Workplace Burnout

Burnout
Workplace Burnout: How to Spot It and How
to Avoid It

Burnout
• Burnout is a psychological term for the
experience of long-term exhaustion and
diminished interest
• "a general wearing out from the pressures of
work"

Burnout
• "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
increased mental distance from one’s job, or
feelings of negativism or cynicism related to
one's job; and reduced professional efficacy."

Definition
• Feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion,
due to stress from working with people under
difficult or demanding conditions.
• Burn out is followed by signs such as chronic
fatigue, quickness to anger and suspicion, and
susceptibility to colds, headaches, and fevers.

Introduction
• According to the World Health Organization
(WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome
(group of symptoms that co-occur) linked to
long-term, unresolved, work-related stress.

Introduction
• The WHO stipulated that burnout must be
understood as being specifically work-
related.
• According to the current WHO classification
(ICD-11), burnout can arise from
unsuccessful management of chronic work-
related stress, resulting in an occupational
syndrome characterised such symptoms as

Burnout
• Burnout is a term which is frequently used
to describe the emotional and physical
exhaustion experienced by people as a direct
result of excessive study or work related
stress.
• Burnout can cause significant physical,
emotional, psychological, and spiritual
damage to people.

What Is Workplace Burnout?
• Workplace burnout is a type of stress that
causes emotional or physical exhaustion and
can also come with a sense of lack of
accomplishment.
• Some signs of workplace burnout are a lack of
productivity or energy, a lack of satisfaction in
work, a new cynicism around work, and other
signs of exhaustion around your professional
life.

• Everyone has days when, under the
pressure of a tight deadline or big project,
their nerves feel frayed.
• But when the feeling of being completely
overwhelmed at work persists, it can spiral into
burnout a growing epidemic with serious
consequences for your health and your
career.

• So serious in fact that in May, the World
Health Organization (WHO) announced
that the next version of its handbook of
diseases, the International Classification of
Diseases (ICD11), will recognize it as an
official “occupational phenomenon” that
could drive people to seek medical care.

You May Be On The Road To Burnout If:

Dealing With Burnout: The "Three R"
Approach

Difference Between Stress And Burnout
• Burnout may be the result of unrelenting
stress, but it isn’t the same as too much stress.
• Stress, by and large, involves too much: too many
pressures that demand too much of you physically
and psychologically.
• Stressed people can still imagine, though, that
if they can just get everything under control,
they’ll feel better.
• Burnout, on the other hand, is about not enough.

• Being burned out means feeling empty, devoid
of motivation, and beyond caring.
• People experiencing burnout often don’t see any
hope of positive change in their situations.
• Burnout is being all dried up.
• One other difference
• between stress and burnout: While you’re
usually aware of being under a lot of stress, you
don’t always notice burnout when it happens.

Stress Burnout
• Emotions are over-reactive • Emotions are blunted
• Produces urgency and hyperactivity • Produces helplessness and hopelessness
• Loss of energy • Loss of motivation, ideals, and hope
• Leads to anxiety disorders • Leads to detachment and depression
• Primary damage is physical • Primary damage is emotional
• May kill you prematurely • May make life seem not worth living

How to Know if an Employee is Burned Out:
• Exhaustion results from the depletion of
emotional resources to cope with the current
work environment.
• This is the stressed out, overwhelmed
employee.

How to Know if an Employee is Burned Out
• Cynicism is an individual’s distant attitude
toward the job. This is the disgruntled
employee.

How to Know if an Employee is Burned Out
• Inefficacy is a reduction in personal
accomplishment.
• This is the stressed out employee who has
developed a cynical attitude and has given up
trying

Causes of Burnout
• There are many causes of burnout. In many
cases, burnout stems from the job.
• But anyone who feels overworked and
undervalued is at risk for burnout.
• But burnout is not caused solely by stressful
work or too many responsibilities.
• Other factors contribute to burnout, including
your lifestyle and certain personality traits.
• What you do in your downtime and how you look
at the world can play just as big of a role in
causing burnout as work or home demands.

