Many people don’t recognize burnout, misinterpreting the symptoms as less important, until it can lead to more serious mental and physical issues.
Until recently reading the Guardian article on “How burnout became a sinister and insidious epidemic” by Moya Sarner, I used to laughingly say I left my job because I was burnt-out, but I had no idea how close to the truth I was, and neither about the psychological implications of burnout. In the article, Mrs. Sarner depicts two persons who tell their stories about becoming burnt-out in their job, the symptoms they went through, and the steps they took towards healing. As burnout might seem a fancy way to say you’re “just tired”, I decided to go through the burnout symptoms and some recommended action points for those who might not recognize it for themselves or their loved ones. For the last 18 months in my previous job, I used to feel tired all the time. I got home and laid on the couch, reading or playing silly games on my tablet, not being able to perform even the basic tasks around the house without extreme prompting. Vegging was my new workout. Slowly, without realizing it until it was already done, I started distancing myself from my friends, not being interested in interacting with them in any way, even by phone. I never wanted to go anywhere, I did not want to think about complex matters while not at work, and I refused to take simple decisions. I drifted. At work, I performed my tasks as well as before, but there too, my seclusion got worse by the day. As an HR professional, my duty was to interact with the people in the organization. Instead, I focused on the desk jobs, and reduced face to face meetings as much as I could. My reasoning was that there were so many things to do at the same time, reports and projects and presentations, one to one meetings could wait or could be addressed by email. Everything got more impersonal each day, by my own doing. Sometimes I caught myself staring at my desktop screen and I had to read the same email three times until I got its meaning. Everything became more difficult. I lost my temper with my colleagues over insignificant facts. Also my eating patterns, not very healthy to start with, got worse, and in 18 months I gained 10 kg = 22 pounds. I started experiencing very rapid heartbeats, but the doctor told me it was not a heart problem, but a head one, and I should just relax. According to Wikipedia, the term “burnout” was used for the first time in a psychology related paper by Herbert Freudenberger in 1974. In the ICD-11, due for publication this year, “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions: 1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and 3) reduced professional efficacy. Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life. This condition is not a single event but a process in which everyday stresses and anxieties gradually undermine one's mental and physical health. It can cause diminished sense of personal accomplishment, and cynicism.” To use the blunt definition from the Urban Dictionary, burnout is “ an inevitable corporate condition characterized by frequent displays of unprofessional behavior, a blithe refusal to do any work, and most important, a distinct aura of not giving a shit.” The Wiki article mentions studies linking burnout to depression. The symptoms for burnout (exhaustion, indifference, cynicism) are also met in depression. The differences are clarified in a PubMed Health article, stating that “in burnout most of the problems are work-related”, while “In depression, negative thoughts and feelings aren’t only about work, but about all areas of life.” Plus, “Other typical symptoms of depression include: low self-esteem, hopelessness and suicidal tendencies. These are not regarded as typical symptoms of burnout. So people with burnout don’t always have depression.” Though, like most of the psychological struggles we ignore, they can fester and manifest into more significant psychological and physical symptoms. The conclusion of the PubMed Health article is that “burnout may increase the risk of someone getting depression.” According to a 2017 World Health Organization article, the cost for lost productivity due to anxiety and depression in the work place exceeds US$ 140 billion per year in Europe. [..] A negative work environment may lead to physical and mental health problems, alcohol consumption and substance abuse.” Organizational health specialists describe various measures to decrease the risk of burnout in the workplace, such as nurturing communication and participation to decision-making for all employees, involving them in their own stories in the workplace, creating an inclusive and open environment where cooperation, not blame, are encouraged, offering flexible working hours or clarifying their tasks. At the individual level, resilience to stress can be trained and the stress can be reframed as helpful in preparing someone to cope better, according to another very interesting article in Harvard Business Review, by Ama Marston and Stephanie Marston. What I consider most important, for both organizations and individuals, is to pay close attention to the symptoms, to acknowledge them as important and to act on them immediately. Like the subjects in Mrs. Sarner’s article, I too saw my symptoms as mere tiredness, expecting it to pass over the weekend, or blaming it on not enough sleep. I let myself go deeper in this downward spiral and when I finally drew the line, it seemed impossible to use stress relief techniques to come back from the edge, so I resigned. If you find the burnout symptoms familiar, don’t ignore them. Work with your stress, make changes, go to therapy. You are the first one responsible for your own well-being. References
