With the ongoing market conditions in the region, every organization is trying its best to keep their team morale up and finding ways for improving team performance. It’s a known fact that teams and companies are running under pressure and the management is looking at making the best out of their available resources without overburdening or exhausting them. However, every team goes through a stage where it experiences a team burnout. This is a common scenario, which if not identified on time, may lead to damages which can affect performance.

Here are our top 5 ways of spotting team burnout,

Turnover: If you see that it’s getting difficult to retain team members in your team/organization, it could be an indicator for you to re-look and re-evaluate your culture and work pattern.

Absenteeism: Regular day offs or arriving late and leaving early from work, could be a sign of burnout and that your team member/team is exhausted and needs a break.

Never taking a vacation: Sometimes teams get into an overdrive mode, where they execute task after task and eventually are not aware of the quality of work being produced. Over-working is one of the prime reasons for a burnout. Remember, a team member who never takes an off is the team member who is going to crash, sooner or later.

Conflict: Conflict is good, when it is constructive. Sometimes, personal frustration or fatigue causes unskillful conflict which is not helpful. When this becomes a regular in your team, it needs a closer examination. Conflict always has underlying issues, which need to be looked at.

Ineffectiveness: An exhausted team is an ineffective team. Poor performance, demotivation, and ineffectiveness are all red flags that need to be looked at before the team burns out and impacts performance.

Studies reveal that the quickest employees to get burnt out are the over-achievers and perfectionists. And when the A Players or the Star performers start to fail that’s when the team starts underperforming.

Some ways of avoiding team burnout are,
– Allowing or introducing the process of venting in work environment, which also means being a good listener to your team and creating space for the team members to speak and express themselves. This minimises negativity by allowing all voices to speak and be heard so that all members of the team feel more empowered 

– By avoiding negative behaviors like raising voice tone, getting personal, and showing contempt during conflict so everyone feels heard and respected

– Increase positivity by listening to each other, respecting each other views and giving constructive feedback during conflict so conflict is viewed as constructive

– Increase positive personal interactions by spending time with the each other at weekly catchups, celebrating successes, giving each other open feedback this will help foster trust in the team. This could also help team members to be conscious and intentional when creating relationships between themselves 

– Create we-centered cultures by increasing collaboration and cooperation so that silo mentality decreases in the organisation 

– View constructive conflict as a signal for change. This can be achieved by opening channels for direct and open feedback. Allowing each member to voice their opinions during conflict can help achieve results and consensus without any of the team members feeling unheard or unimportant

– View diversity as an asset and not as a liability. This can be achieved by respecting every team member’s views and by allowing everyone with a fair chance of voicing their opinion and thoughts and accepting that different is not wrong, it’s just different