We understand that managing a learning portal can be tough work, so we want to make it as easy as possible for you!In our August update we have some exciting new tools that will streamline the way that you import and assign users to their managers, improve the way you track in person events, make updates on our social learning tools, and more.

Learn more about all of the updates below.

Administrators can now bulk assign users to a manager

When importing your learners into the Go1 Platform, you can now save time by setting up the import to include assigning users to a manager. Simply navigate to your User dashboard, click Add User, and select CSV file. Here you can download a template if you don’t already have one - this will ensure your data is in the correct format, or upload your CSV file. You can then preview your data prior to clicking Import.

Training GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Groups are a great social learning tool in Go1, and now you can further customise the display of your Groups by including a course image. When you are creating a new group, or editing an existing group, you will now see the Group Image option where you can add the image of your choice to represent your group.

Animated GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Manually record a learning event or course completion

With the introduction of in-person or live learning events to courses, we have now made it easy for an individuals to record having attended a live event or having passed a course. This provides the user with more flexibility in how they manage their learning. This can be done by going into a users profile, selecting Learning Records, and completing the form as shown below.

Bulk actions added for Assigning assessors

Administrator can edit or delete a learning record

Improvements to Discussion areas for iPad users

User can now upload more than one file in their assessment submissions

Weblink LI's show warnings for site that set 'X-Frame-Option' rather than iFrame

Image and description fields have been removed from the LI popup in edit course

If an Admin clicks add new course, you are taken straight to the edit course page

Sign up for a free trial today and try it out for yourself!

If you have any questions about any of the updates and improvements listed above, please let us know and our Customer Success Team can help you out!

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Try our new administrator tools in the Go1 mid August update

There’s no doubt that onboarding new employees can become very expensive and time-consuming for your business. Most hiring processes will involve writing job ads, running interviews, carrying out background checks, and organizing training for new hires, keeping HR managers and teams super busy. And pushing budgets.

In fact, according to Deloitte, the average US employer spends about $4000 and 52 days on hiring a new employee. That’s a considerable amount of time and money to invest in bringing new staff on board.

However, because onboarding plays such an important role in any business, it’s not something that you want to neglect or dismiss. Remember, each individual who enters your organization has an impact on your company culture. So you need to know how to deliver successful onboarding programs for your staff, while being careful not to blow your budget.

Sounds tricky, but it can be done! Here’s how to keep onboarding costs down, while still making sure the process is successful for both the employer and their new hires.

With successful onboarding, you’ll be able to reduce your staff turnover rate, saving you money.

Employee turnover is a huge problem in today’s workforce. Approximately 45% of companies estimate their total turnover costs to be more than $25,000 per person. From advertising to interviewing candidates and educating new hires, filling an empty position can add up to an enormous expense.

When you’re investing so much time, effort and money into this process, you want new staff members to stick around. To do this, you need to find the best solution for onboarding and training your staff. The best tech tool to use for this? eLearning.

Using eLearning to reduce onboarding costs

From software solutions to online resources, technology can be your best friend when it comes to reducing onboarding costs.

Using eLearning for onboarding allows you to develop a perfectly customized training program for each individual employee. With the right Learning Management System, you can create short, concise online courses that are tailored to the exact needs of your team members. Because the fact is, not all staff need to know the same skills or the same selection of company policies.

You want your onboarding program to reflect that, with content that covers only the relevant workplace safety, policies and procedures, and HR contacts that new hires need.  Taking onboarding online allows you to do this, keeping staff engaged and focused, while also providing an effective way for managers to monitor and gauge employee performance.

There’ll be no need for expensive training facilities, speakers, or printed materials that require updating – with all your modules, assessments and reports online you’ll save significantly over time.

Include mentoring as part of the onboarding process

Another way to reduce costs is to include mentoring in your employee onboarding process.

Mentoring is an easy way to use existing, internal resources, rather than spending money on external training consultants or programs. Pairing new employees with veteran employees in on-the-job mentoring, costs you nothing, while also working to reinforce a supportive and welcoming environment for new employees. It also allows new hires to receive informal feedback from someone who has actually been in the role, which can be invaluable for professional development.