Causes of Burnout
• Below is a list of common things that cause
workplace burnout:
• Job Demands – overwhelming job demands
(overload).
• Role Conflict – conflicting job demands.
• Role Ambiguity – a lack of adequate
information to do the job well.

Causes of Burnout
• Lack of Appropriate Resources – improper
training and/or inadequate resources to execute
the job effectively.
• Lack of Social Support – lack of social
support from supervisors has more of an effect
on burnout than lack of social support from co-
workers.

Causes of Burnout
• Lack of Feedback – related to all three
dimensions of burnout. Feedback is like hard
work; if you don’t give it, you’ll never get
exactly what you want.
• Little Participation in Decision Making – the
less involved employees are in decision
making processes, the higher the rates of
burnout.

Causes of Burnout
• Work-related causes of burnout
• Lifestyle causes of burnout
• Personality traits can contribute to burnout

Work-related causes of burnout
• Feeling like you have little or no control over your
work
• Lack of recognition or rewards for good work
• Unclear or overly demanding job expectations
• Doing work that’s monotonous or unchallenging
• Working in a unorganised or high-pressure
environment

Overly Demanding Job Expectations

Doing work that’s monotonous

Lifestyle Causes Of Burnout
• Working too much, without enough time for
relaxing and socializing
• Being expected to be too many things to too many
people
• Taking on too many responsibilities, without
enough help from others
• Not getting enough sleep
• Lack of close, supportive relationships

Working too much, without enough time
for relaxing and socializing

Being expected to be too many things to too
many people

Personality Traits Can Contribute To Burnout
• Perfectionist tendencies; nothing is ever good
enough
• Pessimistic view of yourself and the world
• The need to be in control; reluctance(unwillingness)
to delegate to others
• High-achieving, Type A personality

Warning Signs & Symptoms of Burnout
• Burnout is a gradual process that occurs over an
extended period of time.
• It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can creep up on you
if you’re not paying attention to the warning signals.
• The signs and symptoms of burnout are subtle(slight) at
first, but they get worse and worse as time goes on.
• Physical signs and symptoms of burnout
• Emotional signs and symptoms of burnout
• Behavioural signs and symptoms of burnout

Physical signs and symptoms of burnout
• Feeling tired and drained (exhausted) most
of the time
• Lowered immunity, feeling sick a lot
• Frequent headaches, back pain, muscle aches
• Change in appetite or sleep habits

Feeling tired and drained (exhausted)
most of the time

Emotional signs and symptoms of
burnout
• Sense of failure and self-doubt
• Feeling helpless, trapped, and defeated
• Detachment, feeling alone in the world
• Loss of motivation
• Increasingly cynical(pessimistic) and negative
outlook
• Decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment

Sense of Failure and Self-Doubt

Feeling Helpless, Trapped, and Defeated

Behavioural Signs And Symptoms Of Burnout

Major Signs Of Burnout
Severe Exhaustion.
• You can barely get up in the morning.
• There’s no desire to do anything that involves
effort.
• Just the thought of work, of doing what you do
well but have overdone, can make you
physically sick.

Excessive workload
Excessive workload drives stress and
prevents the body from physical recovery
and the mind from replenishing mental
resources.
• It leads to little sleep, bad diet, no exercise,
and unrelieved stress, and eats away at the
immune system. Physical exhaustion leads to
mental and emotional exhaustion.

Cynicism. There seems to be no point to
anything, no sense of accomplishment
anymore.
• What used to fuel you—pride, service,
ambition, challenge, even money—seems
meaningless. Belief, in the profession,
achievement, anyone else, it's pointless.

Emotionally Draining Work
Burnout was first identified in social workers
whose clients and large case loads burned up
excess emotional resources.
• If your work involves intense emotional
demands, and there’s nothing to replace those
resources or help cope with them, the constant
stress can dry up adrenal glands, causing severe
physical fatigue and a lack of defence chemicals
to manage stressors.

