77% of professionals have experienced burnout at their current jobs. And more than half have experienced it more than once.

Despite our best efforts to prevent employee burnout, systemic burnout in the workplace is more common than not. 

For a while, we got away with blaming the high rates of burnout on lockdowns and pandemic-related stress. Many employers turned to meditation apps and other wellness perks in hopes of managing employee burnout during a tumultuous time.

But as the pandemic has slowly faded into our rearview mirrors, the burnout flame is still burning strong. 

While employee perks generally do have a positive impact on employee wellness, it’s become clear that burnout can’t be solved by yoga classes or cold brew on tap.

The best way to put the brakes on systemic burnout? Creating a culture of mentorship and connectivity within your organization. By building an effective support network, you can help your employees better align themselves with each other and your business vision. 

With the right tools and resources in place, employees will be better equipped to face challenges and changes within the workplace—including burnout.

What causes employee burnout?

Employee burnout is caused by sustained periods of unmanaged stress in the workplace.

When employees are burnt out, they feel exhausted and drained—not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. This state of constant exhaustion will decrease employees’ motivation, energy and, ultimately, productivity. 

When burnout gets out of control, it can be costly for organizations in more ways than one. Employees who are feeling burnt out are more likely to take time off for illness. Over time, burnout can impact everything from employee engagement to employee turnover.

But how we work is changing more drastically than ever before. We’ve seen the rise in remote work, a shift in organizational structures and rocky economic conditions that have caused unexpected shifts in business priorities. 

Employees have shown an incredible amount of resilience in response to the change. But with so many contributing factors, it’s not entirely surprising that burnout is spreading like wildfire throughout the entire workforce.

Some common causes of employee burnout in the modern workplace include: 

• Demanding and unsustainable workloads: When employees have more on their plate than they can reasonably handle, they’re likely to over-exert themselves trying to keep up. This is especially true among high performers. But when employees stretch themselves too thin, it creates a stressful environment that makes managing work increasingly difficult. It quickly becomes a vicious cycle that’s difficult to break.

• Lack of alignment between organizational and individual values: When employees don’t feel connected to your organization’s values, it can be difficult to find purpose and motivation in their work. It’s incredibly common among businesses with rapidly changing priorities and goals.

• Absence of reward and recognition: When employees feel like their work is appreciated and brings value to their workplace, it provides a sense of fulfillment that can help reduce stress. If effort goes unrecognized for long periods of time, it can lead to unhappiness and a decrease in motivation.

• Ambiguity around career pathing and growth opportunities: Without adequate career development and learning opportunities, employees can feel like they’re running on a treadmill with no destination in sight. The lack of direction creates a frustrating feeling of stagnation and hopelessness, significantly increasing their risk of burnout.

• Concerns around fairness and equity within the company: When employees don’t feel they’re being treated fairly among their peers (or see others being treated unfairly), it can quickly erode trust in the organization. The mismatch in values and lack of diversity and inclusion can quickly drain motivation, causing burnout to rear its ugly head.

• Lack of community within the organization: Employees who feel like they’re left to fend for themselves—whether it’s due to a lack of support from their managers or lack of workplace connection—struggle to find a sense of belonging. The isolation is only exasperated when combined with other contributing factors to burnout, often causing folks to feel lonelier than they did to begin with. 

• External factors: From pandemics to economic challenges, there are also external factors that can make burnout more prevalent. A 2020 survey found that of those who experienced burnout, 40% felt they were specifically affected during the pandemic.

It’s no surprise that demanding workloads are a major driver of burnout. But if you look deeper, you’ll notice that there’s a common thread: a lack of support and community.

Employees at highest risk of burnout

All employees are susceptible to burnout when there aren’t measures in place to prevent it. But certain groups of employees are at higher risk, including:

• High performers and high potential talent who are passionate about their work
• Employees from diverse backgrounds who may face barriers to networking and other opportunities
• Managers and senior leaders who feel isolated and disconnected from their peers as they transition into senior roles
• Employees who are unengaged and don’t feel challenged in their roles

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Your top performers and leaders are vital to your organization’s success. But if left to burnout, they’ll disengage and might eventually leave altogether. This is why taking a proactive approach to managing employee burnout is critical.

