What Can Employers Do to Prevent Workplace Burnout?

In my prior articles, including Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout, What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout? and What to Do If You're Experiencing Workplace Burnout, I focused on what employees can do to avoid burnout.  In this article, my focus is on what employers can do to help prevent burnout at work.

What Can Employers Can Do to Prevent Workplace Burnout?

What Employers Can Do to Prevent Workplace Burnout:

• Set the Tone for the Workplace Environment:  Managers who are able to stay calm during stressful times at work become models for employees on how to handle stress and prevent burnout.  Employees will feel more confident in their managers during stressful times and they are more likely to follow the manager's lead if s/he demonstrates good stress management skills.  So, managers need to learn good stress management skills and be aware of how they are coming across.  This is in everyone's best interest in terms of developing a healthy work environment, meeting company goals, retaining good employees, and satisfying shareholders and other stakeholders.

• Improve Communication With Your Employees:  It is especially important during stressful times, when there might be uncertainty at workplace, to share information in a clear and effective manner.  One of the worst things that can happen during uncertain times is for the rumor mill to escalate with false information due to a lack of information and clear communication.  Be clear about employees' jobs and their roles, and avoid being mean spirited and petty.  It's best to maintain an open-door policy, which is more than just words, in a collegial atmosphere so that employees feel comfortable coming to you and will know that their manager will listen with an open mind.  Be generous with praise and provide constructive criticism in a balanced way within the context of overall work performance, not just related to negative isolated incidents.  Harassment should never be tolerated.

Improve Communication With Your Employees

• Provide Opportunities For Employees to Share in the Decision-making Process:  Wherever possible, especially in instances where decisions will affect employees' jobs, allow employees to participate in the decision-making process.  A collaborative process might take longer than if a manager just dictates what s/he wants but, in the long run, it will make it more likely that employees will buy into changes and also increase the likelihood of a smoother transition during stressful times of change.  It will also help to demonstrate that employees are valued.

• Make Sure that the Workload is Realistic:  Due to years of downsizing, many employees are doing the work of two or more people.  This often leads to burnout.  Managers need to ensure that the workload is realistic and that each employee is given tasks that are in keeping with his or her skills, abilities and experience.  

• Provide Opportunities for Career Development:  Good employees are more likely to stay if there are opportunities to learn and grow as well as being compensated fairly for their work.  Having to replace employees, who feel like they're stagnating, usually costs more than finding opportunities for career development.

Provide Opportunities for Career Development 

• Encourage Employees to Balance Their Work and Personal Lives:  To avoid burnout, it's important for employees to take vacation time to relax and recharge and to spend time with their families.  When managers model this behavior for employees, they will be more likely to strive for this balance (see my article: Balancing Your Career and Personal Life).

• Work Through Your Own Personal Problems That Are Affecting You at Work:  Managers who aren't dealing with their own personal issues and who allow these issues to negatively impact their ability to manage at work should get help.  Without even realizing it, managers, whose personal problems are spilling over into the workplace, can displace their unhappiness and anger on the employees that they manage.  Not only does this create a negative work environment and increase the likelihood of burnout for employees, it also reflects poorly on these managers.  In two prior articles,  Careers: Are You a Bully at Work? and Dealing With a Difficult Boss, I discuss workplace bullies, who often displace their own feelings about problems  in their personal life on their employees.  This is just one of many ways that managers who aren't working on their personal problems can contribute to workplace burnout.

Getting Help in Therapy
Being a manager can be very challenging, especially if your manager is difficult to deal with or you feel caught between wanting to treat your employees fairly and a disregard for employees from top management.

Often managers, who might be open to their employees, have nowhere to go with their own stressors and concerns at the workplace.

Getting Help in Therapy

Also, as mentioned earlier, if you're aware that problems in your personal life are having a negative impact on your employees and your overall work performance, you owe it to yourself, your loved ones and your employees to get help to work through those issues with a licensed mental health practitioner who has expertise in this area.

By getting help in therapy, not only will it help you to be a better manager, it will also help you personally to lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

Prior to becoming a licensed therapist, I was a human resources manager, so one of my specialties is helping clients with workplace issues.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Managing Your Stress: What to Do If You Are Experiencing Workplace Burnout?

