As the holiday season draws closer many of us find ourselves looking the next few months and asking when will we get a break our selves? The industry is under pressure with short staffing leaving many to work long hours and with few days off. This article From mental health support provider Clearhead has some tips for helping prevent burnout before its too late.

Harvard Business Review estimates burnout is a global issue that costs between $125-190 billion in healthcare spending every year. Employees that are burnt out take more sick days, and when they are at work, they’re not as productive as usual. The term presenteeism has been coined to describe someone being present at work, but being far less effective than they’d normally be.

3 SIGNS OF BURNOUT

One of the big challenges in addressing burnout is recognising it. Knowing what to look for is a good start, and organisations that get better at spotting the red flags are better placed to catch burnout early and minimise its impact.

1. Chronic fatigue
   This tends to be a universal symptom that the overwhelming majority of people who are burnt out will feel. In the context of burnout, chronic fatigue is feeling exhausted all the time – for example, when you take a holiday, you come back just as exhausted as when you left.
2. Increased cynicism or depersonalisation
   This is the ‘no hug’ situation. It’s when things that don’t usually irritate you, do – sometimes to an unreasonable degree.
   You might even know it’s over the top, but you have nothing left to give and can’t help but have an extreme reaction. People who are burnt out are often disillusioned, and have a short fuse.
3. Reduced professional efficacy
   Burnt out people just don’t perform in the usual way at work. Using a second-hand analogy that it’s like running a marathon in molasses, it can also be self-fulfilling, where a lack of self confidence manifests in a poorer quality of work.

6 CAUSES OF BURNOUT

Workplaces shouldn’t just rely on identifying burnout as a strategy to overcome it. Burnout is a costly issue, financially and non financially, and organisations need to understand how their culture and dynamic allows, or even encourages burnout to happen.

1. Overwork
   Clearhead data shows overwork is one of the most common causes of burnout. This can present in a range of ways, including having a lack of prioritisation or clarity, a culture of overwork, excessive hours, unpredictable work flow or unrealistic deadlines.
2. Lack of control
   When workers have little or no influence over decisions that affect them, they have accountability without power. This feeling of having no control means individuals are accountable to the work they do, but have no power over what their focus is or what their workload looks like.
3. Isolation
   Staff can be isolated in a raft of ways; physically, socially or ideologically. If there’s a lack of psychological safety or trust within a team, individuals can become isolated by not being able to contribute, or being hurt by the way they’re treated when they do.
4. Absence of fairness
   Fairness at work comes through in a range of ways, and when things feel unfair, it can feel like the effort someone’s putting into their job isn’t worth it. Fairness can also be a factor in workplace discussions, such as whether someone feels heard in meetings or not. The workplace social hierarchy can have something to answer for in this regard.
5. Insufficient rewards
   This is similar to the last point on fairness, although it’s more about intrinsic rewards than tangible ones. Poor leadership is a big factor in cases of burnout, and managers need to actively support their people so they feel appreciated and valued.
6. Mismatched values
   When an employee feels their personal values don’t align with the values of their employer, it feeds back into a sense of disillusionment. Over time, they feel they have to make constant trade-offs between what they believe and what they’re working towards.

How Clearhead can help
If you’re looking for strategies to combat burnout in the workplace, head to www.myclearhead.com/blog and read the full article on identifying and combating burnout in the workplace. Clearhead is a digital wellbeing platform that partners with workplaces to focus on improving the wellbeing of their people.

We have a range of tools that help organisations to proactively improve wellbeing, including detailed reporting on burnout and techniques that help individuals develop mental health skills that improve their resilience. In-depth quarterly wellbeing data insights shine a light on workplace cultures, allowing employers to recognise areas of improvement, and providing honest feedback on wellbeing strategies.