Clock Icon 26m 17s

Beating Burnout

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Episode Shownotes

Welcome to an episode of WorkWise for Screen, the podcast bringing support and advice to professionals in the screen industries ​​to better look after all the people their business depends on. It’s ​​supported by the BFI awarding National Lottery funding.

Joining hosts Keith Arrowsmith from WorkWise for Screen and Tacita Small from The Little HR Company is Netspeak Games’ People Director, Katie Nurse, whose focus on wellbeing in the team is perfect for an episode rooted in welfare.

We hear how to identify early signs of burnout within your team, the cost of not addressing them, and what you can put in place to keep on top of your team’s wellbeing.

This episode covers:

  • How to define burnout at all stages
  • The problematic rise of crunch culture in game development
  • Comparing the impact of burnout in differing industries
  • How to measure wellbeing and burnout within your teams
  • The true cost of burnout
  • Best practices for handling burnout

Episode Topics

Introductions, Katie’s route into the gaming industry, and defining burnout (0:00 to 3:30)

Comparing levels of burnout in gaming/creative sectors vs other industries, and the problematic rise of ‘crunch culture’, particular to game development (3:30 to 8:10)

Measuring the wellbeing of your team/identifying burnout, how leaders take on the wellbeing of your team, and the cost of burnout (8:10 to 13:00)

Tips on best practices for handling burnout within your team, and the best types of policy to assist in mitigating burnout (13:00 to 18:00)

HR and people management’s place in gaming (best implemented earlier in development), and sources of support for teams starting to think about HR and burnout (18:00 to finish)

Episode Highlights

“Crunch Culture is quite prevalent in the games industry. There's work being done, but crunch culture is essentially when employees are asked to work unpaid overtime, and they're just days with really long hours. This is generally in the build up towards launching a game, and potentially just after as well.” - 3:45 - Katie Nurse
 

“Since we are such a small team, we do know each other quite well. If you start to see a change in behavior with someone, even if it's turning up late to calls or maybe they're a bit more negative than they used to be, we'll straight away have a conversation with this person. Just check in, and make sure everything's okay. Is there anything that we can do or support with?” - 9:40 - Katie Nurse
 

“I always say to people, where do you want to spend the money: upfront or at the end? The upfront is around the development and training, the investment of people, having good policies, promoting a culture that is transparent and works around feedback, openness, and honesty, that celebrates boundaries.” - 12:45 - Tacita Small 
 

“The games industry typically hasn't been the best place to work in the past, and there's a group of us trying to make that better, and we hold each other accountable outside of each other's companies as well, which is really nice. So it feels like we're working together to make the industry a better place to work for everyone.” - 14:30 - Katie Nurse
 

“Studios, when they start, think they need to hire the people who can actually make the game. They tend to think about HR and other functions afterwards. But I think it's absolutely crucial to get an HR person in from the start. That doesn't have to be a full time, permanent HR person. It can be potentially just a HR point of contact that you've got for two days a week that knows your studio, that can help you.” - 18:00 - Katie Nurse


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