5 Benefits of Employee Self-Service (ESS) You Should Know
How to Set Performance Goals That Improve Productivity
In Part 1 of this series, we explored how poor rota planning significantly contributes to employee burnout. While scheduling issues remain one of the most visible causes of stress, burnout is a much broader problem that touches nearly every aspect of workplace culture and management.
In Nigeria, where industries like banking, healthcare, telecoms, and oil & gas demand long hours and high output, burnout is becoming increasingly common. Reports from local HR practitioners show rising absenteeism, increased medical leave requests, and higher staff turnover linked to unmanaged stress. Organizations that fail to tackle these root causes risk losing their best talent, damaging productivity, and facing higher recruitment and training costs.
Below, we explore additional factors that increase burnout in Nigerian workplaces today.
1. Excessive Workload and Unrealistic Expectations
Employees across many sectors are being asked to do more with less. Budget cuts, understaffed teams, and rising performance targets force workers to handle multiple roles at once. In Nigeria’s banking sector, for instance, employees often work 10–12 hour days to meet aggressive sales or loan targets. This relentless pace quickly drains physical and emotional reserves, leading to chronic exhaustion.
Key Insight: Unrealistic expectations, without the resources to match, create a breeding ground for stress and disengagement.
2. Lack of Recognition and Appreciation
Nigerian employees frequently highlight a lack of recognition as a top contributor to burnout. Many organizations focus solely on output, ignoring the importance of acknowledging effort and celebrating small wins. When employees feel invisible or undervalued, motivation drops, and burnout accelerates.
Key Insight: Recognition doesn’t always require financial rewards, timely feedback, praise, and celebrating contributions go a long way in boosting morale.
3. Poor Leadership and Management Practices
Leadership style plays a huge role in how employees perceive stress. In rigid, top-down workplaces, staff often feel voiceless and unsupported. Micromanagement, inconsistent communication, and lack of empathy create environments where burnout thrives.
In Nigeria, hierarchical structures are common in large organizations, but without modern leadership practices like coaching, active listening, and empowerment, employees often feel trapped.
Key Insight: Poor leadership doesn’t just lower morale, it directly contributes to employee exhaustion and disengagement.
4. Inadequate Resources and Outdated Systems
In many Nigerian businesses, employees still grapple with manual processes, poor infrastructure, or inadequate digital tools. For instance, HR departments that rely on spreadsheets for payroll or attendance spend endless hours trying to identify errors instead of focusing on strategy. This inefficiency not only frustrates HR teams but also affects employees who rely on smooth operations for salaries, leave approvals, and performance reviews.
Key Insight: Outdated tools amplify workload stress, making even simple tasks unnecessarily draining.
5. Job Insecurity and Economic Pressure
With Nigeria’s economic fluctuations, high unemployment rates, and inflation, employees often feel constant pressure to “perform or be replaced.” This insecurity pushes workers to overextend themselves, working long hours out of fear of job loss. While it may increase short-term output, the long-term cost is employee burnout, health issues, and eventual turnover.
Key Insight: Job insecurity breeds chronic anxiety, undermining both productivity and loyalty.
6. Lack of Work-Life Balance
The rise of remote work in Nigeria has blurred boundaries between personal and professional life. Employees are expected to answer emails late at night, attend weekend calls, or remain “always available.” Without clear boundaries, staff experience constant stress and find little time to rest or recharge.
Key Insight: Without structured work-life policies, burnout becomes inevitable as employees struggle to disconnect.
7. Toxic Workplace Culture
Burnout is not just about workload, it’s also about the environment. Toxic cultures marked by favoritism, office politics, or discrimination create mental strain. In Nigeria, where workplace gossip and hierarchical favoritism are often reported, employees can feel powerless and emotionally drained.
Key Insight: Toxic cultures erode trust and make employees mentally check out, even if they remain physically present.
Recent Observations in Nigerian Workplaces
1. Healthcare workers face burnout due to understaffing, long shifts, and the emotional toll of patient care.
2. Tech and startup employees often report “hustle culture” burnout, with founders pushing for rapid scaling at the expense of staff wellbeing.
3. Banking sector employees continue to face intense sales targets, leading to high turnover and mental fatigue.
4. Civil service workers struggle with inadequate resources, delayed salaries, and poor management practices that contribute to disengagement.
These observations show that burnout is not limited to one sector, it cuts across industries and is worsened by poor rota planning, leadership gaps, and systemic inefficiencies.
Conclusion
Burnout is not just an individual problem, it’s an organizational challenge. Beyond poor rota planning, factors like excessive workload, poor leadership, lack of recognition, and toxic cultures all play significant roles in employee stress and disengagement.
For Nigerian businesses, tackling burnout requires a shift in mindset: from squeezing the most out of employees to creating environments where people can thrive sustainably. By investing in fair scheduling, modern tools, empathetic leadership, and employee recognition, organizations can curb burnout and unlock higher productivity, stronger loyalty, and long-term growth.
Forward-thinking businesses are already adopting HR tools to simplify processes, improve scheduling, and reduce employee stress. Isn’t it time your organization did the same?
