Over the past three years, the media has paid a lot of attention to how burnout and exhaustion have hit frontline workers, hybrid employees and managers. Recruiters, human resources managers, talent acquisition leaders — the people responsible for identifying the best and brightest the workforce has to offer — are also feeling the burn.
We all know that employees are the ones that are laid off, but there is another group within the company that is also negatively impacted by layoffs: the HR specialists. The job of informing the staff about the layoffs frequently falls to the HR specialists. For the HR staff, this may be a very emotionally taxing task. The dirty work of telling them that their future is unclear, presents a challenge for the HR staff. Given the tremendous pressure and stress that the HR staff experience throughout the entire process, this is significantly more challenging than it appears.
According to a Deloitte analysis, 47% of Indian employees are affected by work-related stress, and 51% of those surveyed reported being irritable and prone to frequent outbursts. In fact, the survey claims that 59% of Indian workers may be dealing with mental health problems and 55% are emotionally exhausted.
According to Alka Mittal, former ONGC CHRO "There should be tools, processes and regular interactions in place to help detect mental unrest in a person immediately, including HR personnel."
Expectations for HR and TA are more nuanced and difficult to navigate than ever before.
Anyone who works in the talent field is likely fighting a case of whiplash. Hiring is arduous for many firms, as workers reshuffle and renegotiate for better pay and work-life balance, creating a difficult landscape for recruiters at competing organisations hoping to win talent.
Data from McKinsey and Gartner shows that hiring is just harder now: 54% of chief financial officers agree that hiring and retention are the largest challenges they expect to face in the next 12 months. At the same time, certain sectors like tech are being roiled by layoffs, which include pink slips for the very people who perform those recruiting functions.
“It is the best time to be in this field and the worst time to be in this field,” says Geissler, who has worked in human resources for more than 20 years. “Our field is being treated with more respect because leaders see human resources and talent acquisition as part of the solution. They want HR to have a bigger seat at the table, but there is a lot of pressure that goes with that.”
According to a McKinsey study in which 15,000 employees and 1,000 human-resource (HR) decision-makers were surveyed in 15 countries, with India, Japan, Australia, and China representing the Asian region. Four out of every ten people working in India Inc. have high levels of burnout, distress, anxiety and depression. The study, which was conducted across geographies, revealed that toxic workplace behaviour is prevalent in India, accounting for approximately 90% of explained variance for every outcome. "Such behaviour also accounts for 90% of explained variance in intent to leave, with employees reporting a desire to leave their job at a level roughly 60% higher than the global average," McKinsey said.
Another challenge for Indian HR in the near future is managing demographics, managing change and cultural transformation, and managing globalisation. In order to increase productivity, human resource managers are now using social media websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to recruit the best and most suitable candidates for various departments within an organisation.
According to a new survey by media and entertainment firm House of Cheer, 59% of the workforce in India is dissatisfied with their jobs, with men being happier than women. Furthermore, full-time employees are happier (44%) than part-time employees (25%). People are truly happy in their careers when they are completely passionate about what they are doing. It brings them great joy to put their time and energy into something they enjoy. "If you love what you do, you have not worked a single day of your life," as the saying goes. The study also shows that stress levels play a significant role in determining employee happiness at work.
Today’s recruiter burnout will have lasting implications for tomorrow’s recruiters.
Recruiting is tough work, and stress comes with the territory. But it is important to note the difference between stress and burnout. A healthy amount of stress can motivate someone to work harder and thrive in new situations; burnout is a state of sustained stress and can have the opposite effect. People become uninspired and disengaged and begin to self-isolate. This drives people away from not only their jobs, but the talent acquisition industry in general.
Companies owe it to their HR/TA professionals to listen to them and be proactive.
You can not manage what you do not measure. Organisations can prevent burnout and help employees recharge by listening closely and taking stock of worker sentiment. It can be formal or informal, but it should be happening regularly.
Company leaders will need to listen to recruiting professionals more, but those professionals will also need to listen to themselves. That means setting strong boundaries and taking care of their well-being.
Kershner of WIS International also encourages those in the field to take their time back. Recruiters often juggle competing priorities with open requisitions for many different departments in their organisation.
“It can feel like you do not have control of your own calendar,” says Kershner, who often blocks out time in his schedule that belongs to him to allow deep focus. “You can designate that time for you and hold space for yourself. So when those priorities begin to conflict, you are still a priority within that as well.”
Geissler of Reckitt makes time for herself by taking paid time off seriously. She feels we need a cultural reset around how we value rest and how we recognise the relationship between rest and productivity.
“I am one of those people who vacation as hard as they work,” Geissler says. “And I am not looking to work when I am on vacation. My phone is tucked away in a beach towel, and I am not checking for messages. I encourage my team to treat vacation in the same way.”
To continue to attract the best talent, leaders of organisations will need to find ways to incentivise and inspire their TA staff. These professionals are often entrusted with the enormous job of making everyone happy, so it is important to ensure that their happiness and well-being is being protected too.
Geissler recalls a thank-you dinner a leader at her organisation hosted for HR/TA employees, and how much actions like that matter. There are larger forces at work in the job market that HR/TA can not solve on their own. But organisations that encourage gratitude, communication and recharging will be the ones at an advantage.
“When business leaders make those gestures,” Geissler says, “it can go a long way.”
Christine Geissler, Dr. Veronica Hawkins, Erik Kershner, Joey Lee and Tonya Moore are members of the Indeed Leadership Connect program. See what they had to say about diversity and the future of work during the recent Indeed Leadership Connect Recharge event.