How to prevent employee burnout

To an extent, many organizations have accepted burnout as a fact of the modern workplace. But burnout shouldn’t be the norm.

The truth is that burnout is almost 100% preventable in one way or another. 

Some burnout can be addressed by reducing workloads for employees and better managing priorities. But more often than not, burnout has little to do with the amount of work but rather a lack of connection and alignment with the work being done.

In fact, we know that high-performing employees usually want to take on new opportunities so they can grow. So when you take responsibilities away from folks in the name of “reducing workload,” you’re only addressing a symptom. It can actually highlight feelings of failure and frustration, often making the true problem even worse.

So if you want to tackle systemic burnout, you need to start by managing concerns around isolation, community, and purpose. 

Here are some tactics and techniques organizations can use to prevent burnout—beyond scrutinizing employee to-do lists.

1. Build a sense of workplace community 

Social connection has long been considered a basic human need. It provides a sense of purpose and belonging. It’s only natural that the same need for connection extends to where we spend so much of our time and energy—the workplace. 

A 2022 Gallup study found that employees who have best friends at work are happier, more productive, and for in-person workplaces, less likely to be safety risks.

In a strong community, collaboration thrives, which is good for burnout and business. A cohesive community will often fuel innovation, creativity, and new solutions to important problems. But a strong workplace community also leads to a shared sense of belonging among coworkers.

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Community over collaboration: With a strong community often comes collaboration. But building a sense of community doesn’t mean forcing collaboration. Connectivity doesn’t come from forcing people to sit in a (virtual) room together. It can actually reduce productivity and cause further burnout. Rather, organizations should focus on building meaningful relationships between like-minded individuals within the workplace through mentorship and other connection opportunities.

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But as organizations have shifted to decentralized workplaces, creating a sense of community within teams is easier said than done. It’s hard to click with folks behind a screen. A survey conducted by Harvard Business Review found that the sense of community dropped by 37% compared to before the pandemic. 

When companies focus on employee connectivity and community, many other employee burnout prevention strategies will also naturally follow.

2. Create a purpose and alignment

Workplace burnout can be stress-induced. But in many instances, it can also be triggered by a consistent feeling of lack of accomplishment. If an employee feels like just another cog in the wheel, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.

Employees want to feel a sense of purpose in their work. When they clearly understand 

how their work makes an impact on organizational goals, they’re more motivated and engaged. They’re also more resilient when it comes to managing challenges like stress and workloads. 

But it’s important to recognize that purpose in the workplace can look different for everybody. In some cases, purpose means making an impact in the community or closely aligning personal goals with company ones. But purpose can also be achieved by empowering employees to grow in their careers and build connections with mentors.

3. Prioritize psychological safety

Psychological safety has been proven to have a statistically significant association with lower burnout rates.

Psychological safety exists when employees feel like they can be themselves, speak freely, and make mistakes without fear of being reprimanded. Of course, this can look like fear of losing their jobs, but it can al get iso be concerns over being passed over for networking and growth opportunities. 

In the workplace, there’s already a natural power imbalance that stems from the fact that employees work for the organization. This means companies need to intentionally build a psychological safety net for their teams to help prevent burnout.

This becomes even more important if your team is going through (or has recently gone through) personnel challenges, such as layoffs and restructuring. Watching friends and hard-working colleagues lose their jobs can be devastating and take a massive mental toll. It also creates job security, causing the risk of employee burnout to rise exponentially.

Psychological safety usually goes hand-in-hand with a positive work culture, but there are ways for teams to make it a priority, including:

• Creating safe spaces for communication between employees and teams. 
• Making mistakes and learning curves the norm
• Embracing positive and constructive conflict

This doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be accountability. It just means that open and honest communication should be valued.

When employees feel comfortable being honest with a mentor, management, HR or even their peers, they’re more likely to speak up about issues like burnout. Fostering psychological safety can directly help organizations identify burnout in the early stages, before it impacts work and employee engagement.