In my two prior articles,  Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout and What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout?, I began addressing workplace burnout in terms of the consequences to both employees and employers as well as some telltale signs to watch out for to recognize burnout in yourself.  In this article, I'll begin to address what you can do if you're experiencing workplace burnout.

Managing Your Stress:  What to Do If You Are Experiencing Workplace Burnout

Of course, everyone and every situation is different, so no list of suggestions will work for everyone.

Generally, in my opinion, as a psychotherapist who has worked with many clients who have experienced burnout, the following suggestions are usually helpful (in no particular order):

• Develop an Increased Awareness About Yourself:  The ancient Greek aphorism, "Know thyself" is an important concept when it comes to avoiding burnout as well as in other aspects of life.   Many people develop full-fledged burnout because they have little to no awareness of themselves on a physical and emotional level, so burnout, which takes a while to develop, can seem to sneak up on them.   So, it's important to recognize the signs of workplace burnout in yourself.  Also, even for many people, who actually do recognize the signs of burnout, they're so accustomed to plowing ahead that they override their own good judgment about when to stop working and take a break.

• Take Breaks at Work:  For many people, it might seem counter-intuitive, but the old saying "less is more" is fitting when it comes to workplace burnout.  Rather than pushing yourself to work through lunch and forgo taking breaks during the day, you can actually be more productive as well as avoid burnout if you take breaks during the day at work.  Taking a much-needed break during the day, going for a walk at lunch or even taking a few minutes to stretch and breathe can help you to relax and regroup.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout:  Take Breaks at Work

• Take Time Off From Work to Go on Vacation:  Many people choose to give up vacation days to remain at work.  As a nation, Americans actually give up millions of vacation days a year, which is a big mistake, especially if you're hoping to avoid burnout.  If you treat yourself like you're a machine, you're going to break down.  And even machines break down without proper care.  Not only will going on vacation help you to relax and regroup, it often gives you an new perspective about work and life in general, which can make you more creative and productive.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout: Take Vacations

• Develop Stress Management Strategies:  Whether you choose to go to the gym, yoga class, meditation class or whatever activities you enjoy, it's important to develop effective stress management strategies, especially if you have a stressful job and you hope to avoid burnout.  When clients come to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, I often work with them to help them develop healthy coping and stress management strategies, including learning to meditate and engage in stress-reducing breathing techniques.

• Cultivate and Maintain Close Personal Relationships:  As human beings, we are born to bond and attach with significant others.  Initially, we bond with our primary caregivers, which in most cases is our mother, and later on, we learn to develop significant friendships and relationships outside the family.  When people spend too much time on work-related activities, one of the first things to go is the time they spend with significant others, including spouses, children and friends.  Aside from the enjoyable aspects of close relationships, we need the love and support from those relationships and they need us, so it's important to develop and maintain these relationships in order to maintain a sense of well-being.

• Develop and Engage in Self Care Strategies  Self care is made up of many different aspects, including:  getting enough rest, eating properly, getting exercise, and other things that are particularly meaningful and nurturing for you (see my article:  Self Care: Feeling Entitled to Take Care of Yourself).

• Develop Realistic Expectations of What You Can and Can't Accomplish at Work:  Having unrealistic expectations about what you can and can't accomplish at work is a sure sign that you might be heading for workplace burnout if you're not already there.  This is a particular problem for ambitious high achievers experienced in the workplace as well as college graduates who are beginning their first job.  College grads, who were accustomed to being in an intellectually and emotionally stimulating environment in college, are often surprised to discover that even the most interesting job can have certain required mind-numbing aspects to it.  This often leads to disappointment and, at times, to burnout.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout: Be Realistic About What You Can and Cannot Do

• Be Assertive:  Depending upon your work environment, you might need to learn to tactfully say "no" every so often when you know that accepting an assignment or participating in an extra project will lead to burnout.  Of course, this assumes that you have enough of an awareness of yourself and you place a high level of importance on self care.  If it's not possible to say "no" because doing so would lead to losing your job, then you might want to consider the next category below, re-evaluating your career.

