How to prevent, rescue burnt-out employees

OK, you've now seen eight symptoms of burning out or unmotivated behavior and attitudes. Observation is the first step. So what else can you do to move the employee along and assist him or her in the process of self-motivation? The first thing you should do is gather information from previous performance reviews and from other managers or supervisors. Determine if this situation is a trend or just a blip in performance. In either case, you need to intervene as follows:

• Meet with the individual. Begin by asking the employee his or her perception of their performance or productivity. Then based on your data and observations, share your specific views of the change in productivity and attitude.
• Identify previous motivators (the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior). Determine which factors are no longer present and/or determine which ones no longer work as motivators.
• Identify new motivators. Frederick Herzberg, who's writings of workplace psychology in the 1950s and 60s is still heavily relied upon today, offers the following most commonly used and effective motivators:

First, identify areas where the individual can experience a sense of achievement, such as accomplishing a task, finishing a report, meeting with colleagues or creating new ideas. Next, be certain to recognize and reward the individual for a job well done or work in progress. This form of positive feedback usually encourages increased performance and therefore the individual receives even greater recognition or comment from you, the boss.

Provide opportunities for personal or professional growth on the job. This can be accomplished through attendance at seminars or workshops or by observing other employees in other jobs. In addition, by creating a concrete career pathway (a plan for future career growth), you can motivate this person to strive toward the next job or position in your organization.

Ensure that you're providing appropriate amounts of guidance and supervision so the employee knows exactly what's expected. Also, ensure the communication between the two of you is frequent enough, appropriate and adequate to ensure the employee knows exactly what the road to success looks like. You might discover that the current job is too challenging or perhaps not challenging enough to maintain the person's interest and productivity. Try rotating or exchanging the job responsibilities between several employees. This form of cross-training injects fresh, new energy and challenges into the daily job performance. And finally, try expanding the breadth and depth of responsibilities. This too can energize the individual who is not feeling challenged.

Basically, all of these proven techniques serve to assist you and the employee in evaluating how well they fit into a current role. This is an easy and extremely effective way to increase employee motivation, job satisfaction and productivity. After all, isn't this what you want from your employees?

David G. Javitch, Ph.D., is Entrepreneur'com's "Employee Management" columnist and an organizational psychologist and president of Javitch Associates, an organizational consulting firm in Newton, Massachusetts. With more than 20 years of experience working with executives in various industries, he's an internationally recognized author, keynote speaker and consultant on key management and leadership issues.

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