Emotional Exhaustion is Rampant, and Returning People to the "Old Normal" Will Not Help

To what degree are team members treated with respect in your work culture? How often are they validated for their ideas, efforts, and contributions each day?

Far too many work cultures -- and leaders -- dismiss, discount, and demean team members’ ideas, efforts, contributions, and concerns. Those lousy work cultures have a powerful negative impact on team members’ well-being.

Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on families, businesses, and sanity.

TinyPulse’s 2021 state of employee engagement report examined the post-pandemic impact on engagement. 66% of respondents agreed that employees in their organization are experiencing emotional exhaustion.

On top of that, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in July 2021, voluntary quits totaled nearly 4 million, on par with the quits from the previous three months -- the highest quits totals the Bureau has seen.

Emotional exhaustion leads some folks to quit and leave. Some folks quit and stay.

Business leaders will not resolve employees’ emotional exhaustion by staying with the “old normal.” Old school, autocratic, “my way or the highway” leadership styles are not the way to entice team members to come back to work. Nor will those command-and-control leadership styles inspire Gen Y or Gen Z workers to flock to your organization.

Employees of all generations desire and deserve workplaces where they are respected and validated for their ideas, efforts, and contributions, every day.

There is a proven process, including the practical tools required, that the world’s best leaders leverage to co-create a workplace where people expect respect while driving results. Through a carefully crafted culture refinement process, they developed workplaces people find not just civil but innovative, gratifying, productive, and, yes, fun.

These leaders:

• Define a work culture that puts good first, valuing respect as much as results
• Align all plans, decisions, and actions to their desired work culture by modeling, coaching, measuring, and celebrating the demonstration of formalized values and behaviors
• Refine their desired culture by validating aligned leaders and players and by mentoring misaligned leaders and players

Create a workplace where trust is contagious, validation is pervasive, and growth -- both personal and professional -- is constant. Learn more about this proven approach in "Good Comes First."

Written by:  S. Chris Edmonds, speaker, author and executive consultant with The Purposeful Culture Group, where he is founder and CEO, for Smart Brief.