• Re-Evaluate Your Career:  Before you begin a particular career, you might assume that you know what's involved, but it's usually only when you might start to realize that what you expected and what it turned out to be are two very different things.  I had a friend who became a nurse years ago because she wanted to "help people."  She had a wonderful experience in nursing school.  But when she became a hospital nurse, she discovered that what she wanted and what it turned out to be were completely different.  After trying different work environments, she realized that it wasn't any particular environment--the problem was that nursing, while being a wonderful profession, just wasn't for her.  So, she left nursing and became a licensed massage therapist, and she discovered that she loved it and she was better suited for this profession.  So many people think that they have to stick it out in a profession where they've unhappy.  They feel ashamed, as if it's their fault.  But life is short and if you have the option of doing what you would like, it's better to re-evaluate your career and take steps to do what makes you happy.

Avoiding Workplace Burnout: Re-Evaluate Your Career

• Recognize Your Profession Might Have Changed and It's Not What You Want Anymore:  Another reason why people often re-evaluate their careers is that their field might have changed over time.  Many medical doctors, under the strain of significant changes in the health care field, have re-evaluated their career choices and choose a different career or, depending upon their particular situation, have opted to retire.

Future Articles Related to Workplace Burnout
Workplace burnout is a huge topic and a significant problem for many employees.  Since many of the issues I've raised in this article are broad, I'll be addressing some of them in future articles.

Getting Help in Therapy
We all need help sometimes when going it alone is too difficult.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're concerned that you might be burning out at work or you've already developed full-fledged burnout, you could benefit from getting help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience in helping clients to overcome this problem.

Working with a licensed therapist with expertise in this area, you can learn to take care of yourself and lead a happier life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients in my psychotherapy practice to avoid or overcome both personal and professional burnout.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Managing Your Stress: What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout?

In a prior article, Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout, I discussed the consequences for workplace burnout for both employees and employers.  In this article, I'm focusing on how you, as an employee, can recognize the telltale signs of workplace burnout.

Managing Your Stress:  What Are the Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout?

Telltale Signs of Burnout
As I mentioned in my prior article, burnout doesn't occur overnight.  It usually occurs over a span of time, often without a person even realizing it, so it's important to recognize the telltale signs of burnout (outlined below) to avoid experiencing full-fledged burnout:

• Exhaustion:  Feeling emotionally and physically tired all or most of the time.  You feel like you have little or no energy even after you've rested or slept

• Problems Paying Attention or Concentrating:  Prolonged stress that leads to burnout can create cognitive problems related to paying attention or concentration.  When relentless stress that causes burnout takes hold and you don't realize what's happening, it can be frightening, especially if you didn't have these cognitive problems before.

• Lack of Motivation :  Burnout can lead to your feeling that nothing you do will make a difference.  If burnout is severe, you might feel helpless and hopeless to effect change in your work or in yourself.

• Frustration and Cynicism:  Over time, burnout can cause you to feel frustrated and cynical about your work and life in general, which also affects your motivation.

• Not Taking Care of Yourself:  Burnout can lead to your not getting enough rest, poor sleep, poor eating habits, poor health, and overall poor self care.  Rather than maintaining a healthy and nurturing social life with people who are important to you in your personal life, you might be so focused on work that you forget to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

• Obsession With Work:  When you're not maintaining a healthy balance between work and personal life and not taking care of yourself, chances are good that you're obsessed about work even when you're not at work so that you don't get a break from work stressors, which is so important to recharging.

• Problems With Work Performance:  When you're obsessed with work and you're not getting enough downtime, your work performance can suffer.  There have been many studies that show that employees' work performance is better when they take breaks.

• Health Problems:  When you don't take care of yourself and you're experiencing burnout, you can develop stress-related health problems, including high blood pressure, heart problems, digestive problems and other related health problems.

Managing Your Stress:  Telltale Signs of Workplace Burnout: Health Problems

• Mental Health Problems:  Anxiety and depression are common problems as you become overwhelmed by burnout.  Anxiety and depression (or both) can make coping with workplace burnout all the more difficult, especially if these mental health problems remain untreated in therapy.

