Supporting Burned Out Employees

When outfitters, managers, and owners hear that I facilitate discussions about moving from outdoor seasonal to 9-5 and other year-round positions, they are often, understandably, suspicious.

“You’re making it hard to hang onto the good ones, Emerald!” I hear frequently.

First, I remind skeptics that I never promote year-round work as “better” or “worse”. The grass isn’t greener in year-round work. There’s simply a different texture in the lawn, and each person must decide what they value most regarding compensation, free time, and meaningful work.

As someone who has been a burned-out outdoor seasonal employee myself, however, I say this with confidence: A burned-out employee can wreck your team culture and create exponential stress for you as a manager. Why isn’t anything you are doing helping them? Why does the employee stick around, even when they are no longer finding meaning in their work? Why won’t they just quit already? Why are they making you the bad guy?!

There are two ways to support a burned-out employee - help them address their burnout and remain in their job or help them move on to their next opportunity.

Staying Put

The first step to addressing burnout within yourself or an employee is better understanding burnout. The International Classification of Diseases defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon, not a disease:

“Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and
• reduced professional efficacy.

Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.”

Despite the firm admonition to stay within the occupational context, many of us know the way personal life stress and occupational stress often overlap and exacerbate feelings of depletion and exhaustion. When I worked as the Director of the Redside Foundation, I always described “health” as the overlap of mental, financial, physical, and community health. I believe our experiences of burnout can be touched by all of these factors as well.

Burnout can also be exacerbated by harassment, identity-based microaggressions, or other experiences of “othering” and lack of safety within the workplace. I praise Lily Zheng’s book DEI Deconstructed for any leader ready to build a more equitable and trustful workplace.

When preventing and addressing burnout to retain your skilled staff, I recommend the following leadership-building resources:

Anne Helen Peterson, in her viral article and subsequent book, “Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation” helps place burnout within the context of generational experience, cultural shift, and policy. This understanding of burnout can help place outfitters, owners, and their staff back on the same team, rather than position each other as adversaries.

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, in her book Real Self Care, outlines the way that addressing and preventing burnout is internal and community-based work, rather than an experience one can solve via a vacation or purchasing items.

And if Peterson and Lakshmin’s work all feels a little too theoretical and vague, I recommend picking up Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book Burnout: The Secrets to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. The Nagoski’s approach promotes tangible actions, such as exercising, breathing, and positive social interaction, to process the nervous system’s experience of stress. This then helps reduce exposure to burnout-creating conditions, so long as the stressors are not too great or frequent.

Moving On

If it’s time for an employee to move on, more often than not, considering exiting your workplace leaves the employee scared. Fear arose as a topic again and again in the Unseasoned interview series, where I asked interviewees about their experience leaving outdoor seasonal work. Interviewees wondered,

“How do I make friends?”

“Is my mental health going to be okay without consistent access to wild places?”

“Am I boring now?!”

“Will this paycheck be enough to pay rent year-round?”

The likelihood of an employee admitting their fear, however, has everything to do with the person’s personality, your company culture, and their psychological safety in your workplace. In many outdoor seasonal professions, expressing fear is not encouraged. Think of the trip leader who has been trained to be decisive, calm, and in control at all times. Regardless, understanding that fear may be underlying the employee’s reluctance to leave can open up a whole set of tools you didn’t have prior. Questions for you to ask might be:

“What is this employee scared to lose if they leave this workplace?”

“How can I assure this employee they will remain a valued part of our community, even after they move on to a different workplace?”

“What type of role might this person be well suited to next? How can I support them in building the skills or network to make that shift?”

Now you might be reading this, rolling your eyes, and thinking, “Uh - not my job.” And I get it, this could look like just another 1:1 meeting can of worms you don’t have time for.

But when that over-it senior guide is creating a completely toxic work environment just because the newbie didn’t slice the tomatoes thin enough… it might be time to reconsider.

Overall, understanding and addressing burnout will help you understand your own experiences of burnout, help retain your existing staff, and help sustain great relationships with the employees who do decide it’s time to move on.

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Emerald LaFortune is a former wilderness whitewater and fly fishing guide turned project manager and outdoor writer. Ready to address burnout and set up senior staff for success? You can bring ‘Unseasoned’ to your outdoor program, workplace, or community group. More information here.