Mentoring also has benefits for the veteran employee doing the mentoring. In fact, you might like to read our previous article on the many benefits of mentoring for employees – they include increased knowledge sharing, improved skill sets and the opportunity for constructive feedback and support.

In this way, mentoring relationships will not only save your company money, they also help contribute to a more collaborative, trusting and positive culture for all staff in your organization.

Yoav Vilner, co-founder of Ranky startup marketing agency, agrees that many big companies are using mentoring for onboarding, as “an easy and cost-effective way to train a new hire in the everyday roles and responsibilities of their new job. Moreover, the new hire has someone to turn to besides a supervisor for real advice, honest conversation and encouragement in their new role.”

Keen to read more about onboarding? Check out these two earlier articles on:

Why a Good Employee Onboarding Program will Reduce Staff Turnover

Using Online Learning to Reduce Onboarding Costs

How to keep onboarding costs down without cutting corners

We all love life’s little luxuries, don’t we?

But times change, and what were once luxuries become necessities. That’s the situation today with training for small and medium sized businesses.

Not so long ago, training for SMBs was a luxury that could not be afforded. Small businesses often had to spend most of their time simply keeping their heads above water, and dealing with the day-to-day costs of staying in the game. Highly effective training was just not a realistic option.

And then came the internet. This technological miracle seems to have changed every walk of life - and the business world is no exception. Now, thanks to Cloud-Based Learning Management Systems like Go1 Premium, small and medium-sized businesses can access exemplary training resources at affordable prices in ways that would not have been considered possible only 15 years ago.

So what is a Learning Management System? To put it simply, an LMS is a software application that’s used by businesses to deliver educational courses and training programs to their staff in a logical, efficient, and trackable way. The LMS powers training courses to simplify and automate the handling of this centrally important business practice.

So let’s take a look at some of the benefits that using a Learning Management System to implement your training can offer to owners of small to medium-sized businesses.

Light on the pocket but heavy on satisfaction

The most obvious benefit of LMS for training is its cost-effective nature. Unlike training of old where speakers were flown in at often exorbitant costs, LMS is an efficient and value-for-money method of training up your teams.

For SMBs, it’s vitally important to track and predict costs with great accuracy, as budgets are usually tighter than their larger counterparts. The LMS offers the advantage of a set cost, offering the business a transparent price that won’t spiral out of control.

Yet despite the cost benefits for SMBs, the quality of training provided by an LMS is second-to-none. For example, at Go1 we offer comprehensive professional development that covers areas like sales skills, HR, customer service, or leadership, that has been created by experts in their fields who know the ins and outs of their specific area of business development.

The LMS system brings with it years of experience in handling the very specific needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

Connected to the affordability of LMS training is the improved time efficiency in the implementation of said training, a real boon for small and medium-sized businesses.

Commonly, SMBs don’t have a lot of time to waste as they try to make every working hour a productive one. Though training is a major component of a successful organization, it can easily slip by the wayside in favor of more lucrative pursuits while at work.

The beauty of LMS training is that it can be accessed wherever and whenever, meaning that employees don’t have to waste time traveling to a venue or stopping important pieces of work to head off on a training afternoon. Instead, they’re able to access training as and when it’s practical and logical to do so. As training is provided online, employees can train at home or on the go, saving time for themselves and for the business.

With LMS training, time is streamlined for efficiency so that working hours aren’t wasted.

Before training objectives were easily quantified, tracking the progress of trainers was not an easy task. Often, businesses scratched their heads and questioned what training had really done for them.

But by using a Learning Management System to implement training, businesses can now very easily see how their employees are training, what they should be learning, and in which areas they can improve.

Many of the features of the LMS, such as quizzes and tests, allow HR to verify each employee’s understanding of what they’re being taught. For example, our compliance training will teach and test the comprehension of an employee so that a business is assured of the successful mastering of important regulatory practices and legal restraints.

Onboarding of new employees is also improved through automation of the actual onboarding process, which, like training, can be configured and tracked. From this progress tracking, reports can be produced that detail strengths and weaknesses of each trainer to further enhance the potency of the Learning Management System.

