Travis Bradberry* considers brownout — what occurs when otherwise top performers gradually lose interest in their jobs — and how to avoid it.
It’s tough to hold on to good employees, but it shouldn’t be.
Most of the mistakes made are easily avoided. When you do make mistakes, your best employees are the first to go, because they have the most options.
If you can’t keep your best employees engaged, you can’t keep your best employees.
While this should be common sense, it isn’t common enough. A recent survey found that one-third of star employees feel disengaged and are already looking for a new job.
When you lose good employees, they don’t disengage all at once. Instead, their interest in their jobs slowly dissipates.
Michael Kibler, who has spent much of his career studying this phenomenon, refers to it as brownout.
He says brownout is different from burnout because workers afflicted by it are not in obvious crisis.
“They seem to be performing fine: Putting in massive hours, grinding out work while contributing to teams, and saying all the right things in meetings,” Kibler says.
However, they are operating in a silent state of continual overwhelm, and the predictable consequence is disengagement.”
In order to prevent brownout and to retain top talent, organisations and managers must understand what they’re doing that contributes to this slow fade.
The following practices are the worst offenders.
They make a lot of stupid rules
Organisations need to have rules, but they don’t have to be short-sighted and lazy attempts at creating order.
Whether it’s an overzealous attendance policy or taking employees’ frequent flier miles, even a couple of unnecessary rules can drive people crazy.
They treat everyone equally
Treating everyone equally shows your top performers that no matter how high they perform, they will be treated the same as the bozo who does nothing more than punch the clock.
They tolerate poor performance
It’s said that in jazz bands, the band is only as good as the worst player.
The same goes for an organisation — when you permit weak links to exist without consequence, they drag everyone else down, especially your top performers.
They don’t recognise accomplishments
It’s easy to underestimate the power of a pat on the back, especially with top performers who are intrinsically motivated.
Everyone likes kudos, none more so than those who work hard and give their all.
Rewarding individual accomplishments shows that you’re paying attention.
Managers need to communicate with their people to find out what makes them feel good and then to reward them for a job well done.
They don’t care about people
More than half the people who leave their jobs do so because of their relationship with their boss.
Smart organisations make certain their managers know how to balance being professional with being human.
These are the bosses who celebrate their employees’ successes, empathise with those going through hard times, and challenge them, even when it hurts.
It’s impossible to work for someone for eight-plus hours a day when they aren’t personally involved and don’t care about anything other than your output.
They don’t show people the big picture
It may seem efficient to simply send employees assignments and move on, but leaving out the big picture is a deal-breaker for star performers.
They shoulder heavier loads because they genuinely care about their work, so their work must have a purpose.
When they don’t know what that is, they feel alienated and aimless. When they aren’t given a purpose, they find one elsewhere.
They don’t let people pursue their passions
Google mandates that employees spend at least 20 per cent of their time doing “what they believe will benefit Google most”.
While these passion projects make major contributions to Google products, their biggest impact is in creating highly-engaged Googlers.
Talented employees are passionate. Providing opportunities for them to pursue their passions improves their productivity and job satisfaction.
However, many managers want people to work within a little box.
These managers fear that productivity will decline if they let people expand their focus and pursue their passions. This fear is unfounded.
Studies have shown that people who are able to pursue their passions at work experience flow, a euphoric state of mind that is five times more productive than the norm.
They don’t make things fun
If people aren’t having fun at work, then you’re doing it wrong.
People don’t give their all if they aren’t having fun, and fun is a major protector against brownout.
The best organisations to work for know the importance of letting employees loosen up a little.
Google, for example, does just about everything it can to make work fun — free meals, bowling allies, and fitness classes, to name a few.
The idea is simple: If work is fun, you’ll not only perform better, you’ll stick around for longer hours and an even longer career.
*Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. He can be contacted at talentsmart.com.
This article first appeared at talentsmart.com.
