Written by
Ewan Anderson
20 Jan 2025
Preventing Employee Burnout

Written by
Ewan Anderson
20 Jan 2025

Preventing Employee Burnout
Lisa Thomson, now the Chief People Officer at Clear Sky Logic, and former owner of Purpose HR (now part of the AAB Group), gave us the benefit of her expertise and insight into preventing employee burnout.It is a growing phenomenon that is a challenge for companies up and down the country, and while each case is different, there are some simple steps companies can take to help prevent it.
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Preventing Employee Burnout - Transcript
Ewan (00:05):Hi. Welcome to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. This is your essential guide to navigating the ever-changing world of human resources and recruitment. We chat to industry leading figures to give you the inside track on growing and developing the very best teams. Today we chatted with Lisa Thompson. Lisa recently joined Clear Sky Logic as their Chief people Officer. She previously founded Purpose HR and Niche HR consultancy focused on technology and the life sciences sectors, which she sold to the a b group. In 2021. We talked about preventing employee burnout and how important it's to support your team to flourish even in the toughest of times. Hi, welcome back to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. Today we are joined by Lisa Thompson and we've got the topic of how to avoid burnout. Really looking forward to this actually. There's lots of discussion around this. Things have obviously changed quite a bit over the last few years, and employee burnout has such an important topic for HR teams and companies right across the country. So Lisa, welcome along.
Lisa (01:21):
Hi, nice to see
Ewan (01:23):
You. Great to have you here. So Lisa, do you want to tell us a little bit about where you are just now, what sort of role you're doing now, and then we can get into some of the discussion around employee burnout?
Lisa (01:33):
Absolutely. So I like to think of myself as a recovering HR entrepreneur. I sold my last business, which was an HR consulting business providing outsourced HR support to mainly tech and also life sciences and high growth startup businesses. I grew that business to a team of 22 people, and we had a turnover of a million, and I sold that coming up three years ago now, exited it two years ago. And now what I do is I sit on a few different boards, a non-exec director, and I'm also doing bits and pieces of fractional HR consulting. So working with quite selectively with really interest and exciting businesses where I can help them develop their people in HR strategies. So yes, it's a good place to be.
Ewan (02:23):
Good. And how is recovery in progress? Yes, quite good. That's good. And so what is it about the HR function, just out of interest or what sort of things that makes you passionate? What floats your boat now?
Lisa (02:40):
Yeah, I mean I think I've always been so excited about HR or people as an enabling function. I've always so much enjoyed work in my really exciting technical or scientific businesses, people doing really clever, amazing things I couldn't personally do myself. But obviously to do that at scale and to grow their teams, they need that support around the people function in the HR and good teamwork. And that's something that I've been able to help with. So being able to enable that and bring in maybe softer skills or complimentary skills to help founders in that space, I've always loved it and I just really get excited about people developing to their full potential and basically how much impact that can make to a business. And the difference between success and failure really. I think people are so key, as you know.
Ewan (03:30):
Yes, I know. Absolutely. And it's something we talk about a lot and actually we've discussed it ourselves is that culture side of things. And interestingly, the softer skills that are coming in becoming more important as technical. I suppose technical skills change, particularly in a tech business, the softer skills are so important now, aren't they?
Lisa (03:49):
Yeah. And even the word soft, they're not actually that softer, are they?
Ewan (03:53):
It's not a great term, is it?
Lisa (03:55):
Yeah, but they're so essential, aren't it? It's like emotional intelligence, eq, how do we interact with people? How do we get the best of each other? And developing people to their potential, especially if you're a business that's based on innovation or the knowledge of your people, the skills of your people is so essential.
Ewan (04:13):
Absolutely. And the innovation part of it only comes out when people feel comfortable where they are and what they're doing. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So obviously we're going to talk about employee burnout today, and it's something I know you're really passionate about and it's something that we've seen potentially on the rise over the last we will. And I know there's a lot of, not fixes, but things that are coming out there to try and help businesses and to try and help deal with that. But I suppose I wanted to just really understand it to define what that means and what it means to you, I guess. So what is employee burnout?
Lisa (04:46):
Yeah, I mean I think when we talk about burnout, as I understand it, it's not a medically recognized term. It's not a condition it can be dins with, but it's basically becoming much, much more recognized and understood. And it's very much a chronic condition where essentially somebody has become to the point of emotional, mental, and even physical breakdown where they're basically due to workplace stress, no longer able to function well. And generally that tends to be over a long period of time that will develop. But yeah, it is really much where they're overwhelmed, fatigued and no longer able to deliver at their potential. And it's a real problem for businesses, but also just for site as a whole in terms of our contribution and for people.
Ewan (05:37):
Yeah, I mean I was chatting to someone today and do you think it's a British thing? Do you think it's a global thing? Is it in that strive for productivity? Is it that we are pushing people too hard or they're too spread because we're trying to get as much out of people as we possibly can? Is it that or is it that people are taking on a lot, they want to keep their job? What do you think is driving that burnout?
Lisa (06:03):
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, I think it has been something that's been a lot more prevalent in terms of people talking about it anyway
(06:11):
Since Covid. And I guess what I would say is that since then there's been so much blurring of the boundaries in terms of home and work life and people almost taken on so much more. And also what we're seeing as well is obviously the progression of technology. There's always been emails on your phone or blackberries or going back. I remember the, yeah, I mean obviously it's moved on, but we are at this point where the lines are so blurred and so we're never really able to switch off, particularly globalization as well. So often people are working with different time zones, so the nine to five doesn't necessarily exist anymore. We're always on, we're always available technologies in our pocket. So it's very hard. And social media as well is actually becoming part of work. So a lot of people are working through different mediums, not just email anymore.