LMS providers are businesses too, and at Go1 we understand the need for ongoing support when making a major business change, such as the application of a new training system.

That’s why one foundation of our organization is in offering ongoing support. We don’t “set it and forget it”; instead we’re with the SMB every step of the way – from planning, to implementation, to review and assessment.

With hundreds of courses that are ready off the shelf, the LMS can provide complete coverage for every aspect of business organization, which can be customized simply and quickly to best fit the needs of your SMB.

LMS training for small and medium businesses is now a formidable and competitive alternative for the training and professional development of your organization. The time to reap its benefits has never been better.


How to provide training for small businesses

As online courses are continuing to grow in popularity across the world it’s now easier than ever to create and sell your own courses. When you are a subject matter of a subject, creating a course is easy. You pull together content, and there are many tools available to quickly and easily build your course online.

This webinar has been postponed, we will run another webinar in the near future

The problem is that once you have published your course, the real work begins; you need to get people to purchase and enroll to start generating a return on your time and effort.

Getting started with selling courses online can be challenging, especially for those who have not had any digital marketing experience - which is generally the majority of course creators.

We are excited to present this webinar with Scott Cooper, VP of Marketing at Go1, and Matthias Hombauer of howtobecomearockstarphotographer.com. Scott and Matthias will be discussing the techniques used to get started with selling online courses that anyone can apply, and the lessons that Matthias learned as he went through his journey of getting started with online courses, which over time grew into a successful business.

Some of the key topics that will be covered will include:

The session will also include a Q&A, so have your questions ready so that we can help you!

Best hidden secrets to sell more online courses

What you need to know to sell more online courses

Technology was meant to make life easier. When machines automated our daily chores, we’d have more time to sit back and relax. That was the dream, but the reality has turned out a little different…

Today technology tends to take over our lives. We’ve got mobile phones that beep every time we receive a message through any one of our numerous communication platforms, as well as whenever anything happens in our favorite sport, as well as world news…

You get the picture. Instead of allowing us to control our lives more easily through technology, technology has gained the upper hand.

How do we save time through technology use, instead of losing it? Well Zapier might just have the answer.

This handy little tool saves you time to hand you back control of your life so that you can focus on the more important things. But what is Zapier and how do you use it?

As I’ve just mentioned, Zapier is here to help us save time and focus on what is important to us.

To do this, Zapier automates our lives. Our lives with apps, that is. It acts as a puppet master that pulls endless strings to improve communication between each tool and reduce our workload.

And the beauty of this is that you don’t need to know any coding or have any serious technical knowledge. In fact, it’s simple enough to use that anyone can use it.

The idea is this. By creating a “Zap”, users are able to automate tasks that involve two or more applications. The Zap defines the action that an app will take when it is triggered.

Five minutes here and ten minutes there throughout your day can really help to save time and make your working hours much more productive. And we all want that, don’t we?

Let’s delve a little deeper into the fun we can have with Zapier, and how we can best use the app to make our lives easier.

Zapier is very useful when connected to other helpful apps that can be used to manage projects and communicate like Todoist, Asana, and Slack. Because programs like these are often the managerial system between teams, Zapier can connect to them and insert helpful shortcuts that will reduce heavy labor for you.

But Zapier has many, many uses and can be used with workflow apps like Trello, sales and CRM software like Pipedrive, and information gathering apps like Typeform.

If you’d like a full list of the hundreds of different software products that Zapier can work with, then click here.

An enduring problem of working online is the ability to properly communicate – and make sure they are stuck to – deadline dates and times for meetings, calls, or other daily business.

Zapier can help make this much easier. There are a variety of ways and means to help you and one great Zap is for this is the Asana Tasks to Google Calendar Zap. This clever innovation connects deadlines and important dates created in Asana and adds them to Google Calendar. So, for teams who share Google Calendars, each member will receive updates and changes automatically giving you the freedom to set it and forget it, rather than manually reminding each team member.

This means less fretting and chasing down work for you when deadlines are approaching, and team members can always stay informed. This is a perfect tool for making team working that bit easier.

