Where must Burnout be tackled? Most of the times, it is at HR level. But we find it is too late.

We need to take agency on our own mental health and boundaries, and managers need to create and support the right environment to protect their teams.

Unless we become responsible for our own emotional, mental, and physiological states, it doesn't matter how many Good-intended initiatives the companies promote. With this I mean: 1. We must start with a tangible and modern way to "Know Thyself". We have a plethora of gadgets and apps to track our physiology, emotions, and mental patterns. 2. We must also be aware of other people that may not be as connected with themselves and providing guidance on potential risks. 3. Create collective initiatives so that the entire team/corporate culture fosters Smart Work as well as Smart Recovery. my 2 cents.

I believe managers have a big say in preventing burnout but senior leadership and/or HR need to give them the tools to track it. Today, surveys and meetings can be used to track burnout, but I feel there is something missing here. There’s a tonne of active and valuable data related to burnout in the everyday apps we use. This can be unearthed anonymously to flag up if individuals are likely to burnout whilst protecting individual privacy. But ultimately, bringing in the necessary tools that allow managers to prevent burnout is the responsibility of HR or senior leadership, depending on the size of the company.

IMO it's one of the manager's main responsibilities. They might cannot always prevent burnout, but they must keep an eye on the employee's psychological well-being. Periodic, unstructured, and non-job-related 1:1s are a good instrument for that. Especially in remote settings, proactive and conscious efforts from the managers are required.

In order not to be late, it is important to notice the factors that contribute to burnout in time. For example, regular overtime or underutilization of an employee can be seen in the reports of a time tracker such as Yaware TimeTracker (yaware.com). The sooner you see the reasons, the more chances to correct the situation. In addition, time tracker reports can analyze not only HR, but also team leads in the company.