Workplace Burnout

Terry W. Reese • May 20, 2019

I attended an HR training a few years back where the facilitator noted something I thought was profound. He said, “people rarely ever leave jobs; people leave people”. While we can't change other people, there are many changes one can take when feeling stuck. I was annoyed when “Career Counseling” was a required course in graduate school. I wondered, “when will I ever use this information”. Surprisingly, often! Many people seek counseling when they are in the stages of burnout in their professions. Below are some excerpts of the chapter on burnout from Crisis Intervention Strategies (7th ed). If you feel like you’re going crazy in the workplace…it may not be you…but rather the environment created around you.

Defining and Providing Language to Burnout

Burnout is defined as: Exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or ones motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.

Burnout is not generally perceived as a crisis event because its onset is slow and insidious.

Burnout is psychobiological and because it is difficult to identify or understood by individuals and organizations they may chalk it up as a character deficit.

Burnout begins to occur when past & present problems continuously pile up.

Burnout is a two-way street with both individual and organization having culpability.

From and individual perspective the dynamics of occupational burnout are that problems maybe experience from six major sources:

Workload – to complex, urgent, too much, or awful

Control – micromanaged, ineffective leadership, or teams

Lack of reward – compensation, recognition, or pleasure

Lack of community – social support

Lack of fairness – secretive decision-making, favoritism

Discordant values – when you and the organization are severely at odds regarding beliefs

These problems can be real or perceived in our work environment creating Stress.

Stress in and of itself is not bad…humans need some stress for optimal performance.

It is our perception of stress that either creates a positive or negative psycho physiological result.

The progression of Burnout

Enthusiasm – and individual may first be enthusiastic and over time:

Stagnation

Frustration

Apathy

Human service professionals are especially susceptible to:

Secondary traumatic stress disorder

Vicarious traumatization

Compassion fatigue

These are interchangeable terms that describe when prolonged crisis intervention work begins to produce maladaptive changes in behavior

Secondary traumatic stress is just that secondary…constantly experiencing the stress in others, which can be vicariously traumatizing and create compassion fatigue and limiting empathy for others.

Awareness of Warning Signs

Symptoms can include anticipatory anxiety, sleeplessness, worry, intrusive thoughts, avoidance, etc.

Burnout is also lost enthusiasm…passion is replaced by cynicism…and confidence erodes

There maybe high turnovers, absenteeism, lowered productivity and increased physical/psychological problems.

Prevention/Intervention

Note: With regard to self-recognition, high performing professionals are generally unaware of the signs of burnout within themselves.

The typical operating mode is not to change the situation but rather to increase the amount of effort and consequently increase the original problem.

Interventions occur on three dimensions:

Interventions through training

Interventions with the organization

Interventions with the individual

What makes the major difference in obtaining peak performance from workers as opposed to having them burn out is weather the work environment is supportive or unsupportive.

References:

James, R.K. & Gilliland, B.E. (2013). Crisis intervention strategies (7th ed.). Belmont: CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.

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