Burnout is deeply rooted in workplace culture.
Cisco focuses on measuring and understanding how workers are feeling.
The company also prioritizes employee engagement and manager feedback.
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The first time Aisha Memon realized she was burned out was during a talk by Chuck Robbins.
Robbins is the CEO and chairman of Cisco, where Memon has been employed for 13 years and is a business-operations manager. The discussion was centered on mental-health awareness, and it was a lightbulb moment for Memon, who at the time couldn’t explain how overwhelmed and fatigued she was feeling.
“I was just very jaded,” she said. “It started impacting all of my relationships. I was not the same person. I was going through a slump.”
These feelings are classic symptoms of burnout, or exhaustion of strength and motivation due to prolonged periods of stress. Fortunately, Cisco had the tools to help.
“Robbins was very transparent about it,” she said. “And to me it was like, ‘OK, Cisco’s talking about this taboo.’ I need to be heard. I shouldn’t be feeling guilt or shame for it.”
Across all industries, burnout rates are rising. A recent Microsoft survey of 30,000 people found that 54% of employees are overworked and 38% are exhausted. Junior bankers and consultants report working more than 90-hour weeks. Big Law firms are paying employees bonuses of up to $250,000 in effort to increase retention after a year of nonstop work.
So far companies have chosen to address burnout with simple perks such as ”
Zoom
-free Fridays” and mental-health days. But these provide only short-term solutions. Burnout is deeply rooted in organizational culture, and its main causes are excessive workload and poor work-life balance, Jennifer Moss, a workplace expert and the author of “The Burnout Epidemic” previously told Insider.
Memon’s burnout was caused by a number of intersecting challenges. She was struggling with Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, and her in-laws had recently moved into her home. On top of that, she also had a mounting workload.
“Personal crises, health crises — I think it was a perfect storm,” she said.
Prioritizing mental health Cisco is unique in that it’s going above and beyond Band-Aid solutions. The company uses data to analyze worker sentiment, offers manager training, provides support from mental-health professionals, and regularly tracks worker engagement, among other strategies.
Fran Katsoudas, chief people, policy, and purpose officer at Cisco, said leaders at the company are sensitive to the fact that employees have a lot going on in their lives, and the firm designs its burnout strategy with this in mind.
Cisco hosts regular discussions, like the one Memon attended, on mental health. During these meetings, the company brings in mental-health practitioners to talk with employees and discuss burnout.
“We had a discussion around the difference between burnout and a tough week, so we can help people really differentiate between,” Katsoudas said.
Throughout these company-wide meetings Katsoudas runs employees’ comments through a sentiment-analysis tool that gives her a clearer sense of how employees are feeling. This allows her to better prepare for the next talk and target workers’ exact concerns.
“There were weeks that I would see the leading emotion was worry,” she said. “That gave us insight and allowed us to talk through that in our next session.”
Cisco saw a slight decrease in employee engagement in 2020, according to data provided to Insider. On a five-point scale, worker engagement decreased from 4.54 in 2019 to 4.34 in 2020, likely due to the pandemic.
This also helps the company determine the types of benefits they should be investing in. For example, early in the pandemic, workers were concerned about managing their children’s education.
“We knew at that moment that was causing quite a bit of stress,” she said. Cisco invested in two different tutoring benefits. They offered a subsidized tutoring option and an option for Cisco employees to volunteer to tutor another colleague’s child on a specific subject.
Cisco also has a team of advocates who can help employees get access to mental healthcare for themselves and their families if they need it. Workers also have access to on-site fitness coaching, which Memon said helped reduce her stress when she was feeling burned out.
“That was the first investment I made in myself,” Memon said.
Investing in managers Memon also took advantage of Cisco’s Team Space, a collaborative platform that provides the company with insights into how engaged workers are. Each day, employees are prompted to answer questions for an “engagement pulse” about what they need, their priorities for the week, and the tasks they loved and loathed.
“I feel like the tool knows me better than I know myself,” Memon said. “It provides tips for me based on who my profile is at that time.”
Katsoudas said Team Space helps leaders start conversations with their employees. They learn about workers’ strengths and weaknesses, which can then guide talent decisions. According to data provided by Cisco, 69% of employees completed an engagement-pulse survey on Team Space in 2020.
Manager training is also a key part of how the company addresses burnout, Katsoudas said. The company has “Teams Week,” an entire week devoted exclusively to manager and employee training. This year, Katsoudas said one of the themes will be employee engagement, which is directly related to burnout.
“I think your direct manager plays such a role in your overall experience,” Katsoudas said. The more an employee received consistent attention from their manager, the more engaged they were likely to be overall, the company found.
It’s important that managers listen to employees’ suggestions, Katsoudas said. For example, in April, an employee suggested the company offer a “day for me,” a day off specifically for employees to focus on their mental health.
“Many of the best ideas come from our employees,” Katsoudas said.
Cisco’s strategy might be hard to replicate at a smaller organization, but some elements can be created at smaller companies. For example, manager trainings on mental health or regular discussions about burnout.
Memon said Cisco was supportive in helping her overcome her burnout. It was ultimately her colleagues who encouraged her to make changes that would help her feel better at work and at home. She took advantage of the tools Cisco offers, in addition to hiring a life coach.
Now, she shares her own experiences on the company’s #safetotalk community, a forum where Cisco employees freely discuss mental health. After sharing her own experience, she wants to help other employees who feel burned out.
“Any time I see somebody who is depleted, I say, ‘What can I do to support you,'” she said. “I want to be the person that I needed the most.”
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