Recognizing Burnout and Fixing It

Have you ever experienced a workday like this?

You spend the first hour of the morning catching up with all your friends on social media. Upon finishing, you notice your email inbox has filled up. Jared needs help (again!) with that stupid spreadsheet. Kathy is stuck on a transaction in the general ledger system. Your boss is wondering about the status of a report you promised her. You can’t bring yourself to deal with these annoyances, so you invite your coworker Samantha to grab a coffee with you. On the way, you subject her to your bitterness, “Why is everybody so needy here? I hate it so much — I need a new job!” When you return, there are even more emails you don’t want to face, so you do some online shopping. By day’s end, you’ve succeeded only at avoiding work, developing a bad mood, and fueling your caffeine addiction.

Burnout

What’s the problem here? These behaviors are some of the warning signs for burnout. Psychoanalyst Herbert Freudenberger first identified the condition in 1974. His definition:

“The extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.”

To put that in layman’s terms — you’ve stopped giving a shit.

Some organizational scholars describe the situation by saying it’s the opposite of employee engagement. Recall from one of my earlier posts (“Does Morale Even Matter?”) that engagement causes workers to commit to work. Engaged employees, by definition, are willing to go the extra mile for their companies. Does the workday I described above suggest you’d be willing to go the extra mile?

Burnout vs. Engagement

The sad fact is that many people can relate. So much so that psychologists like Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter have devoted their careers to studying burnout. They suggest thinking of the concept as a continuum with burnout at one end and engagement at the other. Even more, they break this measurement into three components:

• Exhaustion versus energy
• Cynicism versus involvement
• Inefficacy (ineffectiveness) versus efficacy (effectiveness)

The Signs & Consequences

To put it simply, you’re exhibiting signs of burnout if:

• You’re feeling physically and/or mentally exhausted at work
• You find yourself being pessimistic and complaining about most aspects of your work or company
• The quality of your work isn’t up to your own standards

You may experience temporary shifts in one or two of the dimensions at various times, but if it’s all three and constant, watch out!

Contrast this with the signs of employee engagement:

• Feeling energized at work
• Wanting to be involved and volunteering your efforts outside of your normal duties
• Being at the top of the performance heap.

Put this way, it seems plausible that burnout is indeed the opposite of engagement. Nobody enjoys feeling this way and no organization should ever want this in its employees.

Employees with burnout are likely to have poor performance. They fantasize about and often do quit their jobs. They call in sick a lot, have low commitment, and are generally dissatisfied with their jobs. At the personal level, people experiencing burnout can suffer from a host of health effects including gastrointestinal problems, high blood pressure, headaches, frequent colds and flu, and difficulty sleeping.

What to Do About It

The obvious question becomes then what to do about burnout. One of the first lines of defense is simply to be aware of it happening. Whether in yourself or your staff, be on the lookout for signs of exhaustion, cynicism, and poor performance. There are also tests to check for the signs. The web site Mind Tools offers a short, non-scientific survey to test for the warning signs. If you want the gold standard, check out the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). If one of these surveys indicates the potential for burnout, it’s time to think about action.

This action can and should happen both at the employee and manager level. For workers, author Christine Louise Hohlbaum suggests five tips for preventing burnout:

1. Recognize when burnout exists
2. Assess your work situation and make changes if necessary
3. Take time for breaks and relaxation during the day
4. Ask for help
5. Stay aware of your feelings and needs

Tip #2 is worth stressing — sometimes there is a fundamental incompatibility between you and your job. If so, you may need to move on, especially if your manager is unwilling to help.

Managers Need to Be Aware of Burnout

For managers, the key is to think about burnout in relation to employee engagement. If your team members connect with the meaning in their work and feel respected, they will be less likely to experience burnout. I mention some of these methods in a previous post: “Commitment to Work.”

Further, few people want to work only for money. Have you helped your team understand the underlying goals and mission of the company beyond money? Do you give frequent and helpful feedback and praise? Do you try to match your employees’ talents and passions to their jobs? Are promotions and policies handled fairly and with the utmost of transparency? Do employees have input on major decisions and latitude to do their jobs the way they see fit? These are all great ways to help prevent burnout and its consequences.

Still, this is no simple topic with easy fixes. Managers must continually work to ensure employees are happy and engaged or suffer the consequences. Being aware of the signs of burnout is a great first step and may help to stop the problem from becoming severe.