The unique stresses of project-based work make marketing agencies prime breeding grounds for burnout. Take these four steps suggested by John Furneaux, CEO, and co-founder of Hive to help your team achieve work-life balance — and please your clients.
The burnout crisis in agencies today is real. As the pace of work in the industry picks up, burnout becomes more and more prevalent. A 2018 Gallup reportOpens a new window found that roughly 67% of all full-time employees feel burned out at least some or most of the time.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has even taken note of the condition, defining it as a syndrome characterized by “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and reduced professional efficacy.â€
In marketing, consulting, PR, or any other field where the work is project-based, the burnout phenomenon is more common. Control over one’s job and tasks is limited, and employees are often at the mercy of their clients’ whims. If a client requests to see a finished project at 10 p.m., odds are high that agency employees will be working long hours to make that happen.
The very nature of project-based work often means more irregular hours and stress, faster energy depletion, and greater emotional drain than a typical 9-to-5 job. As the burnout crisis gets more attention, many organizations are working to improve their employees’ mental health and well-being. Addressing this issue requires a shift from the traditional way of doing things, but it’s worth it to protect your team — and yourself — from burning out in the end.
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A Little Structure Goes a Long Way
Before burnout became a regular part of the conversation, it wasn’t something agency leaders were all that concerned about. Now, many are trying to figure out how to effectively address it. Most recognize just how harmful burnout is, and they’re growing more vigilant about understanding how their employees work.
Some are already leagues ahead in helping their teams find a better work-life balance. At the World Mental Health Day panel we hosted in October 2019, we brought a few of them on stage to speak with us, including Brianna Ferrigno, president of McCann Health. Ferrigno shared her strict out-of-office communication policy, which bars her from sending messages to employees after 9 p.m. and discourages team members from talking shop while on vacation.
Ferrigno and other speakers at the panel showed what it means to be a positive, impactful leader in this space, and they are paving the way for other agency leaders to enact similar changes. Protecting team members from burnout is a top priority for them, and it can be for you, too, starting with these tips:
1. Implement a Definite Clock-Out Time
Overworking doesn’t benefit anyone, even if it feels like it’s necessary to get ahead. You have to set clearly defined hours during which employees should be “on†and “off.†It’s unrealistic to expect employees to respond to a client at midnight. Setting boundaries shows that you respect your team’s time and, in the larger picture, foster a better sense of trust between your clients and staff.
2. Encourage Team Members to Voice Their Concerns
To really protect your team from burnout, it’s necessary to keep open lines of communication between leaders and employees. If employees are overworked, they need to feel comfortable communicating that to their managers. Those managers then need to take actionable steps toward easing their workload. Whether it’s hiring a new team member or redistributing responsibilities, taking some burden off of overwhelmed staff will not only protect them but also lead to higher-quality work for the client.
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3. Maintain a Well-Structured Team
That brings me to my next point: It’s crucial to have enough people on your team. If you don’t, at least one team member will inevitably be overworked and burned out. The odds that team members start resenting each other for not pulling their weight or managers for not considering their time will skyrocket. Be sure to hire enough people to staff the team and balance responsibilities efficiently, or you can anticipate that your team will eventually suffer from burnout.
4. Make One Goal the Team’s North Star
In a field where goals and milestones change constantly, it’s especially important that your team has a larger strategic initiative to work toward. Without one, it can be difficult to focus and execute consistently high-quality work for clients. A big-picture goal sets a single metric for measuring progress and provides a North Star to guide you, enabling you to correct course when necessary. Without that, team members can feel lost, discouraged, and unsure about their value to the company’s success. With it, they feel supported and encouraged.
WHO’s decision to officially recognize work burnout as a real problem has helped shine a light on the phenomenon. Leaders in the agency world are beginning to consider its importance and are actively working to redefine expectations and effectively protect their teams from it. At the end of the day, both employees and clients will benefit from open communication around workload and burnout.
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