But keep in mind, while your employees should be empowered to share the challenges they’re facing at work, it’s up to you to create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable doing so.

4. Foster honest and open mentor-mentee relationships

Mentors are meant to be trusted guides that help employees navigate their career and workplace interactions. They’re able to offer practical advice around time management and prioritization. 

But having a strong mentor-mentee relationship offers much more when it comes to creating healthy relationships at work. It creates a safe space where mentors can openly provide honest feedback, and mentees can feel comfortable sharing the challenges they’re facing, whether it’s burnout or other barriers.

These types of professional relationships help employees find direction and purpose in their everyday work. It builds confidence in their development, even if they don’t necessarily desire upward mobility. 

5. Provide the right support and resources

The wide range of causes of burnout can make smothering the flame difficult. Employees and employers can’t do it alone.

Having the right tools and resources to support to keep burnout at bay for good—and we’re not talking about self-care.

Some support and resources that organizations can leverage for burnout include:

• Community-building tools
• Mentorship and networking platforms
• Time management and stress management resources
• Leadership training and development

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How Ten Thousand Coffees helps prevent employee burnout

Ten Thousand Coffees (10KC) helps organizations prevent employee burnout before it happens. 

How? By targeting the root of the problem through mentorship and employee connectivity. Mentorship programs and better employee connections makes teams happier, healthier, and more productive.

Here are a few ways 10KC’s talent experience solutions can help you prevent burnout in your teams. 

1. Create safe spaces for open communication

We all know communication is key, but 10KC makes it easy for teams of all sizes to improve communication and build a sense of belonging across all levels of the organization. 

• Discussion guides: Our mentorship programs do more than just connect your team. We help guide mentors and mentees through informal yet meaningful conversations, so they can make the most of their time. With discussion questions and continuous learning resources, we can help peers effectively discuss everything from stress management to setting boundaries.

• Office hours: This interactive round table format creates a safe space for open dialogue about mental health, burnout, and beyond. 10KC helps organizations craft an environment where everyone can feel heard and supported by leadership and peers—without any fear of judgment.

2. Supporting employees with networking and mentorship opportunities

Employee connectivity and mentorship go beyond just immediate teams. By empowering employees to network and engage with peers and leaders, creating conversations is easier than ever before. 

• Smart-Match: No spreadsheets here.10KCs Smart-Match algorithm does the heavy lifting. We automatically match employees with peers, leaders, and mentors based on their interests and goals. This helps employees build the connections they need to feel supported, without the bias of traditional networking. 

• Introductions: Remote and hybrid environments can make meeting new folks outside your team a bit trickier. Introductions bring people together with their peers to encourage fresh ideas and new conversations. We’ll even offer suggested topics so you can skip right past the awkward virtual wave. It’s like a water cooler, without the spilled water.
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And because employees don’t need another platform to keep up with, all mentor matches and introductions are sent directly to their emails or messaging apps like Slack or Teams.

3. Managing burnout with structured curriculums

For more direct solutions, 10KC offers a selection of off-the-shelf programs that are scalable and easy to implement.  

• Development solutions for employees prone to burnout: Every individual has unique lived experiences, which is why we offer structured programs and resources designed with your employees in mind. From diverse and high potential talent to people managers who are often prone to burnout, equip your teams with the skills and networks they need to advance in their careers—all while providing the connections and mentorship opportunities that tackle burnout at its core.

• Modules for managing and preventing burnout: Make burnout the center of the conversation and curriculum. Provide high potential and diverse employees with actionable tips and tools for spotting and preventing burnout with expert-led and science-backed modules, right within our existing off-the-shelf solutions.
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Have a program you already love or need something more specific? Our team can design structured mentorship and employee development programs that are tailored to your team.

10KCs collection of employee development, mentorship, and connectivity solutions are thoughtfully designed to help you create a stronger and more effective workplace. With seamless integrations into top platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, providing your team with the networking tools they need to thrive in the workplace has never been easier. 
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