through unforeseen challenges like COVID and work-from-home mandates—little to no attention is often brought to their health and wellbeing.They are constantly being thrown into the driver's seat of all workplace issues and expected to become experts in each of them. “The most burnt-out people In the next 18 months are going to be leaders in an organisation,” says Katie. “Leaders in the organisation have had the unfortunate experience of trying to get people through a really unstable time, and a lot of pressure goes onto your leaders [...] if you have a burnt-out leader, you have a burnt-out team. All the HR people in the room, it’s too much for you guys!” It’s just as important for these things to be championed by SLT, managers, and for employees to be equipped with the tools to truly understand when they’re getting close to burnout, and reflect on their workload while having an open and honest relationship with their managers to quell burnout before it happens. Dive further into burnout with YuLife’s Anti-Burnout Book We just surveyed over 2000+ employees across the UK, and spoke with some expert leaders in the field to get their perspectives on how they really feel about burnout.Equipped with checklists, current data and workplace guides, you can learn how to identify, treat and prevent burnout in your workplace using our brand new Anti-Burnout Book available to download for FREE right here.About YuLifeYuLife is working to reimagine the insurance industry by protecting lives, rewarding living and inspiring life. We’re on a mission to transform traditional insurance into a life-enhancing experience each employee will value and use daily. How does it work?Our award-winning app uses behavioural science and game mechanics to reward your people for living well while offering protection in case of crisis. And with our top-rated employee assistance programme, your team gets access to mental, financial and social support, virtual GPs, nutritionists, life coaches and more to help them live their best lives.Because we believe that your employees should benefit from their insurance from day one — and that wellbeing should be accessible every day, for everyone.Request a demo for your team today.