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“Work engagement is a mental state in which a person performing a work activity is fully immersed in the activity, feeling full of energy and enthusiasm about the work.” - Strategic and proactive approaches to work engagement, Arnold B. Bakker
https://www.isonderhouden.nl/doc/pdf/arnoldbakker/articles/articles_arnold_bakker_445.pdf Can the employee engagement be raised when the company is undergoing significant cuts? The first reply I got from another HR professional was “That’s impossible. You cannot expect to engage the employees when the company doesn’t meet their basic need of job safety. You can only implement a crisis scenario and pray for the best.” I don’t agree. You can engage your employees when the company is struggling, but certain conditions must be met. First and most important, and I learnt this the hard way, is that the internal HR function will have a tremendous task if they want to do it alone, for the simple reason they are inside the storm, and equally affected by it. If the employees feel insecure, disrespected, dejected and over-tired, be sure the HR is feeling the same, if not more because they have access to a lot more information than the others. In conclusion, bring external help. It might feel a little bit awkward at the beginning, but they can also bring a breath of fresh and objective air and inject some optimism in the troops. Second, be ready to listen and implement changes based on what the people need. There are a lot of things a manager cannot offer their employees in a struggling company, like the insurance that their job is secure, or a higher salary, or a bonus for that project they worked so hard on. Contrary to how they might feel though, they can offer a lot of other significant things. Things that count towards building engagement. You, as a manager, must find out what the people really need. What counts for them. And you need to go deeper than the money and the job security. You will tell me that there is nothing besides the money, all the employees are motivated is the money. I beg to differ. Some people appreciate their ideas to be considered, to be implemented, some to get recognition and respect from their peers and direct managers. Other people appreciate to be able to conceptualize in silence while their colleagues thrive to have challenges and overcome obstacles, to be in competitions. For a lot of persons, being in a close-knit, family like environment, where everybody likes each other and where they can share their personal lives, is essential for their well-being. And for some, it is paramount to be able to use their sense of humor, to feel like they have fun in the office, to laugh and play. You must remember, if you are a manager and want to raise the engagement of your team, and your company is passing through a rough period, you might be affected too. Your spirits might be low, and there is a possibility you feel disengaged also. Here comes the outside help, to support you on your journey. Your task? To keep an open mind, and be willing to persevere in your goal, even when the sky is downcast, and the storm is upon you. Let’s presume that, with the help of your outside help, you found out what your team appreciates besides money. It is important to consider the size of your team, and to split it up in smaller groups (4-5 people / group), each with a Champion responsible to building the engagement of their unit. Offer them relative autonomy to nurture themselves internally, teach them how to build trust and respect within themselves, not relying so much on outside recognition, and act genuinely and equally with all of them. We will use an imaginary unit, with imaginary needs, for the sake of example: we have Rhonda, who would like to have more knowledge about the projects that are not directly related to her, and maybe to have an input on them too, and to receive recognition on her professional expertise. We have Michelle, who gets bored easily and always challenges the others into not-work related bets. There is Daniel, who needs to have everything organized in a specific workflow and hates not following procedures. Close to his desk is Mat, who likes to talk loudly, deviate from any set course of action just to “get things moving”, and cracks jokes at the most inconvenient moments. Finally, there is Lilly, who loves to listen to everybody else about their families and hobbies and love interests, nurtures all with cookies and a good word, and is over sensitive. All of them present signs of dis-engagement, either getting sucked up in anything else rather than work, or grumbling continuously about the quantity, the difficulty, or the unfairness of it all, or just being disruptive, sulking or sad. Now, let’s imagine that each person of the five above gets one week to raise