Beat the Year-End Burnout with Psychosocial Safety

The final quarter of the year often brings a surge in deadlines, performance reviews, and holiday planning, leading to heightened stress across teams.

For SMEs, this pressure can be amplified by lean resources and tight timelines.

Fostering psychosocial safety can help mitigate stress and support employee wellbeing during the busiest time of year.

The countdown is on. Project deadlines are looming ahead, and everyone is wanting to wrap things up before the holidays.

Reflect on the year-end of 2024 and what it looked like for you and your team. You might have experienced stress triggers such as:

• Project wrap-ups and reporting
• Increased workload and overtime
• Holiday leave coverage and planning
• Personal pressures outside of work

These stressors are common and can sometimes feel like a natural part of the end-of-year period, but they need to be acknowledged as they can lead to burnout, disengagement, and interpersonal tension.

On an individual level, your stressors will be personal to what triggers your stress levels and how you react to different situations. Doing a stress audit can help you to recognise the cause and effect of stress in your everyday life.

1. First, identify stress triggers. What stresses you out the most and where do you encounter it?
2. Then assess what the effect of those are on your thoughts, behaviours, and outputs. What are the impacts?
3. Lastly, strategise to manage those stressors proactively. What can you do?

The outcome of a stress audit should be a tailored strategy that you can proactively use before the stress builds up.

WHS legislation has been updated to expand upon an employer’s obligations to protect mental wellbeing in the same way that physical hazards are managed. This protection for psychosocial hazards includes having respectful communication, supportive leadership, and clear role expectations, as well as recognising employee’s emotional and mental wellbeing. Psychological safety looks like a workplace culture where employees feel safe to express concerns, ask for help, and be themselves without fear of judgment or retaliation.

Psychosocial safety hazards need to be addressed in the same manner that physical hazards and risks are treated. Under WHS laws, employers have obligations to manage these psychosocial hazards and put preventative measures in place to satisfy their Positive Duty. Employers are required to proactively implement reasonable and proportionate measures to prevent unlawful behaviours in the workplace.

As we enter the infamous end-of-year rush, stress levels peak, making employees more vulnerable to psychosocial hazards such as role clarity and heavy workloads. It gets harder to do a stress audit when you don’t have as much capacity for reflective thinking. This means that proactive stress management gets put aside, and psychosocial hazards can build up without prevention.

A safe environment for psychosocial safety is not only a WHS compliant environment, but it has a transformative impact on workplaces. Anxieties are reduced, workloads feel less overwhelming, teams are more cohesive, and individuals can maintain their productivity without sacrificing their well-being.

A 2024 report on workplace psychological health from Safe Work Australia highlighted that work pressure accounts for 25.2% of mental health claims. This shows the significance of being proactive in managing workplace stress and creating non-hostile work environments.

The effort that an employer has put into satisfying their Positive Duty and meeting their WHS obligations around psychosocial risk management, should be upheld during this period rather than letting it fall back to unhealthy habits.

Even leaders who are usually great at keeping up with regular check-ins can get caught up as the months start to come faster, with other priorities feeling more urgent.

1:1s get pushed back, eventually dropping off altogether, and teams might feel like they have less and less time to speak with their leaders. This means that:

• You’ve taken away that valuable platform that employees use to share their feelings and concerns.
• It’s harder for leaders to see how their teams are coping with end-of-year workloads.
• Leaders also can’t receive as much feedback for themselves when that discussion space isn’t provided.
• It unintentionally sends a message to their team, that other items take priority over the employee-manager relationship.

Leaders should take the initiative to clarify their priorities; do a self-review of what they need to look after in the present, to look after the health of their teams in the long term. Then, help employees focus on what truly matters by running through their key focuses and deprioritise non-essential tasks.

As individuals, leaders or otherwise, we all have a responsibility to role model behaviours that encourage psychosocial safety and wellbeing. Stress is a natural response to end-of-year deadlines and isn’t necessarily unhealthy.

According to the Yerkes-Dodson Law:

• Too little stress means we may lack motivation
• Up to a point, stress can actually improve your performance
• It’s when that stress goes above the threshold and is drawn out that it becomes an issue

Those three stages are known as disenchantment, flow, and frazzle, where those in flow are able to perform under stress even better (Ungvarsky, 2023).

Though that research shows some truth behind the old “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” there’s a balance between performing from stress, and making sure that the stress isn’t chronic as well as recognising the negative impact stress may have even when it helps us to grow.

Being the trailblazer in your workplace to encourage psychosocial safety and stress management makes a difference.

1. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”: Communicate early about what your teams should prioritise, what they can do to manage stress, and resources available to them. By being prepared for high stress, you will likely end up with much less stress to manage.
2. Remind your peers to take breaks and set boundaries: Promote lunch breaks (that aren’t taken at desks or with a laptop open in front of their meal!), time off, and switching off after hours.
3. Everyone likes a bit of recognition when they’re working hard: Be the person who notices, celebrates their wins, and acknowledges hard work to boost morale. How nice is it to hear a simple “You did really well with that, thanks!” after you’ve done something you’re proud of? Those small comments keep teams positive during busy periods, and it only takes one person for the infectious positivity to spread.
4. For managers, consider how you can offer flexibility to mitigate stress: allow flexible hours or remote options where possible. This is where it is key to have those regular check-ins, to still be aware of how your team is performing while in those flexible working arrangements.
5. Remind your team of EAPs if accessible or internal wellbeing initiatives. Again, being the trailblazer and role modelling this behaviour will set the example of good stress management, so if you are recommending an EAP or mental health resource to others, consider if you could try it out yourself.

• Ignoring Stress Signals: Watch for signs like irritability, withdrawal, or reduced performance.
• Overloading High Performers: Don’t assume they can “handle it”, check in and redistribute tasks.
• One-Off Wellness Initiatives: Consistency is key. Psychosocial safety is built over time.

End-of-year stress is inevitable, but burnout doesn’t have to be.

By embedding psychosocial safety into your culture, you empower your team to finish the year strong, without sacrificing wellbeing.

Start with small, intentional actions and build from there.

At PerformHR, we specialise in helping SMEs create psychologically safe workplaces that support employee wellbeing, especially during high-pressure periods. If you’re unsure about your WHS obligations or how to support your team through the end of the year, now is the time to act. Reach out to hear more about our training options available on stress management, psychosocial safety, and building respectful cultures.

Call us on 1300 406 005 or email info@performhr.com.au

At PerformHR, we specialise in helping businesses develop and implement robust workplace culture practices.

Call today on 1300 406 005 or email us at info@performhr.com.au.