How To Solve Burnout At Work

If you're a manager, or you want to be one, and you're worried about your team burning out, you should do what I call an energy check. The energy check is something I do once a month at the start of a meeting. Everyone shares where their energy is on a scale of zero to five, just briefly. Zero means I'm in the dirt, five means I'm skipping on rainbows with unicorns. So, this takes only five to 10 minutes to hear from everyone, and it does something that your normal stand-up or normal staff meeting will never do. It shows you how your team is actually doing. What's bringing them down, where their energy is, and not just what they're working on. The energy check creates a baseline, so you actually know when somebody is struggling. I worked with a team at a big [clears throat] tech company, where one member, Tim, he never hit above a three. Now, that was just Tim, but because the team knew his baseline, when he hit a four one day, they were all celebrating, right? That's what knowing the team actually looks like. So, I want to ask you something. Do you know where your team is right now? their energy is right now? Personally and professionally, what's draining their energy? Do you care enough to ask, and are you willing to act on what you hear, and allow the team to do that for each other?