Meet Your Annual Business Development Goals | 5 Tips to Overcome Burnout in Fall
It's the final countdown! C'mon, sing it with us. You know you want to.
This is it, friends. We are in the home stretch of Q4 2022, but we still have miles to go and metrics to meet (or exceed) in our annual business development goals.
If your firm is anything like most, you are pushing forward in an all-hands-on-deck race to the end of this year in hopes of meeting and exceeding your firm’s and department's business development and marketing goals.
Causes of Workplace Burnout
This time of year is not only challenging due to an array of annual events and mad dashes to complete 2023 budgets, but Q4 is chock-full of holidays that most want to spend time celebrating with family outside of the office, leaving your department sparse and overworked.
These heavier workloads and rapid-speed deadlines are just a fact of business, and the standard ebbs and flows of seasonal change can get anyone down - even a fully staffed marketing and business development team.
BUT...
Work-Related Stress vs. Burnout Syndrome
There's a difference between struggling to push through the workday with an extra jolt of caffeine and a debilitating job burnout that can quickly take over even the strongest teams, and it's a serious problem that can quickly snowball.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), burnout involves excessive fatigue and exhaustion, as well as reduced efficiency in your work. Technically, these two criteria are what makes burnout different from tiredness. It may be another indication you and your department are overworked.
Every occupation has elements of stress. Burnout is difference. Burnout in the corporate sense is the result of excessive work-related stress from prolonged periods of physical and mental overexertion. Burnout signifies feelings of emotional exhaustion and being so drained that your physical and mental health takes a hit to the point of being unable to take care of yourself.
There's much talk about corporate burnout and sweeping phrases and solutions that are more conceptual than practical. The bottom line is that most people who suffer burnout often have no idea how to improve their circumstances. And even more jarring than that, especially for managers, is that the signs of impending burnout could be staring you in the face - but you're unable to identify or mitigate the issue.
Let's change that. When morale and feelings are low, schedules are packed, and employees are out of office, it's tempting (and easy) to let your goals fall by the wayside while trying to keep your head above water in this busy season, but we have some sure-fire tips to help alleviate the big crash-and-burn that's sure to greet you and your colleagues if you don't take steps to mitigate stress NOW.
Let's look at 5 ways to relieve stress by focusing on burnout prevention.
How to Beat Workplace Burnout Tip 1: Keep Emails to Working Hours
Ah, technology! Isn't it great!? Truly, it is - don't get us wrong.
Technology and modern devices helped the entire world transition to safer working practices in a terrifying time, and technological advances continue to keep us connected globally... 24/7.
While 24/7 access to business communications literally in the palm of our hands is incredibly helpful, there's another side to the coin, and it packs a mean punch. Email overwhelm is real.
You know what we mean - the backlog of emails (tasks, in actuality) that compound, and they don't quit just because the clock strikes 5:00 PM. You and your team spend each day trying to tackle your never-ending inbox, only to fall short of the goal and allow it to follow you home via the email function on your smart phone. It's never-ending, and it has some big risks besides just job burnout.
Effects of Email Overwhelm
When departments are limited on support staff and bandwidth, the already taxing process of email management can completely overwhelm an entire department and lead to breakdowns in communication, client deliverables, and Partner expectations, just to name a few of the pitfalls.
Email Overwhelm Decreases Overall Work Performance
An overly-burdened inbox is a time suck that drains energy and attention from other tasks. Dealing with email overwhelm takes time and energy that your team could spend on more critical tasks if they had the right level of support and enough time to reset at the end of each day. This can lead to reduced productivity overall.
Email Overwhelm Increases Risk of Missing Deadlines
Those hundreds of thousands of emails following you and your team 24/7 start to lose their implications of urgency when it's a constant weight to carry. A tired mind can't differentiate between urgent requests or a task that can wait for later, putting you and your firm at risk for upsetting a client, loss of money, and even loss of licensing and coverage.
Mitigate Email Overwhelm by Setting Parameters on Email Access
Be an advocate for your own mental health and the well-being of your team by stating and enforcing boundaries around email access. If emails aren't being answered timely during working hours, you have a personnel issue - whether in competency or quantity. Either way, an overwhelmed inbox should not follow you or your colleagues home.
Make it clear to them (and yourself) from the start that while occasional urgent situations arise that need attention after hours, that's not the norm or expectation - and nobody should be chained to their email on a regular basis after hours.
Make certain the other professionals in your office know this, as well. Instruct Partners and executives to clearly mark any after-hours emails to employees with a disclaimer such as "not urgent," or "please respond sometime this week" on issues that can obviously wait.
This will help your team identify truly urgent matters, feel respected by their superiors, and create a healthy work-life balance that keeps them around, happy, and ready to conquer your firm's goals.
How to Avoid Job Burnout Tip 2: Pace Yourself
Hey, everyone likes to see a professional push themselves beyond reasonable job expectations and score BIG, right?... Yeah, we usually reserve that for professional athletes, though, who get around-the-clock support, have off seasons, and are rewarded quite well.
When a pro athlete goes too hard in the paint, we cheer. When office professionals try to go beast mode on all their tasks, HR starts to worry.
The key to meet your goals without the impending crash and burn is to check yourself before you wreck yourself by properly pacing.
Instead of trying to grab up every task on the table and spreading yourself too thin to make real progress on anything, just admit to yourself that you may be a pretty incredible human, but you are just that... human.
Achieving a clear sense of self-awareness can help reduce stress levels, reduce depression symptoms, and improve the quality of life while helping you manage your goals with reasonable expectations.
