Tips for managing employee burnout for marketers

by | Aug 25, 2021 | Content

It’s no secret that the last 18 months have taken a massive toll on everyone’s mental health. While workplace burnout is by no means a new problem, employees in all lines of work from food service to big tech have reached a level of burnout that is virtually unmatched in any other time in history.

The Burnout Breakdown

A 2020 presentation by Blind showed that 61% of the working professionals surveyed reported experiencing burnout. That means a majority of America’s workforce is feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated, a lethal combination. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand the astronomically bad implications of that information for both those employees and their supervisors.

Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that of those professionals experiencing burnout, 74.8% of them come from the Marketing and Communications realm. That’s the highest percentage of all the occupations surveyed. Isn’t marketing supposed to be fun?

So how can marketing leaders help manage employee burnout?

Managing workload burnout

Here are five tips for managing burnout for your marketing team:

  1. Communicate effectively during busy times, and distribute heavy workloads as evenly as possible.
    The highest rated qualm related to employee burnout is unmanageable workloads at 25.3%. Every team has its fair share of busy times, but marketing teams seem to feel this burden more heavily. There may be weeks and months where overtime is not only encouraged but necessary. Your team understands this. However, there is something to be said for communication and workload distribution. Be upfront about the expectations during busy seasons, and try to be accommodating if team members need to work remotely during overtime. Divvy up the responsibility as evenly and fairly as possible so the weight of the work doesn’t fall on just a few sets of shoulders.

    If you can, consider outsourcing some of the workload to an external agency. According to MarketingProfs, 50% of B2B organizations outsourced their content marketing in 2020. Especially as the world went remote, more pressure than ever was placed on marketing teams to deliver lead-generating content. We saw this first-hand, as many of our own clients had an uptick in requests from sales teams to create content they could deliver digitally, in place of in-person meetings.

  2. Give employees a say.
    15% of employees surveyed recorded lack of control over work as the reason for their burnout. While your team may not be able to have a say in all matters (especially if you work at a marketing agency), try to identify some decisions in which they can be involved and encourage them to let their voices be heard.
  3. Show some appreciation. Insufficient rewards appeared in 15.7% of the survey responses. Employees are feeling unvalued and unseen. They work hard, and they want to know that their efforts aren’t going unnoticed. Show your team that you see and appreciate all they do to make your agency a success. Provide incentives, give raises, and with many working from home these days, find ways to infuse a little fun every now and then (maybe a virtual happy hour or game day).
  4. Be compassionate and empathetic. Only slightly further down on the list of burnout grievances is lack of support from the manager at 13.4%. One of the best things you can do to foster a positive culture and maintain morale is to operate with basic human decency. These means supervising and treating employees the same way you want to be treated. Be aware that they may have other jobs as well as busy personal lives outside of work. Showing some kindness, respect, and understanding will go a long way in making your team feel supported and valued.
  5. Avoid hasty and harsh punishment when possible. Though a much smaller problem, unfair treatment still accounts for 10.2% of workplace burnout grievances. If an employee is behaving in a way that is undesirable, it may be helpful to try to understand why the behavior is occurring. More often than not, these kinds of issues can be traced back to a misunderstanding or can be solved with a mere conversation. You’d hate to lose a team member over something as trite as a breakdown in communication.

Employee burnout is alive and well in the workplace, especially in the world of Marketing. However, with a few simple fixes you may be able to turn your team’s frowns upside down.

While we may not be burnout experts, we can certainly help lighten your workload, especially if it’s content related. Contact us today to learn how we can help with some of your upcoming or overwhelming projects.