Major Signs of Burnout
Absence of positive emotions
This is one of the hallmarks of burnout.
A brain on chronic life-or-death watch from
chronic stress fixates on the perceived
emergency, on threats, resentments,
problems. Even what you used to enjoy
outside work feels meaningless.

Catastrophic thoughts
Burnout leads to dire thinking. It colors
everything dark and strips away the will and
effort to change the situation.
It feeds false beliefs, and there are no
coping resources left to fight them.

Depersonalization
The mental and physical exhaustion of
burnout drives cynicism and detachment from
others.

Burnout Prevention Tips
Start the day with a relaxing ritual
• Rather jumping out of bed as soon as you wake
up, spend at least fifteen minutes meditating,
writing in your journal, doing gentle stretches, or
reading something that inspires you.
Adopt healthy eating, exercising, and sleeping
habits.
• When you eat right, engage in regular physical
activity, and get plenty of rest, you have the
energy and resilience to deal with life’s hassles
and demands.

Start The Day With A Relaxing Ritual

Adopt healthy eating, exercising, and
sleeping habits

Set boundaries
• Don’t overextend yourself. Learn how to
say no to requests on your time.
Take a daily break from technology.
• Set a time each day when you completely
disconnect.
• Put away your laptop, turn off your phone, and
stop checking email.

Set boundaries
Don’t overextend yourself

Nourish Your Creative Side
• Creativity is a powerful antidote to burnout. Try
something new, start a fun project, or resume a favorite
hobby.
• Choose activities that have nothing to do with work.
Learn how to manage stress
• When you’re on the road to burnout, you may feel
helpless. But you have a lot more control over stress
than you may think.
• Learning how to manage stress can help you regain
your balance.

Coping With Job Burnout
Dealing with Job Stress
• In order to avoid job burnout, it’s important to
reduce and manage stress at work. Start by
identifying what factors are stressful.
• Then you can take steps to deal with the
problem, either by changing your work
environment or changing the way you deal
with the stressor.

Actively address problems
Take a proactive approach rather than a
passive one to issues in your workplace. You’ll
feel less helpless if you assert yourself and
express your needs.
If you don’t have the authority or resources
to solve the problem, talk to a superior.

Clarify Your Job Description
Ask your boss for an updated description of
your job duties and responsibilities.
Point out things you’re expected to do that are
not part of your job description and gain a little
leverage by showing that you’ve been putting
in work over and above the parameters of your
job.

Ask for new duties
If you’ve been doing the exact same work for
a long time, ask to try something new: a
different grade level, a different sales territory,
a different machine.

Take time off
• If burnout seems inevitable, take a complete
break from work.
• Go on vacation, use up your sick days, ask for
a temporary leave-of-absence—anything to
remove yourself from the situation.
• Use the time away to recharge your batteries
and take perspective.

How to Prevent Burnout in the
Workplace
• No manager, co-founder, or CEO wants to lose
their best talent to burnout. However, most
don’t know that their employee is burned out
until it is too late.
• Below are ways to prevent burnout in your
company.
• They have been compiled from the leading
researcher in the field of burnout (Maslach, 2001)
and supported by interviews with corporate CEOs

Workplace
• Be Realistic When Assigning Tasks. Delegate an
amount of work that is challenging, but not
overwhelming.
• Follow the Passion. Ensure that each member of your
team is in the position they feel most passionate about.
Create new positions or be willing to move skilled
employees to different positions if they feel more
passionate about them.
• Allow Side Projects. Allow your employees to spend
some time working on a work-related side project that
they feel passionate about. Some of Google’s most
innovative ideas came from an employee’s side project.

