Coping Strategies in Dealing with Burnout
Dr. Mark Gorkin has outlined several stategies for employees and employers to apply when dealing with workplace burnout:1. Schedule "R and R." Remember, some of your best producers don't know when to turn off their motors. Monitor their behavior: slipups, missed appointments or a deadline, being abrasive with customers or colleagues, etc. may mean "Rest and Recreation" is no longer optional. You don't want folks to shine in the 100-yard dash only to collapse prematurely when running a marathon. A candidate for general exhaustion may simply need some time off. Getting away, especially in new or relaxing surroundings, will help an employee revive energy levels and the mind-body-spirit.
2. Facilitate Professional Coaching or Counseling. For individuals with moderate exhaustion or just the beginning signs of burnout, a few sessions with a career or life coach should help an employee slow down and smell the burning rubber. However, for the individual who has been trapped in the "erosive spiral" for a considerable period of time therapeutic measures will be necessary. If an option, encourage this employee to use the company's Employee Assistance Program.
A solid program assures confidentiality; EAP utilization must not blemish the employee's work record. At the same time, utilization does not provide cover for less than satisfactory job performance. (Employees at the burnout battlefront may actually be receptive to counseling. For example, people may speak of and sport their burnout experience as if they earned a Purple Heart.) If there is no EAP, can the company pay for a valued employee's first few therapy sessions with an outside counselor?
3. Encourage Better Balance and Better Boundaries. Let your employees know they can periodically turn off their cell to allow recharging of both the phone and the person. Ironically, one way of encouraging some division between work and home, for example, is by sponsoring a company/family picnic. The company's message: we value home life and want to encourage employee balance. As for the boundary issues, you may want to provide training in the areas of time management and assertiveness. In today's world, not only does a person need good self-organizational skills, but he or she must also be able to say "No" in a constructive manner. While previously mentioning the value of "R & R," the capacity for "N & N" may be as important: the ability to say "No" and to "Negotiate." It's a "No" that:
a) respects and displays understanding of the request,
b) explains why the employee cannot met the request at this moment in time, and also
c) details what the employee can do to help immediately and in the long run. It's much better to have your staff employ "N & N" than make false or foolish promises and then drop the ball at the eleventh hour.
Finally, when appropriate consider using structural balancing techniques such as flextime, job sharing and telecommuting in addition to encouraging some uninterrupted "closed door" time.
4. Promote New Job Training and Learning Curves. Sometimes boredom, if not burnout, occurs from having "been there, done that" too many times. Actually, when the timing is right, you may want to encourage all employees to:
a) upgrade skills on an ongoing basis,
b) experiment with new roles and responsibilities, and
c) provide backup for a colleague through cross-training. And for the employee just coasting, encouraging reassignment in a three-month work detail just might rekindle his or her juices.
5. Promote the Stress Doc's "Three Step Burnout Prevention/Burnout Recovery Plan."
a) Engage with the "Six 'F's." To "let go" and begin exploring another hole (or another pursuit altogether) often requires doing emotional grief work. Consider these "Six 'F's for Transforming Loss and Change":
1) Let go of a familiar past (or at least certain significant components that are keeping you stuck),
2) Confront an uncertain future fraught with anxiety
3) Grapple with some loss of face or blows to one's self-esteem
4) Acknowledge feelings of rage and sadness to achieve a renewed state of focused anger: "I don't like what has happened, but how can I make the best of it?,"
5) Seek objective, knowledgeable and trustworthy feedback to gain a new perspective, and
6) Have faith…If you've taken these steps, no matter what the outcome of this transition trial, you will grow from this grief process.
b) Employ the "Four 'R's of Burnout Rehab":
1) Running. A person doesn't literally have to start running; thirty-forty minutes, 3-5 times/week of brisk walking, jogging, swimming, biking, etc., are excellent ways to generate an exercise regimen. In addition to cardio-vascular and weight management benefits, regular exercise becomes a "success ritual" providing a tangible sense of accomplishment and control.
2) Reading. People often lose their sense of humor under prolonged stress. Try reading books or comic strips that help reinvigorate your smile muscles. Or watch your favorite film comedians or comic actors on television. Then, as you start feeling more in control, begin to read on the subject of stress and burnout.
3) Retreating. When trying to recover from burnout it's essential to reflect upon how one's personal attitudes, expectations and self-defeating behaviors contributed to being trapped in the erosive spiral.
4) Writing. Stress management research shows that writing about emotions or painful experiences from both an expressive and an analytical perspective helps reduce stress and strengthens a sense of psychological control.
c) Transition to Passion. Burnout is often a powerful signal that one's mind-body-spirit path and/or one's job position or career path are not working, or not working effectively and harmoniously. There's a dysfunctional fit (along with corresponding existential ennui or angst) between where one is and where one needs to be. Upon setting in motion the first two phases of the above "R & R" - Rehabilitation & Rejuvenation - plan the person is ready to explore avenues that encourage meaningful, fulfilling and (usually more) realistic action steps. And sometimes "less is more." Focus on what is essential and "let go" of the ego-baggage. Also, experiences from the past are not always part of the heavy baggage. One way of rekindling passion is to reconnect with youthful aspects of your life or basic aspects of your personality. And then create professional and personal venues for expressing this vital and renewed self. Surely this recovery process is not just a strategy for rebuilding the fire; these survival strategies in time become tools for burnout prevention.
posted by diversityworking @ 2:41 PM
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