• Interpersonal Problems at Work: It's easy to see that if you're having problems with the issues listed above, you might become impatient and irritable with your boss or with coworkers, especially if you're suffering with the symptoms of burnout. 

• Interpersonal Problems at Home:  Likewise, when you're burnt out, it's very hard to leave work stressors at work, so when you get home, you could be snappy with your spouse or your children.  You might feel too exhausted to interact with them, which can create problems in your family relationships (see my article:  Workplace Stressors:  Are Your Workplace Stressors Affecting Your Family?)

In a future article about workplace burnout, I'll discuss some things you can do if you recognize that you have some or all of telltale signs listed above.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I discussed in my prior article, people often wait until they're experiencing full-fledged burnout (all or most of the symptoms listed above) before they seek help.

Getting Help in Therapy

Getting help from a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in helping clients with career or work-related issues can make all the difference between avoiding or overcoming workplace burnout.

If you identify with many of the telltale signs of burnout, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to get help so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialities is helping clients with career issues, and I have helped many clients to learn how to manage stress and develop healthy stress management strategies to avoid or overcome workplace burnout.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout

People often come to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC about career and work-related issues.  One of the biggest issues that many people are struggling with today is how to cope with the ever increasing demands at the workplace without burning out.

Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout

What is Burnout?
Burnout is a chronic state of stress that can lead to physical and emotional exhaustion.

Burnout isn't something that happens overnight.  It usually occurs over time.

Unfortunately, especially among high achievers who are ambitious and driven, people often don't realize that they're suffering from the effects of burnout until they experience serious negative consequences.

When someone is experiencing full-fledged burnout, he or she has difficulty functioning personally as well as professionally.  In the most severe cases, they might not be able to function at all.

Whether you work in finance, healthcare, social services, education or any other field, burnout has become a serious problem which has negative consequences for employees as well as employers.

Negative Consequences for Employers:

• increased absenteeism
• increased staff turnover
• increased inefficiency
• increased costs (in the billions)
• increased Workers Compensation claims
• decreased productivity
• decreased morale
• decreased quality of service
• decreased customer satisfaction and increased complaints
• decreased creativity and innovation

Negative Consequences for Employees:

• increased stress
• increased health problems, including sleep problems
• increased mental health problems, including anxiety and/or depression
• increased sense of autonomy and a sense of helplessness
• increased alcohol and substance abuse problems as well as other addictive behavior
• increased marital problems as work stressors spill over into home life
• decreased work satisfaction
• decreased camaraderie among staff

Employers Have a Responsibility to Help Employees Avoid or Overcome Workplace Burnout
Since the consequences of burnout has such a significant impact for employees and employers, it's important for organizations to create a healthy work environment to avoid burnout or, if burnout is already an issue, to find creative ways to address it (more about this in future articles).

Managing Your Stress: The Consequences of Workplace Burnout

Employees Can Develop Stress Management Strategies to Deal With Workplace Burnout
Since it's important for employees to learn ways to manage their stress to avoid burnout, I often address this issue in therapy sessions with clients, who are either suffering from the consequences of burnout or are on the verge of burning out, by teaching them tools for managing their stress including, among other things, learning to balance their work and home life and learning breathing and meditation techniques.

In future articles, I'll address what employers and employees can do to deal with workplace burnout.

Getting Help in Therapy
People often wait until they're mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted before they get help for burnout.

Getting Help in Therapy

At that point, they might already be feeling the effects of poor health and mental health due to prolonged stress and exhaustion.

Often, by the time people begin therapy, their relationships with family members are suffering due to bringing their work stressors home (see my article:  Workplace: Are Your Work Stressors Affecting Your Family?)

Rather than wait, it's better to get help early on to learn how to manage your stress as well as addressing any work issues that could be triggering personal issues or vice versa.

Getting help early can help you to avoid burnout and thrive both personally and professionally.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialties is helping clients with career issues.

I have worked with many clients to help them avoid or overcome workplace burnout.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Also see my article:  Managing Your Stress: What Are the Signs of Workplace Burnout?