Preventing Leadership Burnout for the price of a Coffee

In today’s competitive business landscape, the health and well-being of employees have become critical markers of organisational success.

Increased workload and time pressures, managing work/life balance and poor working relationships are the most common issues that lead to employee stress and burnout.

Investing in wellness programmes tailored for leadership can not only address these critical challenges but also deliver impressive results, including a 50% reduction in employee turnover and a 28% decrease in absenteeism.

These statistics highlight the significant benefits and positive impact of implementing wellness programmes in organisations looking to improve employee well-being and preventing burnout.

However, despite the clear benefits of these programmes, currently only 51% of employers with 50 or more employees offer some type of wellness programme.

Why, well for a start, it’s not cost.

The Cost of Burnout – Coffee vs. Wellness

I have been providing my latest offering of The Salus Wellness Programme for four years now and it supports leaders within organisations for the price of a premium coffee – *£9.64/$11.73 per employee, per day.

While a coffee energises for a few hours, wellness programmes enhance performance and resilience for days, weeks, months and years.

From an organisational perspective, it costs less than replacing a printer ink cartridge.

So, ask yourself, are your employees receiving the same level of care and support as your equipment?

Replacing a burned-out senior leader is costly, on average, recruiting a senior manager can cost £10,000–£30,000 ($12000-$36,000), factoring in recruitment fees, training, and onboarding expenses.

At £9.64 per day, you could fund a wellness programme for more than 8 years for the same price.

The cost of senior leaders’ absenteeism and sick leave due to stress or mental health issues can be astronomical. A single week of absence for a senior executive might cost the organisation thousands in lost productivity and interim solutions. For £9.64 per day, you can proactively reduce these risks.

The cost to the individual is obviously far higher than any metric can measure.

Lack of Awareness or Understanding

Many companies underestimate the impact of burnout on senior leadership, seeing wellness as a “nice-to-have” rather than a strategic necessity.

Arianna Huffington, Founder of The Huffington Post and Thrive Global said this in 2016

“Well-being is not just a ‘nice-to-have’ for your employees. It’s a ‘must-have’ strategy for the bottom line of your business.”

Recent data from The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reveals that 83% of employees now experience weekly work-related stress, with about 29% facing burnout.

Time Investment

Senior leaders often feel overloaded with tasks and may resist adding another activity to their schedule, even if it’s for their benefit.

Most wellness programmes, such as The Salus Wellness Programme, are tailored to accommodate the demanding schedules of leaders, providing flexible support at times when they can fully engage and benefit.

Many organisations leave these challenges to the HR Departments or Heads of People teams, but this approach has 2 fundamental issues.

Like the leadership team, HR teams are stretched thin, juggling responsibilities like recruitment, compliance, and training. This heavy workload often leaves little time to focus on proactive wellness initiatives.

According to a survey conducted by theSHRM , approximately 45% of employees express reluctance to approach in-house HR departments with professional, personal or sensitive issues due to concerns around confidentiality and potential repercussions within the organisation.

The Salus Wellness Programme, seeks to assist Human Resource (HR) departments in increasing by providing guidance and support to individual needs, ensuring employees receive unbiased and confidential support.

Why It’s a No-Brainer – Stressed vs. Supported

When measured against the financial and operational consequences of leadership burnout, the daily investment of £9.64 per employee is a small price to pay.

Most employee issues that reach a CEO’s desk signifies a degree of systemic failure. Not only do these issues take up valuable working time, but they also exert an emotional toll on leaders, limiting their ability to focus on their next ‘most important task’. Often these issues must be put aside until a later time, and many leaders will perforce pick these up again outside of working hours, either on the commute home or in personal time.

This blurs the vital lines between work and home life resulting in an ‘always on’ culture for leaders, with no time for de-compression.

The evidence is compelling, organisations committed to wellness programmes effectively prevent leadership burnout, employees committed to a wellness programme experience significant boosts in productivity.

In short, wellness programmes get results.

If your organisation is looking to implement a wellness programme for your senior leadership team, book a Discovery Call using the link below or drop me an email to see the latest version ofThe Salus Wellness Programme.

And don’t worry—your leaders can still enjoy their coffee with The Salus Wellness Programme.

In fact, we might even help them enjoy it in a more relaxed, calmer state of mind! ☕

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