Burning Out
High-stress jobs and lack of vacations are causing many employees to burnout early in their careers.
By Jennifer Blanchard, HRTools
Burnout, according to Wikipedia.org, is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest, usually in the work context. Burnout is often construed as the result of a period of expending too much effort at work while having too little recovery time.
Job burnout can occur at any stage in a career, but is characterized by excessive and prolonged stress, which usually occurs after many years in the workforce.
Since burnout doesn’t happen overnight, it’s important for employers to recognize early signs in their employees and address them so the employee has a better chance of avoiding burnout.
Signs and Symptoms of Job Burnout
According to helpguide.org, “burnout is a state of emotional and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It can occur when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place. Burnout reduces your productivity and saps your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly hopeless, powerless, cynical and resentful. The unhappiness burnout causes can eventually threaten your job, your relationships and your health.”
Here are the most common signs and symptoms of burnout:
- Feeling: powerless, hopeless, irritable, frustrated, despair, apathy
- Emotional exhaustion
- Thinking negatively about everything
- Constant boredom
- Loss of motivation
- Loss of interest
- Being detached from yourself, your family, your friends, life, etc.
- Isolating yourself from others
- Feeling like you’re trapped
Causes of Job Burnout
Burnout can happen in any occupation, but, according to helpguide.org, employees who feel underpaid, underappreciated and overworked, or those who tend to the needs of others all day long, such as service professionals, are more at risk.
Some of the causes of burnout, according to mayoclinic.com and helpguide.org, include:
- Setting unrealistic goals for yourself or having them imposed on you
- Lack of control, such as being unable to influence decisions that affect your job, like the hours you work or the amount of work you have
- Working in a dysfunctional environment, such as having to deal with an office bully, being undermined by colleagues or having a boss that micromanages you
- Doing work that frequently causes you to violate your personal values or beliefs
- Boredom from work that is monotonous, unchallenging and/or that you have no interest in
- Feeling trapped by low pay, being underappreciated or being overworked
- Working in a job that poorly aligns your interests and skills
- Having unclear job expectations or not having the resources you need to get your job done
Remedying Burnout
A recent Yahoo! Hot Jobs survey of 1,100 workers found that 44 percent of workers currently shoulder greater workloads than they did a year ago.
The survey also found that 57 percent of the workers cited burnout as a problem.
One of the best ways to remedy burnout, or to keep from burning out, is to take time off from work. That could mean stopping working all together, taking time off from work or just taking a vacation to rest and recharge. Only the employee is able to determine what will help them avoid burning out.
However, according to the survey, 51 percent of workers planned to skip summer vacations due to being burdened by a too-heavy workload and fear of a possible recession.
As an employer, it’s your job to make sure your employees are giving themselves enough of a break from work. Sometimes, especially in high-stress jobs, evenings and weekends off aren’t enough to keep burnout at bay.
Encourage employees to use all of their vacation or paid time off (PTO) each year. They will be a lot happier, a lot more motivated and a lot more productive if they take some time off.
Preventing Burnout in the Future
Helpguide.org says the most effective way to head off job burnout is to quit doing what you’re doing and do something else, whether that means changing jobs or changing careers.
But since this isn’t always an option, and since you want to retain your employees, there are a few things that can be done to improve an employee’s situation and state-of-mind:
- Clarify Their Job Description—nowadays, it’s rare to find someone who only does one job. Most people have various job duties and responsibilities, that’s just how it is. But sometimes an employer expects too much from one person. To make sure your employees don’t burn out, evaluate their job description, and the duties they’re currently performing, and see if the workload needs to be reduced or spread out more.
- Offer Them a Job Transfer—although it seems silly to transfer someone who is really good at their job, you could be saving them from burning out. If there are other available positions within your organization they would qualify for, it might be a good idea to sit down and discuss a transfer with them. They may not want to transfer, or they may be totally for it, but either way you’d at least be opening the lines of communication to ensure they aren’t getting burned out in their current position. This will also help you retain an employee in the long-run who may have burned out and ended up leaving.
- Give Them Additional Duties—employees can get burned out from too much work, but they can also get burned out from work that’s too monotonous. So it’s always a good idea to see if you can give them different work—a new project, a new sales territory, a new machine, etc.
- When All Else Fails—if after evaluating an employee’s job and related job performance, and offering up other solutions, burnout still seems inevitable, you may want to offer up as an option a temporary personal leave of absence from work. Anything that will remove them from the situation for a little while. Although it may be difficult to have them gone from work, it will be better for them to recharge and return than burnout and quit. Be careful, however, not to “diagnose” the employee or otherwise attribute to the individual any type of medical condition, as doing so is inappropriate, both professionally and legally.
For more information about recognizing and preventing job burnout, visit mayoclinic.com and helpguide.org.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional advice. If you or your employees are experiencing high-stress or signs and symptoms of burnout, seek the advice of a medical professional.
<p>Burnout, according to Wikipedia.org, is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest, usually in the work context. Burnout is often construed as the result of a period of expending too much effort at work while having too little recovery time.</p>