Be Realistic When Assigning Tasks

Workplace
• Keep Reasonable Work Hours. While developing
Macintosh, Steve Job made “working 90 hours a week and
loving it” t-shirts.
• Employees differ on how many hours they can work. Some
will devote 120 hours a week and love it. Others will try to
get out of working a full 40. Don’t ask too much of your
employees. Allow for sick days, paid time off, and
vacation days.
• Schedule Breaks. Allow and encourage your employees to
have a full one hour lunch as well as 15 minute breaks
throughout the day. They should use the time to take a
walk, socialize, make personal phone calls, or stretch.

Workplace
• Grant Each Employee One “Must Have.”
When Marissa Mayer suspects an employee might
burn out, she allows them time off if they need to
be “home for Tuesday night dinners,” or on
time for their daughter’s soccer games.
• Be Flexible. When a deadline or goal is
unrealistic, change it so it is attainable.
• If someone who is assigned a task isn’t the
right person for the job, re-assign it.

Grant Each Employee One “Must Have.”

How to Prevent Burnout in the Workplace
• Don’t Spread Your Team Too Thin. Reduce the
number of parallel tasks that an individual or team is
working on. Ensure that they are not overwhelmed
with their to-do list.
• Define Concrete Roles. Ensure that each team
member has a specific job description, understands
their role, and is aware of their expected contribution
to the company.

Don’t Spread Your Team Too Thin

Workplace
• Equip Your Team With Proper Tools. Set your
employees up for success with the right tools to
execute flawlessly.
• Provide Adequate Resources. Ensure that there
are sufficient funds to execute strategies
effectively.
• Train Your Team Well. Ensure that they know
their job and they know it well.
• Provide Ample Support. Managers should spend
time listening to and addressing employees’
concerns.

Equip Your Team With Proper Tools

• Create a Supportive Culture. Make sure that
being supportive is a company value. Model
supportive behavior and reward employees
who exemplify your supportive culture.
• Encourage Socializing. A moderate amount of
socialization is optimal for team bonding to
occur. Allow for employees to freely socialize
on breaks, at lunch, or after work.

• Give Them a Treat. Surprise your team with a
treat you know they will love after a tough
week or meeting a stressful goal. Mix it up
with food, gift certificates, allowing them to
leave early, or having a party at work.
• Stock Your Kitchen Well. Take a lesson from
the Google playbook and make your
workplace feel a little like home. Make sure
that your team is well fed and revved up!

• Be Hands On. Spend time getting to know
each employee on a personal level.
• Take them out to lunch individually and
talk about non-business related topics.
• A Team That Plays Together Stays Together.
Build team morale, inclusiveness, and job
satisfaction by scheduling company activities
like snowboarding, go-kart racing, laser tag, or
kickball. Be creative and make it fun!

Spend time getting to know each
employee on a personal level

A Team That Plays Together Stays
Together

Workplace
• Don’t Tolerate Cattiness. Address any behavior that is
not in line with the company value of supportiveness
immediately.
• Be Fair. Always make sure that decisions are fair and
ethical. Never ask an employee to complete a task that
may challenge their values or elicit ethical concerns.
• Provide Ample Feedback. Employees must know
when they have hit a grand slam and when they struck
out. Take time to meet with each employee to provide
direct feedback.
• Acknowledge, Reward, and Promote. Each
employee’s contribution to the company should be
acknowledged. Reward excellent performances with
bonuses, awards, and/or promotions.

Acknowledge, Reward, and Promote

Workplace
• Allow Each Employee to Make Company
Decisions. Make each employee a master of a
certain domain and allow them to make
decisions that affect the company.
• Make Their Voice Heard. When an employee
expresses frustration or concern, address it
immediately. Make sure that they know you
are taking appropriate action or give an
explanation as to why you can’t meet their
needs.

Allow Each Employee to Make Company Decisions

Workplace
• Educate Employees on Burnout. Provide
information about burnout and how employees
can prevent it. Hold a seminar where employees
can ask relevant questions about burnout.
Consider asking a mental health professional to
mediate the discussion.
• Increase Coping Skills. Help employees increase
their ability to handle and prevent stress. Hire a
professional to teach coping skills and relaxation
techniques.