the spirits of the others. This exercise is based on trust. All of them need to know what counts for the others, and to acknowledge their differences and not critique the others’ specific preferences. There are many things that can be done for all them, by each of the others, to offer a token of something significant. Be it information, asking openly for their opinion or help and recognizing their contribution afterwards, or a challenge on how accurate and fast a project can be done, with a flashy card as a prize, or a new procedure on how everybody can do something more efficiently, or a get together after work with music and dancing involved, and even bringing the “significant others” together so everybody can meet and greet. Working in some companies, people might forget to relate to their inner needs, and just move forward, more depersonalized by the day, until they can find no deeper meaning to what they do. What if we were responsible for a week of meeting others’ psychological needs, besides the work tasks, and we would know that our needs will be met also in return? Scary thought? Inconceivable idea? Useless time loss? A. Bakker states in his article mentioned above: “employees may be proactive and take the initiative to personally change their own work environment. This proactive behavior is called “job crafting”, and may take the form of increasing one’s challenges at work and increasing one’s job resources. Through job crafting, employees can start a gain cycle of feeling well and doing well”. When you are a manager, and your team is on a downward spiral in efficiency and accuracy, and their disengagement is apparent in their every mistake, backtalk, eye-roll, and your hands are apparently tied, why not try something different? Worst case scenario, you’ll end up with a team with a much deeper understanding about each other. And a bit happier. Because as Kevin Claypool was stating in his 2017 dissertation Happiness in the Workplace Affects Employee Engagement that Leads to Organizational Success: “the results of this study show, happiness in the work place is directly related to employee engagement. This means that the happier employees are at work, the higher the likelihood they will be engaged with the company.” https://search.proquest.com/openview/1784978578eb2171d435388f4494333b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y I am one of those persons who are deeply impacted by any kind of negative feed-back. I take it very personally, no matter how useful or well meaning it is.
And then, I use it as a reason for not doing what I started, because “If I can’t do it perfectly the first time, then why bother?” So, my life has been a long stream of successful first-time achievements – due to luck and some innate intelligence – and a longer, hidden under the rug, line of failures. Or, to be more precise, quitting – all related to fun stuff, be it playing ping pong, guitar, painting, Fimo modelling. For the last year, this pattern attacked my latest hobby, writing. Don’t get me wrong, in this period I took part in some classes for creative and academic writing, I read some books on the subject, I wrote the first draft of a romance novel, and several blog posts. But any whisper of criticism drowned me in weeks upon weeks of just giving up. It must be that I really like writing, the reason for which I keep coming back to it after the sting washes away. And even if my logical mind tells me that it literally cannot go any other way, that only through failures and criticism and rejections I will be able to improve, any time that it happens seems like the end of the world. Only that I find myself writing again, which is a break in the pattern. This post is not about how to keep going, how to evade the usual blocks facing your passion, not even about how the hunger to do what I love trumps a deeply rooted pattern. It is not about re-framing a negative situation into a positive one. It just is. Fact #1: I tend to be a quitter for the things I like doing. My close ones and I have been waiting all these months for this hobby to die the same wordless, soundless death as all the others until it. Except that my drive to write is like a cactus plant. Needs little to no water at all to survive. And sometimes it blooms in little blood-red literary flowers. Are they the perfect blooms? Far from it. Do they shrivel under the faintest whiff of criticism? Yep. And then, they regurgitate the information, and rise again, a little stronger, more vivid and more riotous than the last time. Maybe it is a carnivorous plant, feeding on criticism. Fact #2: All those other hobbies before were pale shadows of what a hobby should be. Fact #3: I can only wait and see if writing is a real hobby, or more. Oh, and write on the way, because it’s fun. For when we are the negative characters in our story:
