Restaurant burnout is an expected stop in your journey towards the ultimate goal of your restaurant and what makes it harder is that we often don’t realize that we are experiencing burnout and try to push through the days. This not just makes the journey more of a tedious job but also drains you and the team completely - neither of them leading you to the goals you have set to achieve.
Burnout is majorly insidious and it makes it harder for you to that you are collapsing due to overwork and stress. People often see it as something that is natural and they just need to keep going, when the opposite is what’s true. Burnout leaves you with a feeling of emptiness and incapability; making any work task extremely difficult to complete or even approach.
However, like most things in life, burnouts have an end too - given you accept the reality of the situation and think of ways to mend the issues.
● SYMPTOMS & ADDRESSAL
Denial will take a person nowhere but delay the process of healing. One of the most effective ways to battle burnout is to accept the reality and approach it to head straight. This starts by paying attention to your actions and mindset which will point out the symptoms.
Burnouts usually lead to decision fatigue, lowers confidence and energy, affect attitude, and amplifies cynicism, promote inflexibility and procrastination. However, before these intense results show up, smaller behavior starts to rise, these include irritability, unstable sleep patterns, lack of motivation and energy, changes in eating patterns, a burst of anger with the feeling of despair, and depression. These are the symptoms as explained by the health coach, Sylvie Heyman.
Once you’ve recognized these symptoms in yourself, the immediate and obvious step is to redirect the train before it hits rock bottom. A reflective session with yourself and checking in with your goals, behavior, current circumstances, and other related aspects of your restaurant will help you realize the path you’re taking and simultaneously gives you awareness of the actions you need to take at the present moment.
Some questions you can ask yourself are, “How do you feel about the journey you’re taking with your business?”, “Are you meeting your goals and accomplishing them?”, “Are you falling behind tasks and often procrastinating?”, “Where do you stand with your restaurant?” and “Do you still enjoy doing things and does it give the excitement it used to do?”
Taking a step and trying to adopt a third-person perspective can help you see your situation in a better light and help you take action regarding it.
If you feel that burnout is too hard to take care of single-handedly, then the best choice is to seek professional help.
● BURNOUT CAUSE
The journey you take with your restaurant isn’t a short and smooth trip. There are many ups and downs and the goals you’ve set out to achieve take longer than you might have estimated. It is to say that, the initial excitement and passion have higher chances of dimming down amidst the long, tedious, and often monotonous work-life and it’s more common than we expect it to be. A study made in 2019, prior-pandemic, stated that about 80% of the hospitality worker population meet with burnouts. Hence it is important to look at the situation more as a passing cloud rather than a rock bottom to survive it.
People, when they start with a business, are often clear with where they’re headed and have a purpose that they’re passionately working towards. However, on the actual execution and progression of the business, things get clouded and we forget what and why we are doing this for and where we are aiming to head.
It, thereby, becomes essential to surround yourself with things that remind you of your business’ purpose, destination, and personality.
Burnouts also grow out of monotonous and unexciting work-life. Imagine trying to achieve a goal by simply repeating the same work-life over and over again. It becomes a static cycle that unnecessarily takes time and effort by taking you nowhere.
It’s important to keep things exciting and have innovative ideas flow through to motivate both yourself and your employees. Remind them that their work environment can still be lively and every day can still have new possibilities for growth.
A perfect rock bottom that every restaurant hit was during the land of pandemics. The extreme down that was mounted with financial loss, reduction of traffic, promotional decline, staff reduction, and other damage expenses must have been difficult to battle with.
The kind of burnout the restaurants would have faced with no possible escapes insight must have been tiring and confusing. However, there are multiple recovery records of restaurants that pulled through.
Burnouts can come at any time, from anywhere, and to any kind of restaurant, regardless of the state, they are in. Hence, trying to dwell in the cause and solving the issue from its roots not only gives a way out but also provides awareness to avoid it in the future.
● TIPS TO BATTLE BURNOUT
Sometimes, nothing solves burnouts like taking a break. It’s the most effective way to give a release from the continuing irritable work-life and a chance to see things in life in a better light.
Try to concentrate and improve other aspects of your life that weren’t given attention to amidst your busy schedules with the restaurant. Often and I mean always, private and professional lives merge and affect each other. Hence improving the overall quality of your life can also reap a positive attitude towards your business.
This break will also remind you about where you stand with your restaurant. Only when we take something out of our life does the value of presence shine. Therefore, a break from the hectic work-life will show you the real reasons you started your business and excite things further when you get back from your break.
If a complete break isn’t possible or doesn’t reap the benefits, then think of other dimensions of breaks. Reduce your work hours and work strictly within the period you have newly set. If your clock ticks from 10 am to 6 pm, don’t let yourself overwork even a minute after the close time. This will give you enough time to rejuvenate and be more productive on the next day.
Also, try to implement recreational activities that will relieve further stress during your free time. Consider yoga, journaling, meditation, and other suitable activities.
Ask for help when needed. A mistake that most individuals tend to make is that they believe all things can be handled by themselves and they wouldn’t need help. This mindset is not just unrealistic but also extremely exhausting. Having a team that will help you with things greatly helps with battling burnout. Multitasking simply does not belong to business vocabulary. It’s always best to assign tasks of different kinds to different members of the team to promote productivity, flourish creativity and avoid exhaustion.
Switch things up a bit; like previously mentioned, monotony becomes the major cause of burnouts. There is nothing that tires someone like a repetitive work environment, considering that work in its nature tends to be tedious. Changing your daily routine and spicing it every day not only improves the brand image but also invites a healthy work environment.
Concentrate more on the rejuvenation of your employees, who are most likely to burn out faster and deeper. Holding meetings and collaborating with the team to create new ways to excite the workspace adheres best to the employees and helps them work their way out of their burnout.
Another way of battling burnout is to take in feedback from both employees and customers. An objective eye is the best eye in times of crisis. Most of your problems and issues tend to mask themselves in front of your eyes, leaving you clueless and confused. Sometimes, you might try to unconsciously avoid certain issues due to the level of intimidation in holds. However, a third perspective can help you direct you towards the problems that need to be addressed and the respective solutions that might be lying right in front of you.
It’s also necessary to be in the right mindset to take in feedback and not get too defensive, which might not lead to solving any issues.
● POST BURNOUT
Once you’ve realized and solved the roots of your burnout, you’ve come back to a fresher start with your restaurant. Things need to be approached differently from how they were during and pre burnout. It is a simple understanding that the initial actions tumbled into the burnout and using the same methodologies after the burnout are unlikely to give you different results and most likely direct you towards another burnout.
Therefore, the break and recovery period needs to incorporate brainstorming ideas to create new ways of functioning and working to suit the growth of your restaurant.
This requires a deep dive into what you want for your restaurant, the personality you are trying to execute, and the relationship you have with the restaurant. On understanding the answer to these questions strategizing methodologies that will allow the flourishing of your restaurant becomes easier. There’s a sea of ways to approach your restaurant and what really stands as the influencing factor is what you want the restaurant to communicate and stand for.
Constantly think of things that can be improved, changed, and altered to create a sense of liveliness in your restaurant.
Burnouts are natural and destined to fall upon every business workings. Though the above-mentioned tips will help you battle your burnout, complete eradication depends on your actions and how well you collaborate with your team to employ these tips. It’s also important to understand that burnouts are possible reoccur. Hence, realizing the symptoms, planning ahead of the actual befall of the burnout, and using previous experience to approach it optimistically help with the battle effectively.
Why burnout
Tips to battle burnout
How to act post burnout
conclusion