How to protect against employee burnout

Background: protect against employee burnout

Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited (DMSL) is a joint venture of the UK mobile network operators EE, Virgin Media, O2, Three and Vodafone. Their vision is a disruption free digital life for people across the UK.

DMSL helps make this a reality by connecting people to communications and media networks and removing barriers to access. DMSL specialises in transparently delivering complex programmes with multiple public and private stakeholders.

When the pandemic hit, employees had to quickly adjust to remote working whilst navigating personal and business challenges. There were a broad range of employee wellbeing challenges that reflected the diversity of the workforce (different generations, vulnerable groups, working parents), and the shifting needs of the business.

With a strong ethos of being a supportive employer, DMSL identified the need to proactively protect against workers burnout, maintain engagement and build a psychologically safe culture for remote working.

Solution: Create a workplace culture of wellbeing

1. Provide clarity on the current employee wellbeing landscape

• To gain a clear picture of current levels of employee wellbeing, we used the Wraw (Workplace Resilience and Wellbeing) psychometric questionnaire to generate an Organisation Report.
• Combined with internal data, this comprehensive employee wellbeing report supported robust planning to target wellbeing programs in high priority areas.

2. Empower employees to take control of their wellbeing

We took a 2-pronged approach to protecting employees from burnout.

• Employees were invited to complete the Wraw psychometric questionnaire 3 times (at the start of the intervention, 6 months later and at the end of the program). At each stage they received personal analytics on their resilience and wellbeing.
• After each completion of Wraw, participants were offered a resilience coaching debrief. In these sessions they had the opportunity to unpack their personal resilience analytics and identify targeted action to boost their wellbeing and manage existing and future pressures and stress.

3. Enable managers to create a supportive climate for team wellbeing

• Team managers and leaders attended a bespoke training program on how to lead wellbeing conversations with their teams. This essential skillset enabled them to foster a team climate of psychological safety.

4. Enhance existing capability to build momentum for change

• To capitalise on existing wellbeing resources, we ran supervision sessions for their team of Mental Health First Aiders. 

Results: Increase in employee resilience and wellbeing

The data from the Wraw psychometric tool tracked the impact of the program at 6 month intervals in a safe and anonymised way.

Employee resilience increased across 5 key pillars

Wraw measures overall levels of resilience and wellbeing across 5 key pillars: Energy, Future Focus, Inner Drive, Flexible Thinking and Strong Relationships.To find out more about the 5 Pillars of Resilience, watch the video below.

Overall employee resilience increased

• The Wraw Index measures resilience across both thoughts and actions. Over the 12-month period, we saw an overall increase in resilience of the employee population of 43%.
• The Impact Index measures the extent to which someone feels positive about their life, which can support overall wellbeing. We saw an average increase of 48% over the 12-month period.

Programme summary

This 12-month programme highlighted the benefits of consistently assessing resilience and wellbeing. The rhythm of assessments, coaching debriefs and check-ins embedded healthy behaviours to protect against employee burnout.

Having measurable results to demonstrate impact has been a source of motivation for the organisation as they continue to focus on the resilience and wellbeing of their people.

In 2022, DMSL won the Great British Workplace Wellbeing Award for Best Use of Tech for their work in supporting employee wellbeing.