(07:11):
And so it becomes really prevalent that we actually just feel that we have to be always available and always on. I think that's a really, really big factor of it. And I think also people are a lot more open now, better mental, not have. So it might've been before that we just didn't really talk about it and we struggled, but we just sort of kept that to ourselves and didn't open up, which in itself is not a good thing. It's a really bad thing. But I do think now we're a bit more open and visible about that. So that's a good thing in itself, as long as we can then act on it and support it. But I do think that also even since covid, so I said I think it's been a bigger thing since now going back to the office. So we're now adding on commutes and it's challenges and juggles and childcare challenges and all these other things, and we've not necessarily reduced workloads. So that's another challenge. And then what we're seeing as well is that businesses, particularly with the current economic climate and things like that, a lot of businesses are trying to do less with more.
(08:15):
So the pressure on people is just growing as well. So I wouldn't really point to one factor to go to your question, is it local? Is it global? I think it's probably global. My view on it is probably fixed to the UK environment and what I see here, but I can imagine that I can't see that it's different in other areas either.
Ewan (08:37):
Did you see it as something that was growing when you were, obviously as part of your consultancy, did you have more and more HR teams coming to you and speaking to you about it?
Lisa (08:46):
So when we were growing, our consultancy in particular during Covid was a massive growth period for us. So my team were actually doing more because we're working with lots and lots of different clients in a way because we were all at home and we were able to juggle a lot more things because we weren't on one client, focusing on one client at a time. We were able to juggle a lot more, actually, we were probably more productive. But if you think of that in terms of stressors,
(09:13):
That was a lot because my team were all having multiple different clients contacting them at different times. And each of those clients individually, their own teams were struggling with a lot of challenges. And HR is often seen as the solution, they go to person. So HR teams themselves were getting really burnt out and it was a big challenge. So yeah, that was a big thing. We did a lot in Covid to try and put strategies in place, which we can talk about afterwards later question. But we were also trying to then help our clients as well as help ourselves. And there's this whole thing isn't there? What does it put on your oxygen mask first?
Ewan (09:54):
Yeah, that's
Lisa (09:56):
True. You can't really help people if you're not eating from the front in terms of looking after yourself. And I'm a big believer in that.
Ewan (10:04):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that that is absolutely critical as you've got to make sure that the team, the leadership team, whoever is leading from the front and all lot of this, particularly around diversity inclusion is one of those areas where people need to lead from the front. But so is that
(10:22):
Looking after dealing with supporting your team, that's so important. It comes from a leadership point of view. I mean, you're going to help your team, but as a leader you need to make sure you're implementing a lot of these strategies. You're almost living that brand, aren't you? You're living that experience because you've got to make sure that people feel it's accepted to talk about it. I mean, I think you touched on it there actually more and more people are talking about it. So whether there's more of it or not, I think it's a case that more and more people are talking about it and businesses feel more open to talk about this sort of stuff. Now it's not seen as, if I talk about this, I'm going to be out of a job. I don't think there's that fear anymore. Is there?
Lisa (11:00):
I would hope not. Well,
Ewan (11:02):
There
Lisa (11:03):
Is that fear. That's a cultural issue
Ewan (11:06):
In
Lisa (11:07):
Itself. I think we've also seen, I don't want to go into specifics, but I do think in the press and in the news, we've seen some awful examples of what can happen when things spiral and people don't talk about it. And then we hear awful stories about people that we thought were fine and lit. Do think it's really difficult.
Ewan (11:28):
Do you think it's the mean, technology has obviously had an impact and obviously it's that continually on, but I know a lot of businesses are trying to deal with that now, but has technology also provided a lot of tools? And I know like you say, we'll go to talk about some strategies, but has it also provided some tools to help people manage their employee burnout or their burnout essentially?
Lisa (11:52):
I think tools can only work in that sense if they're led by leaders who role model the behavior. So what I don't like is say you're a business and you've that you've got employees that are struggling with burnout or workaholic or other things, and you're like, oh, user EEP system, we've got a wellness app. Don't worry. We've got a wellness app that is our second plaster. It's not going to fix anything. So I think we need to be real about these things. That's really important.
Ewan (12:31):
Yeah, I mean I think it's a real challenge, isn't it? I think we came from a world where there was that drive, that continual drive to be the last person in the office, make sure you're there last, make sure you're there first. You're that hustle culture that meant that whether you were a lawyer or an accountant or a business owner or whatever it was, there was a feeling of right, we need to be the last people, the last people to leave and the first people in to show that we can do it. Almost a presenteeism of a ridiculous level of presenteeism that probably burnt a lot of people out. And I don't feel that we have a lot of that these days, but I think there's still an element of people feeling like they need to perform to progress and grow in their job. Do you think that's the case?
Lisa (13:22):
Well, I don't think it's always about being in the office. I mean, there's this whole thing about replying to messages really late at night or being seen to be going to every event to network or do all these things. And then you're juggling that with all the other things that you have on at home and things like that. And I mean, obviously what I'd love to go and speak about, and I think we will, is strategies and ways to mitigate that. And again, just back to what I said, it does need to be led from the top because I think you said it before, it's like unless people feel that they have, it's almost like permission.
Ewan (13:58):
Absolutely, absolutely. I think it is that it's that feeling of comfort or feel uncomfortable enough to say to your line manager or whoever it might be, listen, I just feel a wee bit worn out and I need to just reassess what I'm doing here. And I think that sometimes if you don't have that support structure in place, it can be a lonely place. It can be a challenging place, can it?
Lisa (14:22):
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