Burnout
Terence Sheehan, BA, CCEMTP, EMS-I
Introduction
• Most of us spend our waking hours working.
• Burnout undoes our ability to pursue a happy,
healthy, and productive professional life.
• Burnout is a threat to our overall well-being.
Introduction
• Burnout often begins with pure exhaustion
• Since you are worn out, you invest less in your
job
• Accomplishing fewer things and feeling less
effective, you begin to feel cynical about your
role
Introduction
• This set of emotions:
– Exhaustion
– Feelings of inefficacy
– Cynicism
• Feed off of each other,
deepening burnout
Burnout
The Truths About Burnout
• Burnout is not about personal failing
• Those suffering from burnout do not lack:
– Work ethic
– Resilience
– Self confidence
• Burnout is an erosion of these qualities
The Truths About Burnout
• The leading causes of burnout are:
– Poor job design
• The structure of the workday
– Management practices
• The way the leaders lead
• Problems with one or both of these will
ultimately fail to bring out the best in people
• Burnout causes you to pull away and sap your
enthusiasm for your job leaving you alienated
The Rise of Burnout
• The term gained popularity in the 1970’s
• Herbert Freudeneberger researched young
professionals working in health care and/or
social work
• These workers felt “overextended”
• This led to feelings of discouragement because
they did have the resources to do their jobs
well
The Rise of Burnout
• The most familiar reason for burnout is
exhaustion without sufficient rest
– However, this alone does not cause burnout, nor
is it the only route
• Research supports that exhaustion, cynicism,
and inefficacy are the components of burnout
The Rise of Burnout
• Experiencing any one of these is a risk factor
• Workplace qualities can conspire to produce
the other two components, pushing a person
to burnout
• Ultimately, burnout is due to a mismatch
between the person and the job
The Rise of Burnout
• Examples include:
– Lack of resources to do the job
– Tasks that clash with your values
• Health care professionals often cite the
undermining of their professional ideals due
to understaffing and oversized workloads
The Rise of Burnout
• Another type of mismatch stems from lack of
control.
• Allowing people to make decisions about how
they spend their day is vital to a healthy work
arrangement
• A sense of control can be easily eroded
• Examples include:
– Managers setting unrealistic expectations
– Poor communication
The Rise of Burnout
• When people feel they lack control over their
own work, they are particularly prone to
cynicism and feelings of inefficacy
• Failure of bosses to express appreciation
contributes to inefficacy
• Negative interactions between supervisors
drives a person towards burnout
Early Warning Signs
• The emotional distress can last for years
• Perceived favoritism, cheating, and/or other
inequities lead to burnout
• Those that feel like the workplace was fair and
just, tilted back towards engagement
– Engagement is defined as enjoying your work
Early Warning Signs
• Employees who reported feeling cynical but
remained energetic and efficient were more
likely to reengage if they felt to organization
communicated well with them
• Those who did not feel this way slipped into
exhaustion and burnout
• The context and culture of the workplace play
a major role in burnout
Early Warning Signs
• The symptoms should be taken seriously
• Data gathered from study participants’ purchase
of antidepressants from 2000-2008, show those
experiencing burnout were more likely that
others to use these drugs in the subsequent
decade
• If you are feeling ineffective, cynical, or are
exhausted, take a careful look at the
characteristic of your job.
– It might be time to take some preventative action
The Social Solution
• Burnout depends heavily on the specific
relationship between the person and the job
• Improving the quality of the workplace
relationships may be one general way to
intervene
• Social exchanges between colleagues play a
role in many facets of burnout.
The Social Solution
• First, your coworkers have the skills,
information, materials, and influence needed
to get things done.
• As you might expect, people share more
readily with individuals they admire and trust.
• Conversely, hostile workplaces wear away at a
person’s ability to focus on his/her work.
C.R.E.W.
• An intervention in use at the Veteran’s Health
Administration
• It is a method intended to strengthen the
sense of community within the workplace
• CREW stands for:
– Civility
– Respect
– Engagement
– Workplace
C.R.E.W.
• Employees were divided into groups of 10-15
people from the same unit. One person agreed to
be the head facilitator
• Each group had its own source of tension, a
collection of activities was provide for the groups
to choose from rather than following a single
script.
• Each participant was surveyed about their
feelings of civility in their unit, as well as their
own conduct to compare to after the course was
over.
C.R.E.W.
• Over six months the group met once a week.
• The meetings gave employees an opportunity to
work through strained relationships
– They practiced more productive ways of defusing
emotions.
• During the rest of the week, the employees were
encouraged to log any random acts of kindness
they observed
– The results showed that increasing workplace civility
decreases burnout.
Finding Engagement
• Employees must shoulder the burden of
maintaining a sustainable work environment
– The “company of one” perspective encourages
individuals to think of themselves as independent
contractors even when they are in an employment
situation.
• The employees primary focus should remain on
preparing themselves for the next career
opportunity that may arise
– Doing so will require establishing work habits that
depart from an employers vision.
Finding Engagement
• In other words, thriving in today's work world,
where cost cutting is a prime objective and
employees are stretched too thin, requires
serious self management.
– That is, stick to a routine even when pressured to
do otherwise.
• Because burnout is a relationship issue, the
employee has some, but not total, control
over the situation
Finding Engagement
• The following suggestions
are basic strategies to
improve your end of the
working relationship .
– They are also good life
strategies as well.
• Fitness is first.
– A healthy lifestyle increases
your resilience.
– A combination of sufficient
exercise, nutrition, and sleep
will reduce your exposure to
exhaustion.
– The job may not change but
your endurance will increase
Finding Engagement
• Incorporate small amounts
of exercise and into your
workday.
– Get off you a*s!
– Set an alarm and move
around every 30 minutes
– Recruit friends to share a
burnout reduction activity
(walking at lunch)
– The mutual support can be
powerful.
• Improving the quality of the
day-to-day exchanges
between colleagues reduces
burnout
Finding Engagement
• Integrate recovery cycles
into your lifestyle.
– Demanding work depletes
your physical, emotional and
cognitive resources.
– Your personal life should
afford you with the
opportunities to enjoy
relationships, catch up on
sleep, and take time to
reflect.
– To reverse the trend towards
burnout, set up a firm
schedule of recovery
activities. Without it, you will
not set aside the time to
recover.
Finding Engagement
• Consider job crafting.
– This involves identifying
the tedious tasks and the
fulfilling ones.
– Develop a plan to spend
more of your day on the
fulfilling activities
• Feeling good vibes from
others is good, but so is
expressing them to
others.
– Keep a tally of any random
acts of kindness you see or
do!
References
• Leiter, M.P. and Maslach, C. (2015).
Conquering Burnout. Scientific American
Mind, 30-35.
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