How to Avoid Employee Burnout Through Outsourcing

With the high expense of turnover, employee burnout costs companies billions of dollars each year. It’s important to keep your employees happy and motivated. By outsourcing the tasks that cause employee burnout, you can avoid employee burnout while saving your company money in the process. This article will walk you through how to recognize the causes of employee burnout and how to choose tasks to outsource that will keep your employees happy and save you money.

It’s no secret that employee turnover can hurt a business’ bottom line. And if there’s one area of cost that most businesses don’t want to ignore, it’s employee costs. The reality is you can’t avoid paying employees and turnover has an undeniable impact on businesses so supporting your employees should be a top priority.

If you want to keep your employees happy and productive, then taking steps to prevent burnout will help keep them at their best. For example, allowing them time off for vacation or other mental health breaks may help with avoiding burnout. If you work in ecommerce or SaaS, which are often high-pressure jobs, giving people flexibility with their schedule may also be key in avoiding burnout among your staff members.

Though you may value providing a healthy work environment for your employees, it’s difficult to align those values with your actual business structure. Having enough staff to provide valuable flexibility can be outside of your budget, especially if you’re in a time of quick growth. There are lots of ways to grow your business without overwhelming your employees, like outsourcing.

Outsourcing is a great way to provide the staffing cushion you need, especially in areas like customer service or technical support that require constant attention.  As long as your business has enough work to keep your team busy, outsourcing can be an effective strategy for avoiding employee burnout while keeping costs down. It’s also a good idea to consider outsourcing if you’re struggling with consistency among employees; outsourcing will give your team access to highly skilled professionals who can help set standards and maintain quality control.

If you do decide to outsource some of your business functions, make sure you have clear guidelines in place so there are no misunderstandings about what your workers are expected to accomplish. Also, make sure they understand how they’ll be compensated—and check up on them regularly! If you don’t have time to manage outsourced staff yourself, it might be wise to hire someone who specializes in managing outsourced teams or insure your outsourcing provider includes management in their offering. It will still be cheaper than having fully internal staff.

To achieve a successful outsourcing plan, be prepared. You’ll need a realistic budget and an actionable plan for each stage of outsourcing. Once you have your blueprint, follow it step-by-step to ensure that nothing is missed along the way. If you think ahead and prepare thoroughly, you will successfully avoid employee burnout through outsourcing and make better use of your team members’ talents while achieving your company goals.

• The first step in avoiding employee burnout through outsourcing is to create a detailed plan. This should include what tasks are going to be outsourced, why they are being outsourced, how much time will be spent on them (and how much money), who will do them, when they should be completed by and how much they should cost. This information can then be used as benchmarks throughout your process to track progress.
• The second step in avoiding employee burnout through outsourcing is executing your plan. You’ll need a partner or service that provides outsourcing solutions. They all vary in how they manage the services so make sure you find one with a solid reputation and that manage their team well. There are also vendors who provide service for a specific niche. At Support Zebra, we provide outsourcing services mainly for SaaS and Ecommerce companies. Having an outsourcing team that supports your specific business types can save you a lot of time in training since they’re used to the typical problem points of the industry.
• The third and final step in avoiding employee burnout through outsourcing is following up on your plan and tracking its progress. If you want to ensure that things are going smoothly, it’s important to keep tabs on how things are going with check-ins and reports. If you find that certain aspects of your outsourcing process aren’t working out as planned, don’t be afraid to make changes as needed—that’s what you have a detailed plan for!

There are a lot of issues that can potentially come up when hiring overseas employees. Some employers may find language and cultural barriers difficult to overcome. Others might be worried about security or how much a project might cost.

These are all understandable concerns, but they’re hardly a reason not to hire outside your borders. There’s nothing wrong with being picky, but work to find a high-quality outsourcing provider that can explain their solutions for these common issues. If they don’t have a clear answer for how they’re mitigating common outsourcing problems, you should look elsewhere.

There are both good and bad ways to outsource tasks. In our work with businesses large and small, here are a few do’s and don’ts that we recommend keeping in mind when considering outsourcing certain tasks.

• Don’t assume you can outsource every task: Before you start thinking about which jobs could be outsourced, make sure it makes sense for your business model. For example, if you run a very small company with only one or two employees, it may not make sense to hire an outside firm to manage your customer service calls—especially if those calls are few and far between.
• Don’t rush into outsourcing: The first step in deciding whether or not outsourcing is right for your business is determining whether or not there are any tasks that could be handled by an outside firm. Take time to run the numbers and determine what you’ll be saving through outsourcing and what type of management it will require.
• Do make sure you understand what is and isn’t covered by your outsourcing contract: Before you sign a contract with an outside company, it’s important that you understand exactly what services are being offered. Does the agreement cover everything you need, or will you still be responsible for some tasks? What type of management do they handle and how much of it will be managed internally?
• Do get a contract and make sure your company is protected: It’s not enough to just choose an outsourcing company—you need to be sure that you have their attention. Put everything in writing, including how you will oversee management, what happens if tasks aren’t completed on time, and what recourse your business has if you decide outsourcing isn’t working out.

Employee burnout is all too common in today’s world. As a business owner, you want your employees to be both happy and productive. The two are not always mutually exclusive. In fact, according to recent surveys, employee burnout may affect productivity levels and can cost businesses large sums of money in wasted time and material. Consider outsourcing some of your work or letting one of your employees work remotely so they can feel less overwhelmed by their duties.