Limeade Helps Companies Uncover and Prevent Employee Burnout

Research reveals employers aren’t taking responsibility for burning out their top performers  

• Limeade Institute shares new burnout research revealing how organizations are burning out their most engaged employees
   
• The Limeade Engagement dashboard now includes a burnout risk indicator, which shows employee risk for burnout based on engagement and well-being being measures
   
• Limeade launches the Caregiver Burnout Consortium to help healthcare organizations tackle employee burnout with research, peer discussion and best practice sharing 

Bellevue, Wash., May 7, 2018 – Today, employee engagement company Limeade announced its campaign to uncover and prevent employee burnout. This includes new employee burnout research from the Limeade Institute, a new burnout risk indicator on the Limeade Engagement Dashboard and a Caregiver Burnout Consortium created for healthcare organizations to share best practices for tackling burnout in an industry known for rampant burnout and costly turnover.  

“Burnout happens when highly engaged employees have increasingly low well-being due to job pressures, overload and a lack of manager and organizational support. Ultimately, these top performing, highly engaged employees will leave or worse,” said Dr. Laura Hamill, the Chief Science Officer of the Limeade Institute. “Burnout is totally preventable, but leaders need to understand how they’re causing it and what they can do to prevent it.” 

Research Spotlight: The Burnout Epidemic
In a new report, Can You Spot Burnout?, the Limeade Institute examines employee burnout, which is created by ongoing and intense job-related stress and overload. This shows up in employees as exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy and leads to low productivity and high turnover, especially among the most engaged, and therefore some of the most valuable and committed employees. 

The Limeade Institute found that employers are actively driving out top talent by leaving it up to employees to deal with burnout, and by misinterpreting burnout as disengagement. The natural cycle of burnout means that employees become negative. In addition, the stress of burnout shows up differently for each individual. Organizations tend to focus on the symptoms of burnout and think of it as a  personal problem. 

“You have to be on fire in order to burn out,” said Dr. Hamill. “While both disengaged and burned out employees are at high risk for turnover, burnout is not the same as disengagement. If an employee isn’t feeling a strong connection and sense of purpose at work, then they’re most likely disengaged. Knowing this difference is key, so employers can develop strategies to prevent top performers from burning out.” 

Taking Action: Uncovering and Preventing Employee Burnout
To help customers pinpoint groups at risk for burnout, Limeade has added a burnout risk indicator to its Engagement dashboard.  This graph calculates the number of highly engaged employees who have high stress to provide a risk rating for employee burnout. The data can be filtered to show specific groups at greatest risk. Based on these insights, Limeade targets at-risk employee groups with activities that promote mindfulness, resilience, sleep health, stress management, work-life meaning and more. 

“If we as employers can find and help employees who have  high stress and high engagement, we can help top performers get their groove back,” said Henry Albrecht, Limeade CEO. “By taking responsibility for burnout and taking action at the individual, manager and leader level, companies can lower the staggering cost of losing great employees, which can be much more than a year’s salary.”

Acute Problem: Burnout in Healthcare
According to research from the Mayo Clinic, more than half of physicians report one or more symptoms of burnout. Similar research found the prevalence of burnout among nurses is as high as 70 percent and as high as 50 percent for physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.  

Because burnout is particularly rampant in healthcare organizations, the Limeade Institute launched a new Caregiver Burnout Consortium to share employee burnout research, educate people on burnout prevention and provide a forum for healthcare companies to share best practices to address the burnout epidemic. 

The Caregiver Burnout Consortium will kick off on May 18 with a webinar unveiling new research from the Limeade Institute, presented by Dr. Laura Hamill, followed by best practices sharing. To sign up for the Caregiver Burnout Consortium, please register here. 

The Limeade Institute
The Limeade Institute team consists of organizational psychologists, psychometricians, business insights experts and data scientists. The Limeade Institute will continue to launch research reports and share findings on employee engagement and well-being. To learn more about the Limeade Institute, please visit  www.limeade.com.

About Limeade
Limeade is an employee engagement company that builds great places to work by improving well-being and strengthening workplace culture. Limeade integrates well-being, engagement, inclusion and social recognition software into one seamless experience that brings workplace culture to life and inspires a strong connection between employees and companies. With Limeade, employees reconnect to what motivates them at work, which boosts engagement and gives companies the business results they want. Recognized for its own award-winning culture, Limeade is helping the world’s best companies change the way they work. To learn more, visit www.limeade.com.