Workplace
• Allow for Paid “Mental Health Days.” This
is time that employees can choose to spend
doing something that makes them happy. A
little paid time off will go a long way.
• Make Every Employee Responsible for
Preventing Burnout. Have a “when you see
something, say something” policy. Encourage
employees to alert a manager when they
suspect a co-worker might be burning out.

Allow for Paid “Mental Health Days.”

Make Every Employee Responsible for Preventing
Burnout

Workplace
• Create a Fun Environment. Any workplace
where an employee is excited to come to work
will help reduce burnout. Buy Nerf guns,
foosball tables, mini-helicopters, dart boards,
and ping pong tables. Encourage good times,
laughs, and a super-fun environment.

Terminology
• Writer's Block
• Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with
writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce
new work, or experiences a creative slowdown. The
loss of ability to write and produce new work is not
only a result of commitment problems or lack of
writing skills.
• The condition ranges from difficulty in coming up
with original ideas to being unable to produce a
work for years.
• Writer's block is not solely measured by time passing
without writing. It is measured by time passing without
productivity in the task at hand

Spoon Theory
• Spoon Theory
• The spoon theory is a disability metaphor for
a combination of ego depletion, fatigue, and
other factors, a neologism used to explain the
reduced amount of mental and physical
energy available for activities of living and
productive tasks that may result from
disability or chronic illness.

Bio-energy
• Bio-energies, as the name implies,
encompass all forms of energy in life,
including the energies of plants, animals,
and all other living things.
• Human beings are open systems. We exchange
energies with the environment in which we
live. The more familiar sources of bio-energy
are nutrients (food and drink), plants, sun, sea
and the air we breathe.

Bio-energy
• These types of primary, immanent energies are
the major sources of energy absorbed by living
creatures.
• Con-scientiology refers to this impersonal type
of energy as immanent energy, however,
different cultures throughout history have given it
several names, such as cosmic energy, prana, chi,
primary energy, vital energy, subtle energy,
orgone, etc. Regardless of the terminology used,
they all refer to the same type of energy.

Emotional Vampires
• Emotional Vampires
• Emotional vampires are emotionally
immature individuals who have the sense
that the whole world revolves around
them.
• They are almost incapable of seeing
things from another person's perspective.
They often lack empathy.

Emotional Vampires
• Emotional vampire is a colloquial term for
toxic people who drain us of our energy and
leave us feeling emotionally exhausted.
• They have a parasitic quality in that they
provoke emotional reactions in others and
“feed off” their emotions as well as resources.

https://www.simpletruths.com/personal-
inspiration/charging-the-human-battery.html

"Understanding Burnout"
Prof. Christina Maslach
• https://youtu.be/4kLPyV8lBbs

Prof. Christina Maslach
https://maslach.socialpsychology.org
• Christina Maslach is Professor Emerita of
Psychology at the University of California at
Berkeley.
• She has conducted research in a number of areas
within social and health psychology. However,
she is best known as one of the pioneering
researchers on job burnout, and the author of the
Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the most
widely used research measure in the burnout field.
In addition to numerous articles, her books on this
topic include Burnout

Episode 3 – Work Overload
• https://www.inappropriatecorp.com.au/misbehave-
with-dave/episode-3-work-overload/

Episode 4 – Early Warning Signs
• https://www.inappropriatecorp.com.au/misbeh
ave-with-dave/episode-4-early-warning-signs/

Supporting mental wellbeing in the workplace
https://www.inappropriatecorp.com.au

References
• Burnout Prevention and Treatment
• https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm
• Burnout
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/burnout
• Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International
Classification of Diseases
• https://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/burn-out/en/
• Job burnout: How to spot it and take action
• https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-
20046642
• Occupational burnout
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout
• 10 Signs You're Burning Out -- And What To Do About It
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2013/04/01/10-signs-youre-burning-out-
and-what-to-do-about-it/#72b11fe8625b

Workplace Burnout

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