Though this Zap is for Asana Tasks to Google Calendar only, there are a whole host of Zaps to connect with Google.

Zapier can also help to shift files from email to online and cloud storage automatically, helping save precious working hours. Though useful for all teams, if you’re involved in industries like design, or perhaps a freelancer wanting to share timesheets, this Zap will be a particular joy.

With the Gmail to DropBox Zap, emails that are received in a specific Gmail account can be automated so that they are saved in their original format and uploaded to DropBox. Triggers can be specified so that personal information isn’t shared.

This is a really simple way of sharing some vital information with colleagues or friends that grants you freedom from those little irritations that can get in the way of more productive work hours.

Want to keep your mailing lists updated and automated so that you don’t have to go through a boring job yourself? Well there are many, many Zaps for that. There are currently over 100 Zaps to improve the connectivity of MailChimp, one of the leading marketing email services. This means that your email campaigns can stay ahead of the game with an easy, straightforward to use Zap.

For example, one Zap allows users to automatically add the attendees of a given Eventbrite event to your MailChimp list of choice.

So if you keep your eye on various industry events, every time someone registers for the event, they are added to the list of people who will receive your emails connected to their interest. Neat, huh?


Want to make your course stand out in the Go1 Course Marketplace? Try this cool new feature that allows you to set a GIF as your course card image.

Animating your course card means that as learners are browsing through courses in the marketplace your courses will stand out from the pack and generate more interest than a regular image, and below we’ll show you how to create your own GIF files.

Course GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

If you want to use a GIF as a course card image, the first thing you need is a GIF. There are 2 options here, you can either create your own GIF, or use an existing file.

For those using pre made GIF’s the best place to start your search is on Giffy. It’s important to ensure that you have the rights to be able to use the GIF though, so please do your research to avoid trouble later on.

Creating your own GIF’s is a simple process and can be used to highlight some of the information that is included in your course. There are only 2 steps involved that anyone can complete:

Step 1: Use screen recording software to capture a video of the action on your screen. There are a stack of free programs out there to help with this, our favorite is Quicktime. Simply click, File, New Screen Recording, and start creating your GIF. This will generate a video file of your recording.

If you wanted to use a series of images, there are many programs online that allow you to compile images into video or GIF format too.

Step 2: head to EZGIF and upload your video to convert to GIF. You can also edit your file here, and speed up the animation if desired. Click Save, and you have your GIF ready to go.

Following the sequence in the GIF shown earlier in this post, navigate to the My Learning tab in your Go1 Portal, click on courses, and then select the course that you’d like to update.

Once the course is open, click on the Edit Course button to open up all of the editing options. From here we can click on the Manage Images button in the middle of the header image. At this point you will be give the option to update both the header image, and the course image.

You can choose to update one or both options; you can have a GIF as a header image if you like, but in this case we click on the course card image, and then select our GIF file, and then click Update.

Now if we navigate back to our My Learning page and look at our courses, we can see that the GIF has now been added as the course card, and stands out from our other courses.

If you have any trouble setting GIF’s as course cards, please click on our live chat in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, and a member of our customer success team will be able to walk you through the process.

If you want to try out Go1 for free, sign up for a portal today!

Make your course stand out with a GIF as a course card

Improving learner engagement is the theme of our Go1 update for August. Proving learning or training material is great, but unless your users are engaged and learning from what they are reading or watching, you can find yourself at risk. Tracking in person events, forced video watching and control over content variables headline our August updates, along with a stack of other improvements.

Force learners to watch a video to the end

You can now select an option that forces your users to watch a full video before being able to mark as completed and move to the next learning item. This is a great tool for boosting your learner engagement and now available on youtube and uploaded videos.

Administrators can change default content variables

Being able to control what your users see after they enter their portal can help to get your learners moving through their content much quicker. Some Go1 content now comes with the ability to customise for your own company by setting variables.

Other updates and improvements include: 

Filter notes by Enrollment status on course Discussion page

Enrollment completion can be download as a PDF

Improve learner engagement with the Go1 August update

We all know how this scenario goes: you’ve just got into the perfect work zone, feeling 100% inspired and focused, when your alarm goes off to advise of a team meeting. By the time you get back to your desk and regain concentration, it’s only to have it broken by yet another meeting. Frustrating, right?