Take time to assess what big tasks and goals you need to accomplish that ACTUALLY need your full, undivided attention, and which can have their deadline extended or be delegated to another colleague to tackle.
If your department is overworked, you have to reset job expectations or increase your support staff because an overindulgence of tasks to juggle will undoubtedly lead to job burnout and cause systemic breakdowns (like we mentioned with email overwhelm).
Opt Out of Action-Oriented Tasks in Favor of Results-Oriented To-Dos
You realize you can't cross off every to-do item on your list at the same time, so you also need to make sure that your workload, even a heavy workload, is filled with tasks that actually make a huge impact on your goals.
Assigning an overwhelming amount of tasks that are more arbitrary than essential can cause you and your team to feel hopeless, taken for granted, and result in a complete loss of focus on your firm's or department's big picture goals. Reduce the likelihood of that happening and alleviate daily stress by thinking strategically.
How to Overcome Burnout Tip 3: Create Healthy Boundaries
We touched on this earlier with email parameters, but your need for boundaries - for yourself and your team - is just that: an absolute need if you want to alleviate occupational consequences and prioritize emotional health.
Prioritize Your Physical and Mental Health
"I use my PTO all the time." Ok, but are you taking time off from work to set boundaries and enjoy a relaxing activity, or are you reserving your rarely used time out of office to take care of a sick family member or handle life tasks such as appliance repair or car maintenance?
Only taking time off from work to address life needs is not how you set clear boundaries or address job burnout because it offers no opportunity to shift your focus, prioritize your mental health, or invest in your social life.
Practice Self-Care
Make sure your team members (and you) understand how important it is to use time off from work to enjoy life. We know this mentality can be hard to practice in a busy season, but even encouraging your team to make plans for play > work will help build supportive relationships within your department and decrease job burnout.
How to Prevent Burnout Tip 4: Boost Team Morale
A great way to push through this busy season that's causing job burnout is with a morale boost for yourself and your department. No, we're not saying you need to perform some ridiculous and elaborate production stunt like Michael Scott's office murder mystery to keep the troops entertained, but there are several meaningful and impactful ways to boost morale.
Offer Understanding of Well Being
The act of daily investment in your colleagues goes a long way, especially when they feel overwhelmed. Taking time to regularly ask about colleagues' family life, their personal life, inquire about their health care, sleep habits, and overall wellness goes a long way to keep moods and minds well in a chaotic time at work.
This is not a quick and fast way to boost morale, and it doesn't happen overnight. This takes a time investment and genuine concern for your coworkers to be effective, but it's one of the best ways to be there for your team and help them reach your annual goals despite feeling burned and overworked.
Access to Resources
Many firms boast their focus on employee health and wellness in public-facing messaging, but you have to do more than just talk the talk when it comes to mental health and morale.
Know what helps employees feel supported and gives a good morale boost? Access to support. Contact your HR supervisor for the best possible solutions for your team's morale, and ensure your team knows the resources available to them at all times.
Normalizing access to mental wellness resources at work is a special kind of support that instills confidence and boosts mood overall, and HR teams are equipped with best practices to help you and your team succeed in your unique working situations, including the right language and resources to help employees build better practices like a healthy diet and good sleep habits.
Providing real support instead of just band-aids like gift cards and attaboys is how you make meaningful change in the morale levels of your firm. That's not to say your colleagues wouldn't love a Starbucks gift card or lunch on you to help them recover from a particularly rough day. Just make sure it's not your only means of boosting morale.
How to Mitigate Workplace Burnout Tip 5: Staff Accordingly
This one isn't going to come as a surprise or shocker to most managers. They know one of the most impactful ways to address burnout is to address staffing deficiencies. You don't need a corporate survey or systematic review to know that most office teams are operating beyond their capacity and need additional support.
A downturn in the economy that followed a global health crisis that rocked or entire world to its core undoubtedly affects staffing. We get it. This is your busy season, and budgets are tight. You probably don't even have the time to recruit, interview, negotiate health care benefits and salary, and then onboard new support staff, even if you did have the budget for a full-time hire.
We've all worked in legal and professional service firms and understand what a massive undertaking it is to bring on a full-time hire to help relieve some of the workload on your team that's feeling tired and on the brink of collapse.
BUT, waiting around to see just how low you and your department can sink in your struggle while barely keeping your heads above water isn't the answer either, and most firms know that. That's why so many are turning to the agency side and outsourcing their needs for supplemental staff, especially during busy seasons when support is needed short-term.
Smart managers know that outsourcing staffing needs in busy seasons, especially for niche project needs, is just shrewd business. Outside professional support agencies already have the strong talent in place with proven track records of success and the experience to work seamlessly with your firm and its professionals.
Experiencing burnout in a busy season can take its toll on professionals and leaving your team short-staffed breeds resentment and ensures your firm gets the reputation of ignoring big causes of burnout. Don't fall prey to that because you are short on time and budget for a full-time hire.
Supplement with strong talent to support your team and reach your goals!
If you've ever thought about implementing outside support for your marketing and business initiatives, we'd love to chat with you about the resources available to you at Society 54. We're a full-service consultancy for any marketing and business development undertaking you can imagine, and we're always on and ready to help crush your goals and better your entire team.
Learn more: https://society54.com/talent-intro
BONUS TIME!
After you’ve covered and completed these 5 tips to alleviate the burnout in this busy season, race to the finish line of your 2022 goals with our 5x5 marketing plan. That’s one 5-minute BD task a week for 5 weeks, and the FREE 5x5 is structure for every attorney - regardless of their years of experience or size of their workload.