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Burnout is crippling productivity in most offices around the world.

Nearly two-thirds of working Americans report suffering from high levels of stress, the statistics company Statista reports. This is across industries, and the two main reasons for it are the amount of work and interpersonal relations.

“More than one-third of employees lose one hour or more per day in productivity,” the team at Statista writes, “while almost one-third miss between three and six days per year due to stress.”

Facilities managers are in a unique position to help mitigate workplace burnout  — not only for their teams and the tenants who occupy their buildings, but for themselves. Creating a healthy environment, both physically and mentally, can go a long way to preventing burnout.

How to Recognize Employee Burnout

Job burnout doesn’t happen immediately, and while some stress is actually good for us, too much over time is detrimental.

Clinical psychologist Scott Bea at the Cleveland Clinic puts it like this: “Workplace burnout involves a prolonged and heightened response to work stress in which a person becomes drained from work demand.”

Not everyone deals the same way with stress in the workplace; in fact, some not only cope, but actually thrive on it.

“How one sees [workplace stress] assesses it, and handles it determines, in part, job success or eventual burnout,” Frank John Ninivaggi, M.D., F.A.P.A., writes at Psychology Today. 

“One’s personality, temperament, and disposition with its level of resilience play a significant role in the way stress is handled. The burnout syndrome escalates when one’s inner resources become depleted.”

Over time, stress has a cumulative effect. Bea says the signs of workplace burnout are easy to recognize:

• Declining work performance
• Decreasing work efficiency
• Loss of confidence that you can accomplish your goals
• Avoidance of work-related tasks
• Exhaustion
• Loss of interest

FMs At Risk

And facilities managers themselves are at high risk of burning out. It’s not difficult to understand why.

“The growing demand for highly efficient buildings, tech savviness and top notch communication skills is creating a perfect storm for fueling professional burnout,” Elizabeth Dukes writes at iOffice. “Additionally, the average age of a facilities (workplace) manager is 49—which is when many professionals begin intently focusing on and planning for retirement rather than their career future.”

So, FMs need to protect themselves—and their facility’s occupants—from as much stress as possible in order to keep burnout at bay.

In order to do that, the team at Facility Innovations writes, the facilities management has to “combine resources and activities so as to enhance the success of an organization.”

That means working on two levels: at the corporate level to help the company achieve its objectives, and at the day-to-day level. The latter means creating a work environment that is both safe and efficient, promoting performance and productivity.

Little Things Count

Out-of-order elevators or a constant lack of toilet paper may not seem like important stressors, but as ABM Industries SVP Mike Morris writes at Facility Executive, these everyday experiences of employees really do matter.

Employees notice the details of a well-cared-for building. They notice nice landscaping, the flowers in the lobby, the facility’s level of cleanliness, the temperatures, the lighting and the safe parking lots.

Even the air is a factor, Morris writes. “The value of green buildings should not be underestimated. Employees are healthier, happier, and more productive when the indoor air quality is excellent.”

Workstation Design

Megan Murphy at Zest Tea goes further. “From office layout, to food and beverage considerations, to aligning in-office perks with employee demographics, the decisions a facilities manager makes every day can have an enduring impact on organizational outcomes,” she writes.

When FMs design workstations, for example, they need to think about who will be using those stations. Just as some jobs are more suited for quiet spaces and privacy, others require a lot of interaction. 

But it’s not just the work that determines the space, Murphy continues. 

She spoke to facilities director Kenneth Papa, who agrees that “different personality types may thrive in workstations with more or less privacy. Think of the introvert to your left and the extrovert to your right, and consider whether they get more or less done in solitude. Generational factors may come into play, too, with older demographics coming to expect their own, private space in order to get more work done.”

Work/Life Balance

FMs need to ensure that they and their teams unplug from work, leaving the office at the office. That means no work-related text messages, calls or emails while that crew member is at home for the night, taking a sick day or away on vacation.

Sam Dores at IAVM’s Facility Manager magazine writes that a fun environment at work is easy to create and need only take 10 minutes a week to have an impact. It’s simply a break from a busy day to have a bit of fun, and he says managers who practice the concept have seen a noticeable improvement in their employees’ morales.

Similarly, exercise is known to be a stress reducer and can increase productivity and boost morale, as well. While it may not be possible for your facility to install a gym onsite, a discounted or free membership to one nearby is a good corporate investment, the team at Pingboard writes.

Empowering Your Team As Well As Building Occupants

FMs should also think about what their teams need to do their jobs well.

If employees are not given the tools they need to do their jobs efficiently, that can lead to frustration and lowered productivity. The fix here is simple: Get that worker the newer tools or better software he requires. If there’s push-back on the expenditure, Bridget Miller at HR Daily Advisor writes, “the cost is often recouped in productivity gains and improved employee morale.”

(Outdated technology can be a problem in every department, not just for the facilities team. 

For example, “nearly one out of every five HR leaders (19 percent) reported their current tech as being too manual — i.e., lacking automation of repetitive administrative tasks — detracting from their ability to act strategically to fix big problems,” the team at Pymnts writes.

Keep an eye out for such problems among building occupants. While you cannot get HR staff the software they need, you might be able to improve their working environments and mitigate the productivity losses caused by clunky, obsolete software.)

Miller also recommends investing in further education and skill workshops for your team. “Give employees the training they need to do their job well. Not only does this result in better productivity for you, but it also means the employees will be more efficient and satisfied with their increased responsibilities if they feel confident in their ability to meet their goals.”

Take a Page from the Doctors

More than 50 percent of doctors in the US suffer from professional burnout, according to research published by Mayo Clinic. 

One Minneapolis hospital is addressing the problem with a facility-level solution, and there’s a valuable lesson in here for FMs. That hospital has designated one room for staff to get away from it all for a while, and take a break or even a quick nap before heading back into the fray. 

Once again, the devil is in the details. “With LED lights, flameless candles, a sound machine, and comfortable chairs, several plants, and an ‘in-use’ sign on the door, physicians and other providers can enter this quiet space for reflection or to disconnect for a moment,” Troy Parks at AMA Wire writes.

The hospital takes things a step further, too:

• Flex scheduling helps reduce stress for healthcare workers who were previously unable to leave the facility in time to pick up their children at the end of the day. 
• Employees are even pitching in with decorating ideas helped build morale. “A lot of the art ended up being from the staff,” Sara Poplau, senior research project manager and assistant director of the Office for Professional Worklife at the hospital told Parks. “It was a fun team-building exercise in the sense that people might not have known that their co-worker was such a good photographer or painter.” 

Design Like the Dutch

Those doctors might be getting their ideas from the green “healing offices” in the Netherlands. Senay Boztas at The Guardian has an excellent piece on these offices, housed in The Edge tower in Amsterdam’s main business district.

Boztas sets the scene:

“Inside The Edge, lifts take you up to a precipitous view of the large entrance hall — a design that allows natural light to flood into glass-walled offices. Each office lights up when you step inside, and you can adjust brightness and temperature using an app on your mobile phone, which charges wirelessly when you put it on a desk.”

The studio that designed the building’s interior did so with indoor climate, exposure to daylight, physical activity and even healthy food in mind. By mixing smart technologies and making it easier to make smart choices (food trolleys offer healthy snacks), the designers think their green approach can reduce sick leave by as much as a third, Boztas reports. They also believe  employee productivity will go up by 20 percent, and those employees might even live longer.

Credits:

Pedro Lastra
Vladimir Kudinov
Nabeel Syed
José Martín