Burnout is in the top 3 corporate diseases – 76% of respondents have experienced it at least once. Employees experiencing this condition are less productive, take more sick days, and are twice as likely to quit. Olga Zangieva, author of the HR x Therapy project, ICF professional coach, and ex-HRD Citymobil experienced burnout twice. The last way out of this state took her several months. Then Olga realized that a person interested in building a successful career is simply obliged to do something so as not to burn out at work. Olga studied the causes and effects of burnout and launched therapeutic tours for people going through this condition. We’re telling about What is burnout and why it can cost your job, in this article.
What is emotional burnout?
Since 2019, professional burnout syndrome has been included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which means that it has been officially recognized as a factor influencing health status. Therefore, treating him with calls to “get together” or “just take a break” is ineffective.
The ICD-11 definition of burnout is: “Burnout is a syndrome recognized as the result of chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Burnout must occur exclusively in a professional context, regardless of experience in other areas of life.
Why is it dangerous?
According to a Gallup study , employees who experience burnout are more likely to seek medical help. 63% of them are more likely to take sick leave. They are half as likely to discuss the achievement of their goals with their manager, 13% less confident in their work, and 2.6 times more likely to leave their current company.
Decreased performance is one of the three key signs of burnout listed in ICD-11.
Burnout can affect your ability to work and even cost you a job. And it may take from several weeks to one and a half years to get out of this state.
Expensive “pleasure” for both a person building a career and for an HR specialist who is interested in the effectiveness of employees and reducing the cost of hiring and adapting staff.
Who is at risk?
Don’t be fooled by the saying “burned out at work”, the cause of professional burnout does not always lie in overtime. Much more important is whether a person knows how to switch from work to rest, how well he rests, whether he feels satisfaction from what he does.
One of the most common causes of burnout is depreciation. When an employee does not see what he is working for, does not understand his own goals and does not feel their connection with global corporate tasks, he gets a feeling of uselessness of both his work and himself.
Imagine that you are on fire with a big project, devote most of your work and a little more free time to it, try your best, and then suddenly it turns out that it is no longer needed: the idea didn’t “fly”, the authorities changed their mind, cut the budget. Or the manager simply did not note your efforts and did not bother to say thank you.
Unfair treatment at work, deprivation of the promised bonus and lack of elementary communication elements that help employees better understand where they did well and where they made a mistake – all this can also lead to burnout.
An equally common cause of burnout is a toxic leader, bullying and conflicts with colleagues, psychological pressure, corporate mobbing, that is, the deliberate creation of conditions in which it is impossible to work.
Sometimes the leader artificially creates a feeling of constant time pressure – sets limited deadlines and tight deadlines. Working in such conditions leads to constant stress and, as a result, burnout of employees under his supervision. In this case, the manager should reconsider his management style and more adequately assess the priority of tasks.
Burnout stages
Effective leaders and experienced HR professionals do everything to increase the involvement of their employees, and good employees strive to achieve “flow” – a state in which the current business is considered the most important and interesting.
At the same time, the first step to burnout is just increased involvement. People who are obsessed with their work, ready to do it 24/7, not controlling working hours and ignoring rest, are in danger of quickly burning out.
Some work stages or projects require a high workload, but periods of increased involvement in the process should be followed by periods of quality rest.
If an employee constantly works in emergency mode, with difficult inputs – for example, lack of resources or budget, is forced to go out of their way to achieve the best result, the body experiences stress and begins to react to it.
The second stage of the burnout process is triggered – fatigue. In the phase of chronic stress, a person constantly feels a lack of strength, irritability, anxiety\ and immunity decreases. At this stage, sleep problems begin: it is difficult to fall asleep at night, and during the day, on the contrary, drowsiness is overcome. Eating behavior may be disturbed: draws on very sweet, salty, fatty, high-calorie foods.
The third stage is psychophysical exhaustion . Panic attacks, memory impairment, intestinal upset, and vomiting may begin.
And finally, the fourth stage comes – emotional burnout. The main signs: cynicism in relation to everything related to work, apathy, decreased productivity, difficulties in communicating with colleagues. A person can even change outwardly – for example, an always-ironed suit and an impeccable hairstyle will be replaced by a sloppy appearance.
How to understand what burned out?
Often, burnout goes hand in hand with fatigue, mental and physical exhaustion, and anxiety disorders. How can a person understand that he is burned out, and not just tired or depressed?
- Consult a therapist and take the whole range of tests. Symptoms that can be mistaken for manifestations of professional burnout can occur in people with a lack of zinc, magnesium, iron and vitamin D.
- Pass diagnostic Victor Boyko’s test or test by Christina Maslach .
- A professional psychologist or psychotherapist can also assess the condition.
First aid for burnout
Here’s what you can do right now if you find yourself in one of the four stages of burnout:
- If the vacation is still far away, think about how you can add at least an hour to rest every day. Feel free to tell your manager directly that you feel burned out – a boss who appreciates an employee will give him an extra day off or the opportunity to temporarily switch to a remote work format.
- Do not try to spend your free time “usefully” – for example, reading special literature. Give yourself the opportunity to sleep, watch your favorite movie and lie in the bath.
- Sport helps to recover from burnout. It is not necessary to rush to the gym and set records on the treadmill, pool, yoga, outdoor walking and horseback riding. You can supplement the activity with a bath or a contrast shower.
- Temporarily turn off your phone, put your laptop away, do not check instant messengers and mail, remove social networking applications from your smartphone, or install a limiter program (for example, Quality Time or Anti Social).
Also read : How to deal with chronic fatigue?
Burnout Prevention
If right now you do not notice signs of professional burnout in yourself, but are afraid that you may encounter them in the future, pay attention to the prevention of these conditions.
Realize that the prevention of burnout is your personal responsibility and priority task, the neglect of which can cost you work and health. No one, even the best boss or HR specialist, will teach you how to balance work and leisure, devote time to hobbies, friends and family.
It is up to you whether you will take regular rest, walk more often, monitor and protect personal boundaries at work, and use practices to prevent burnout. Here are some of them:
Energy leaks. During the day we encounter different situations, people and activities. Some fill us up, others drain us. Keep a note on your phone and make a note every time you feel a surge of energy, joy or, conversely, irritation, a desire to do something else, emptiness and dissatisfaction. Assign people and events a rating of one plus, two pluses, one minus, or two minuses to track their impact on your condition.
Try to keep such a diary for a month, and then analyze what spends your energy and what replenishes. For example, you may find that arguing with a toxic boss takes a lot of energy. Your right is to figure out how to minimize communication or, if this is not possible, how to restore yourself after it.
Awareness Calendar. Take your usual planning tool, such as an electronic calendar, plan things out a week or a month in advance, and highlight different types of tasks and activities with colors. Let work be yellow, leisure green, socializing with family and friends pink, and sports blue. See which color is more and which is missing. Make sure rest and physical activity is scheduled throughout the week, along with work meetings and phone calls.
Analysis of weaknesses. Analyze what brings you to a state of professional burnout. Maybe, by your nature, you are an addicted type who finds it difficult to switch from an interesting job to a relaxing holiday? Or is the problem that you do not have a hobby and you do not know how to relax in principle? What happens to your personal boundaries – do you know how to say no, can you refuse a colleague asking for help, or a boss who decides to work on the weekend?
Most effectively, such an analysis is carried out by a helping specialist – a coach or a psychotherapist.
And do not forget about regular quality rest. Any positive change in life requires resources.
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