It has been a hard term and people are running on empty
A difficult period has taken its toll. People still care about the work, but the energy has gone out of it.
Something identifiable has made this period hard: staffing gaps, an inspection, a bereavement, disappointing results, a run of difficult incidents, or several at once. Staff are tired and flat rather than resistant or divided. The willingness is still there. What has been spent is the energy.
Presenting symptoms
- People are doing the work and very little more than the work.
- Staffroom conversation has become flatter or quieter than usual.
- Things that would normally have been noticed and mentioned are passing without comment.
Possible causes
- The difficulty may never have been named out loud, so people are carrying it privately.
- The effort people made may not have been acknowledged in a form they could feel.
- The pressure may not actually have lifted, in which case this is exhaustion rather than aftermath.
- There may be nothing in prospect that is worth being energetic about.
Nobody has ever said out loud that it was hard.
Your most useful next step: Name it plainly at the next briefing, in two sentences, without attaching a silver lining. Thank people for what they carried, and stop there.
Lead behaviours
People made an enormous effort and it went unacknowledged.
Your most useful next step: Thank ten people individually this week, for something specific that you actually saw, rather than sending a message to everyone.
Lead behaviours
The pressure has not lifted. This is continuing rather than passed.
Your most useful next step: Take something off people this half term, visibly, and say what it is. Encouragement offered while the load stays the same is heard as a request for more.
Lead behaviours
There is nothing in prospect worth any energy.
Your most useful next step: Put one thing in the calendar this half term that people will look forward to, with no improvement purpose attached to it, and protect it when the term gets busy.
Lead behaviours
Core behaviours
After a hard term people are deciding, mostly without noticing, whether this is a place worth putting effort into. That judgement is formed from small interactions rather than from anything announced.
Depleted people have usually lost sight of what went well, not because it did not happen but because the difficult things took all the attention. Specific recognition returns the evidence.
Positive here does not mean upbeat. A leader who insists everything is fine while people are exhausted is read as unaware or uninterested. What lifts a tired staff is calm confidence that the difficulty was real and is passing.
Recovery is led by what the leader takes on rather than by what they say about wellbeing. Absorbing something yourself, visibly, does more than any message.
Staff take their permission to stop from what the leader does. A leader answering email at eleven at night while telling people to rest has already given the real instruction.
Secondary behaviours
Use this where the difficulty has never been named. People carry a hard term better once it has been described out loud and given a shape, including an end.
Use this where the pressure has not actually lifted. Recognition offered while the load stays the same is received as a request for more of the same.
Use this where there is nothing in prospect worth any energy. One thing in the calendar with no improvement purpose attached does more for a tired staff than a well-designed initiative.
A useful first action
Ask yourself honestly whether the pressure has actually lifted. If it has not, do not treat this primarily as a morale problem. Reduce the load before asking people to recover.
Suggested approach
- Establish whether the difficult period is genuinely over. If it is not, reduce the load before doing anything else.
- Name what was hard, plainly and briefly, without attaching a silver lining to it.
- Thank people individually and specifically, for things you actually saw, rather than sending a message to everyone.
- Take something on yourself, visibly, and take something off them.
- Put one thing in the calendar that people will look forward to, and protect it when the term gets busy.