There are days when my self-perception doesn’t fit with my in-built image of how I should be. I might read a book, or see a documentary on television, or just listen closely to my internalized parental voices, and a significant breach appears between what I perceive as my current reality and the idealized version of a perfect individual. Other people (be them imaginary or real) are warmer, nicer, more generous, more loving, more successful or beautiful. I then feel disenchanted with myself, and I wonder: why even bother? I fell into this pit numerous times, and it stopped me from doing things. It stopped me from even trying. Not trying something I want could be the biggest mistake I could make. Or, maybe not. What if that was not the right time for me to try? This is an easy escape, I know, basing oneself on the “What’s meant to be, it will happen, and what isn’t, will not” theory. At the same time, it can free me of gut wrenching guilt and self-recriminations. If I stay pinned in place thinking of lost opportunities, I only add to the pile of negative things I already believe about myself. What if I trust not only myself, but also the universe, to give me what I need, when I need it? It is, again, a renouncing of control, frightening and overwhelming. Everything happens for a reason, though, if I am quiet enough to observe, listen and learn. So, I know I could be a thousand, a gazillion times better. Always. What if, instead, I consider myself being the best I can be at that certain moment? An easy escape again? Maybe. But wouldn’t it be nice to accept and enjoy my present reality, instead of conducting a never-ending wild goose chase for how I should be? People say this is how you grow, though. Or is it how I drive myself into an early grave, discontent and hating myself because I will never be everything I compare myself to? I think in the end it is all about personal decision. I either choose to feel good about myself, or not. And trust me, we are built with thousands of mechanisms to make us feel bad about ourselves. I wonder why there aren’t so many internal mechanisms to make us feel good about ourselves? Guilt free. I challenge you: find one thing you love about yourself right now. Cherish it. Give yourself a drop of acceptance. Send the negative voices inside you shopping, or to get a massage and just chill themselves for a while. Take a deep breath, and enjoy yourself in silence. I was struck yesterday by an unexpected connection between pepper chocolate and the relation with the divinity. Automatic thought, as a properly educated Christian Orthodox, was: BLASPHEMY! But nevertheless, thinking about it brought me a thrill of buoyant joy. And I wanted to explore why this happened, because it sparkled as important.
We were discussing astrology, and it came up that some people have a closer relationship with the divine than others. Words tumbled among intrinsic vs. extrinsic faith, thinking It vs. feeling It. Then, the discussion took a turn towards loving pepper chocolate vs. not giving it the time of day. Because deep down I was sure that anyone, given a specific context and mood, would enjoy something they previously considered unsavory. My point is: my thought patterns were leading me to believe that people are the same, and not only that, but similar with me. Because we see the world as reflected through our own glasses, first and foremost. Sometimes it might seem inconceivable to grasp the fact that people don’t think, or feel, or prefer the same things as us. I guess this is one of the main causes of conflict. “How do you dare to be different from me?” On the tails of this comes “What if what I think, like, prefer, etc. – is wrong? I can’t have that.” Well, sometimes, at least statistically speaking, it might be wrong, no matter how sad for us that may be. But what if, again, only statistically speaking, both ways were right? What if all different ways of thinking, acting, feeling, are right, even if diametrically opposed? Of course, I still hold on to the line of “As long as it doesn’t hurt others”, but there are philosophies out there talking about “the greater good”, “tough love”, “growing through pain”, so this boundary of mine is also relative. I believe eating chocolate brings us closer to some form of divinity. The velvety smoothness highlighted by the thrill of the hot pepper, your taste buds exploding, your nervous synapses firing up… After all, everything holds some of the essence of the divinity. Including us. So, considering that also everything is connected, merging two forms of the divine can only generate a new representation of it. Right? Not for all people, though. Yesterday I came closer to accepting that people might achieve their happiness in a different way than I do. It doesn’t really matter the amount of hot pepper they like in their chocolate, or if they believe in what I do or not. When I write it, it sounds so simple and logical. People are unique. But deep down, this has been a struggle for me for a long time, because I like controlling people and events in the direction I want them. So, accepting the others’ right to being different, means for me to give up some of this control, take a deep breath, and focus more on my own path to happiness. Conclusions of the day:
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AuthorAndreea Lupan is an HR consultant and the representative of Reframe Attitude. With 10 years as HR Manager in the multinational pharma industry, 6 in HR consulting and recruitment, a psychology diploma which does not allow her – as of yet – to read minds, she offers HR as a service, recruitment and career counselling to clients and candidates from various industries. Archives
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