How do boundaries help employees with burnout?
How do boundaries help employees with burnout?
You've reviewed your quarterly wellness survey responses, and it's clear that your people are burnt out. What now?
When people are burnt out at work, there's often more to it than simply telling people to 'reduce stress and meditate'. We need to go deeper, and we need to ask WHY.
Asking why and getting to its root is the difference between simply adding a band-aid to the problem and 'healing' it.
By ‘healing’ I mean having real, open and honest conversations about what might be contributing.
Setting better boundaries (and communicating them) at work can be a great step in managing employee burnout!
This is what I will cover in this article:
How do boundaries help employees with burnout?
What do boundaries at work mean?
Why is it important to set boundaries?
Two Signs that we need to set boundaries.
How to develop boundaries at work?
Communicating boundaries at work
Boundaries between work and life.
How do boundaries help employees with burnout?
Two of the biggest reasons teams struggle with burnout are:
Most of us are hard-wired to 'want to do it all,' and struggle to ask for help.
The word 'NO' doesn't always come easy and is often riddled with feelings of guilt.
Brené Brown simply describes Boundaries: "Boundaries are what's okay and what's not okay".
When we learn to communicate what is and what is not okay, we can begin to take care of ourselves and each other.
What do boundaries at work mean?
There is a common misconception that setting boundaries stops us from connecting by “putting up walls” - which is not true. But what do boundaries at work actually mean?
When we think of our boundaries at work, it’s important for us to reflect on what is and is not okay for us in a work context. After all, most of us spend 80% of our time in a professional context.
Boundaries are the physical, emotional and mental limits or checks we place on others in how we allow them to impact our wellbeing.
Learning to set boundaries and communicating them at work can be the difference between a burned-out and overwhelmed team and a productive and thriving one.
It needs to begin with awareness, and usually, our best signal is when we feel that something just doesn't feel good within us.
Why is it important to set boundaries?
Setting boundaries contributes to our wellbeing because it allows us to communicate what we need from others. They are the direct impact we allow people to have on our wellbeing and our lives.
If we don't know what we're okay with and not okay with, we can't possibly begin to ask for it and live joyful lives.
This is even more important in the workplace. Whether we have demanding clients or a fast-paced and ever-changing environment, learning to identify what we are okay and not okay with matters.
It allows us get clear on the lengths we are willing to go to for someone, the time we can allocate to a new project, and if this particular ask is worth it
Two Signs that we need to set boundaries.
The two signs that resonate the most with teams I have coached are resentment and the general feeling of burnout and overwhelm.
Resentment is the number one sign that a boundary has been crossed, and there is something we need that we are not asking for.
Brene Brown describes resentment as "an emotion that we often experience when we fail to set boundaries or ask for what we need, or when expectations let us down because they are based on things we can't control, like other people's feelings or how they will react".
Burnout and overwhelm
When we feel overwhelmed and burnt-out from all our responsibilities, this can be another sign that boundaries need to be made.
This tells us that we need to prioritise our time and learn to communicate our NO in a way that feels good to us. Developing the ability to express them and trusting ourselves as we do can be the difference between burnout and balance.
How to begin to develop boundaries at work?
The first step I run through with my clients and during my workshops is awareness. We need to take the time to reflect on 'that' time we felt resentment and when we felt overwhelmed. What happened there?
What would you have needed to communicate at that moment that you were afraid to?
That's the first step!
There is so much power in reflection, and holding the space for your team to reflect and learn from one another is a powerful tool for connection and, eventually, better collaboration.
Communicating boundaries at work
In my workshop for teams, I take you through a 3 step process you can use to learn to communicate your boundaries at work.
We need to build awareness around our boundaries before we can begin to communicate them.
There are two things to remember and get very real about when you begin your journey to communicating your boundaries:
Embrace the awkward. It will feel incredibly uncomfortable, especially when you begin to communicate with your team, clients or close connections.
You don't need to use the word no. Boundaries can also mean 'not right now'.
Boundaries between work and life
Achieving a work-life balance is about setting boundaries. Our ability to identify our boundaries (and communicate them effectively) allows us to find time for the important stuff.
It allows us to take responsibility for what is ours and let others take responsibility for theirs.
It allows us to say yes when we mean it and respectively decline when we cannot commit to something.
It gives us the chance to live our most authentic lives at work and at home to show up as our best selves in a way that feels good and improves our wellbeing.
As you begin the journey to communicating your boundaries at work, I invite you to be compassionate and incredibly patient with yourself. It takes time and practice to ask for what we need effectively, and perfection is not the goal here. Learning to reflect and being honest with yourself is a significant first step.
With more and more on our plates and ample opportunity to DO MORE, it can be hard to step back and evaluate. Yet, it can be so rewarding to take charge of the life we want to have when we do so.