Many office workers know the sense of frustration that can come from too many meetings – especially when those meetings often feel pointless, disorganised or counterproductive. And when your calendar is constantly booked out with back-to-back meetings, whether virtual or in-person, it becomes very hard to find the time to carry out all those tasks discussed at meetings!

That’s why it’s so important to make every single meeting as productive, engaging and efficient as possible. Because unfortunately, while meetings are supposed to help improve your team’s business operations, productivity and collaboration, they can actually do the opposite.

Do you really need to accept every meeting?

The first thing this course highlights is something called ‘Mindless Accept Syndrome.’ Most of us are in the habit of just accepting a meeting invitation the minute it pops up in our inbox or calendar – even when we don’t really know what it’s about or how we can add value.

But do you really need to accept every meeting invite that comes your way? In his well-known TED talk, speaker David Grady discusses the “epidemic of bad, inefficient, overcrowded meetings [that] is plaguing the world’s businesses and making workers miserable.”

According to Grady, Mindless Accept Syndrome occurs when employees automatically accept meeting invitations – without agendas, without clarity of purpose, without knowing why they have been selected to attend and not knowing what they are expected to contribute nor to achieve.

Throughout the course, you’ll learn how to change this behaviour, by proactively questioning and considering each meeting invite that comes your way.

The different types of personalities you meet in meetings

The Making Meetings Matter course also looks at some of the types of workers we can regularly come across in meetings, who may be (consciously or sub-consciously) contributing to counterproductive meetings.

We’ve all dealt with someone who likes to dominate every meeting, even when they’re not chairperson. Or the person who rambles on and on, making each meeting run overtime. Even the workplace joker can derail a productive meeting.

It’s good to be aware that even colleagues who are super nice people can often act out in negative ways during meetings. This is probably because they feel that their time is being wasted, they have deadlines and pressures back at their desk, and it all leaves them in a less than fantastic mood.

Through the course, you’ll learn how to manage these different types of personalities, with helpful advice for bringing meetings back on track.

Practical tips for designing and chairing meetings

Last, but not least, you’ll also learn practical tips for designing and leading workplace meetings. Meetings without structure are in danger of going on forever, and often employees will leave wondering why they were even present.

Setting an agenda – a simple meeting agenda, distributed in advance, is perhaps the most important tool in ensuring a successful productive meeting

Meeting ground rules – stop people displaying disruptive behaviours in meetings, get the group to agree on ground rules about how your meetings will be run

Roles and responsibilities – ensure that everyone involved is crystal clear on their roles and the associated responsibilities of those roles

Action and follow-up – agree on tasks (action items) that should be carried out, with clear deliverables and due dates for individuals

With your new Meeting Tool Kit, you’ll also discover some of the best meeting management tools you can use in the real world.

Soon, by changing the way meetings are designed, lead and experienced, you’ll be enhancing your team’s productivity and engagement, while cutting down on pointless, frustrating meeting time. You might even make workplace meetings fun, and something that staff can look forward to!


An eLearning course can be made of many methods - but which one’s the best for you?

Now wait just one second… An online learning course isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal, you say?

The methods you’d implement in the creation of your very best content will vary depending upon a load of factors:

What are your learning outcome objectives?

When creating eLearning content all of these questions must be answered. There are, however, a few useful suggestions and tips to follow that will lead the eLearning course leader to success in their venture.

In this article, we’ll describe some of these suggestions to help you create the best content available. Good luck!

Take the plunge - decide on your authoring tool

First and foremost, to create any content at all, you’ll need an authoring tool. And to acquire an authoring tool, you’ll need to select one.

An authoring tool is a generic name for software that allows their users to combine and curate a combination of digital and multimedia elements to stitch together great eLearning courses. The authoring tool is what turns the idea of the eLearning course into a reality. It is absolutely essential in the creation of content for any online course.

There is a huge array of authoring tools available, some free and some paid, though a selection of the best known includes: Adobe Captivate, Obsidian Black, iSpring Suite, Articulate Storyline 2.

