According to Microsoft’s most recent Work Trend Index — a global survey of workers across multiple industries and companies published in September 2022 — more than half of managers (53%) report feeling burned out at work. This statistic is staggering, and slightly higher than employees in general. However, it is not surprising. Managers have had to guide their employees through a pandemic and its aftermath, facing situations that have required them to lead with empathy while managing escalating demands with potentially fewer resources — all while receiving little recognition for their efforts. This untenable situation has left many managers struggling.
To turn the tide against burnout in organizations, it’s vital for leadership and HR to understand and measure the components of burnout to better address it among managers. Listening to managers is one of the ways to identify warning signs. Early work at Microsoft to learn about burnout among our own managers highlights some areas organizations can focus on as they begin this important work.
How Managers Experience Burnout
Christina Maslach, a pioneer in burnout research, says burnout is a result of continually experiencing stress in the workplace, resulting in exhaustion, cynicism, and a perceived lack of professional accomplishment. The reasons these symptoms emerge fall into six buckets: having an unsustainable workload, a perceived lack of control, insufficient rewards for effort, a lack of a supportive community, a lack of fairness, and mismatched values and skills.
Managers today are exhausted from a combination of high workload and limited resources. While all employees can relate to this challenge, managers have the added responsibility of ensuring their team members get what they need to succeed, on top of doing their own work. Some of these demands may have shifted and expanded since the pandemic, as employees are looking for more meaning in their work and to better understand their purpose.
As managers adjust and help their teams be impactful in a post-pandemic workplace, they need feedback and support more than ever. Yet based on our research they report receiving less coaching and development for their people management skills, and less recognition from their own managers. These factors could lead managers to feel they lack the ability to have an impact in their current roles, let alone meet their future career goals.
Addressing burnout begins with understanding these signals among managers and then identifying actions you can take. At Microsoft, our internal, biannual census focuses specifically on the concept of thriving and how we can help people feel energized and empowered to do meaningful work. To gauge burnout as part of this measure, our research digs into Maslach’s three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of accomplishment. While our findings aren’t necessarily applicable to all companies, we believe they highlight some important signals that may be prevalent to managers at other organizations.
For example, we found that managers are more likely than individual contributors to experience exhaustion and lack of professional efficacy. We also found managers who manage individual contributors (i.e., front-line managers) are more likely to experience cynicism than managers who manage other managers (i.e., middle managers). As managers climb the organization and as the scope of their roles increase, they feel more meaning and energy from their work which can help reduce cynicism.
Unsurprisingly, we found that experiencing burnout can lead to negative outcomes for the manager and the company, like reduced productivity and turnover. For instance, while self-reported productivity tends to be lower in managers experiencing any single dimension of burnout, it was an average of 22 points lower for managers experiencing all three burnout dimensions.
When we look at voluntary attrition, we discovered that managers experiencing exhaustion are 1.8 times more likely to leave the company compared to managers not experiencing it. For managers experiencing cynicism, this climbs to 3.0 times, and those with a lack of professional efficacy are 3.4 times more likely to leave the company. When a manager is experiencing all three dimensions, they are 5.3 times more likely to leave the company compared to a manager experiencing none.
Mitigating Manager Burnout
While managers have a role to play in alleviating burnout in their teams, their own levels of burnout are just as important. Levers we’ve found in our research that can help with burnout include the following:
Meaning
Finding ways to connect front-line managers’ work with what matters to them could help buffer potential negative effects of burnout. Managers should reflect on their roles and have open conversations with their leader about what gives them energy and meaning at work, and what detracts from it. In one example from our research, managers who are experiencing true burnout score a staggering 46 points lower in feeling that their job makes good use of their skills and abilities.
Learning and career development
Managers and their leader should also consider new projects that might provide a burst of energy at work, have open conversations about what’s needed to accomplish their goals, and be transparent about potential career paths at the company. Further, managers’ leader should seek and integrate multiple feedback sources to gain a complete picture of the manager and help target where they need to grow.
Flexible work
Continuing to support flexible work can also give managers a sense of empowerment over their schedule and help reduce feelings of exhaustion. Managers who are experiencing true burnout score 35 points lower in feeling supported to work in the way that is best for them. One key here is to collectively establish team norms and expectations around work schedules so people can work the way that is best for them without worrying how their flexibility preferences will impact others. At Microsoft, we’ve provided manager workshops on how to create effective team agreements.
Psychological safety and support
In our research, managers experiencing burnout don’t feel comfortable speaking up. In fact, when Microsoft’s managers are experiencing true burnout, they score 34 points lower on the sentiment “I feel safe to speak up at work” than those experiencing no burnout. And they say their own managers aren’t supporting them in prioritizing impactful projects and tasks: managers experiencing burnout rate their leader’s support in this area 30 points lower than managers who aren’t experiencing burnout.
As a manager, don’t think that you need to hide the fact that you may need help, too. Prepare for your one-on-one’s with your leader and share your prioritization ideas with them to gain their support. Speaking up in a productive way with recommendations and solutions provide space for active dialog and healthy conversations. As a leader, it’s important to role model owning up to your own mistakes and normalize showing vulnerability, actively invite input from your team, and respond productively to the feedback you receive. This can help build psychological safety on your team and among your managers.
Self-care
It is also important to empower managers to care for themselves, or “put their own oxygen masks on first,” before focusing on their teams. When managers focus on themselves first, it not only models the right behaviors, but it also allows them to be more present for their employees. At Microsoft, we’ve created training sessions for managers to learn how to practice self-care and recharge throughout the day. We also provide quick guides on how to set boundaries and respect others’ boundaries, and guides for having these discussions with your teams. Once a manager learns these skills themselves, they have an easier time encouraging their employees to do the same.
In order for managers to thrive, organizations must commit to continually listening to them, acting on feedback, and measuring progress. Examining the three burnout dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy is key to being able to understand the burnout landscape and determine actions that can improve each dimension. The more managers feel they can have an open dialogue with their employer, the richer that feedback loop will become as organizations work towards stemming the tide of burnout and creating a work environment where everyone’s energy is sustainable.