The difficulty is in deciding on which to use. As with other software types, some authoring tools give the user control over every aspect of their work, but require more technical knowledge to use. Others offer limited customization but are much more straight forward to learn. It’ll depend on you as to which you choose.

Now, this suggestion should be at the forefront of your mind before you dive into the design of your eLearning course. It is simply this: what are you trying to teach, which can be alternatively worded as what are your intended learning outcomes for students, and how do you want to teach them?

This is a fundamental step in creating eLearning content simply because many other decisions will be based on how what you decide here.

Once you’ve decided upon a subject, try and bring in a known expert to offer an added air of expert knowledge.

Find out about the audience you’re addressing. Corporate eLearning courses are well-stocked, so your success will often be dependent upon your ability to focus your learning towards this niche.

And it goes without saying that you should know your subject inside out. If that isn’t true about the subject you’ve chosen then maybe choose a topic that is closer to home.

With so many competitors out there, your content creation needs to shine. Do this by including a selection of media sources to give your course high-quality sheen.

But where to find all this delicious multimedia? One option is to create your own. While this offers supreme attention to detail and value for money for learners, it also requires a large budget and takes up a lot of time. Alternatively, you can use resources already available online. Here are a few select options for you to peruse.

Videos – Videos are easy enough to find across the web. The obvious resources here are YouTube and Vimeo, with the latter tending to have fewer videos but being of higher quality formatting. These two sites can easily be embedded into your course using your authoring tool.

Images – Public domain images are often a treasure trove for you to rummage among. The obvious websites here are Pexels, Shutterstock, Flickr, and Pixabay. Just make sure that the images you select are in the public domain, not private. The websites have filters to easily allow you to check this.

Graphics – For the easy use of figures and stats, try Canva or Piktochart. Graphics and infographics are an ideal way to easily visualize key figures in a lesson.

An amateur mistake to make in eLearning content creation is thinking that quality is all about quantity. In truth, less is almost always more.

Those taking online courses don’t want to fritter away time completing a mountain of ineffective videos, pop quizzes, or pointless tasks. Content shouldn’t be created merely for the sake of it. Instead, keep them focused as tools to achieve learning outcome objectives.

Multimedia should be used sporadically and only to emphasize or offer an alternative perspective.

The design of your content is more effectively streamlined when you cut away extra weight. Intended learning outcomes are clearer and there’s little fatigue for learners.

There’s a reason we use children’s stories and morality tales to illustrate rules and rights of our societies. The story is a brilliant medium through which to explain important messages. It’s malleable and movable and has infinite possibilities.

This is why we’re recommending them to you.

There’s the classic story arc offers a multitude of possibilities for use in your content creation. It usually goes something like this:

This is a fantastic way to play out a learning objective in a “real life” setting and offers learners an alternative means for understanding.

Use realistic stories with life-like problems that learners may frequently run into. The moral of the story always stands out.


Start creating elearning content with a free Go1 Portal

As we move further into the second half of the year, it’s a good time to check in with yourself to make sure you’re not at risk of burning out. With the Easter break well behind us, and a few months to go between now and the annual holiday season, it’s important to make sure you’re taking good care of your mental and physical health.

Earlier this month, we saw the importance of this highlighted by a story that went viral across the world. Madalyn Parker, a web developer at Olark Live Chat, “emailed her colleagues at the end of June to let them know she’d be taking two days off to focus on her mental wellbeing.”

When her boss, CEO Ben Congleton, replied to the email, Parker was so surprised she decided to share his email on social media. Was her CEO berating her for taking time off? Criticising her decision to use sick days for her mental wellbeing? Quite the opposite! In his email, Congleton thanked Parker for the “reminder of the importance of using sick days for mental health" and for helping to “cut through the stigma so we can all bring our whole selves to work.”

This positive support from a CEO should serve as a benchmark for other leaders, encouraging them to support open, honest conversations about mental health in the workplace. Because when employees neglect the signs of physical and mental burnout, it has negative impacts on both their own lives and the people around them – including the workplace.

Think you might be at risk of burning out?

While the term ‘burnout’ tends to get splashed around a bit, it’s more than just feeling a bit tired in the mornings, or having a tough week at work after partying all weekend. When someone is seriously burnt out, they are no longer able to function – at work, at home, or on a social level.

Burnout is a state of complete physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, all of which interfere with a person’s overall quality of life. It’s described here as a “total system breakdown, after prolonged, unmanageable stress, and emotional fatigue.” And this form of breakdown often leads to very serious health issues, that can take a long time to recover from.

Mental health issues, including anxiety, insomnia, hyper vigilance and depression are commonly linked to burnout. As are physical health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, gastrointestinal issues, adrenal exhaustion and chronic fatigue. If you’re constantly feeling run down, plagued by headaches and sore throats, and like you’re always running on empty, it could be time to start listening to your body.

Along with these physical ailments and overwhelming loss of energy, there can also be increased feelings of cynicism about the workplace – including negativity towards your colleagues, clients and daily tasks. Feeling irritable in general, withdrawing from friends and family, and no longer enjoying the things you once did are all signs that can point to burnout.

The Impacts of Burnout – for Employees and Organisations

It’s not just important for employees to pay attention to their mental and physical health; it’s also in the best interests of any business. Because when it comes to burnout, no one wins.

We’ve talked before about the impacts of employee burnout for organizations. When staff burn out, the business can also expect to suffer, from reduced productivity, higher employee turnover, financial burdens from absenteeism and the possibility of medical, legal, and insurance expenses.

And the impact it can have on an individual's career? Sadly, when people are no longer able to perform at the level they once did, particularly 'Type-A' people who are used to functioning at a high level, it can soon lead to doubts about their competence and skills. This is one of the most devastating effects of burnout, as it can seriously affect a person’s sense of self-worth and value, leading them deeper into stress and anxiety.

It’s often those high-performing, Type-A employees who become burnt out, continuing to push themselves to exhaustion, even when they know something’s wrong. However, rather than recognise that they need to stop and rest, they tend to question their own abilities and work even harder – further intensifying the problem.

Women are also at higher risk of burnout, as they often continue to shoulder a great deal of the responsibilities and care-giving at home, while working the same hours as their male colleagues. The reality is that there is still a clear difference between the way women and men are treated in the workplace and the way in which they are valued. This gender disparity can even be seen in the way men and women are expected to dress for work, in corporate environments.

Traditional expectations of ‘professional’ attire see men able to wear the same outfits, day in and day out, while female workers are often criticised for doing the same. In response to this, we’re now seeing more women embracing the concept of a work ‘uniform’ to reduce the amount of time spent getting “ready” for work.

As Arianna Huffington, founder of Thrive Global, says, “it might seem trivial, but it’s not ... there are real [productivity] issues at play. Women already bear the biggest cost of our culture of sleep-deprivation and burnout. And outdated notions of professional dress only add to that. Being able to spend only a few minutes getting ready versus an hour or two [gives men] a serious competitive advantage.”

Fortunately, if you identify signs of burnout early enough, you can start taking steps towards better health and wellbeing.

Running on coffee or energy drinks to get through the day isn’t the solution; in fact, it will generally make adrenal fatigue even worse. So step away from the espresso machine.

If you’re already experiencing burnout, the thing you really need is rest. As this article in the Guardian says, “you need to stop, sleep and recover. Doing this takes time. It takes accepting that you have burnout, and that fighting it won’t help. It takes surrender, and readiness to rest.”

The best thing you can do is avoid burning out in the first place. That’s why it’s so important to take stock throughout the year, particularly when it’s been some time since your last break or day off. Employees need to be aware and conscious of the potential signs of burnout and take action before it starts impacting their physical and/or mental health. And managers need to lead by example, as we saw CEO Ben Congleton do, and encourage staff to take proactive steps towards their wellbeing.

The more open we are about discussing mental health in the workplace, the more we can help to reduce the stigma surrounding it. There shouldn't be any shame or guilt attached to taking time off –  taking care of yourself, in both your personal and professional life, is an incredibly strong and empowering thing to do.

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