The pursuit of career advancement and prosperity contributes not only to professional stress, but also to “emotional burnout” of employees . Those who communicate closely with other people are especially susceptible to the increasingly fashionable scourge in Russia. Negative emotions, without receiving a “release,” accumulate inside a person . Chronic stress without relief from negativity consumes energy and personal resources. The flames of the disease, already common in the West, spare neither experienced professionals nor young ambitious specialists.
What is professional burnout?
Professional burnout is a very precise term and a chic image. Remember what you were like when you started working. They flew there as if on a holiday, generated new ideas, infected the employees with their optimism, and were on fire themselves. What now? It’s like a scorched desert inside: you don’t need anything, you don’t want anything. It’s as if you’ve burned out to the ground - it’s time, like the Phoenix bird, to be reborn from the ashes.
Definition of the term
What are the dangers of overzealousness in the workplace?
Diagnosis of professional burnout most often reveals the following manifestations:
• unreasonable irritability and touchiness, sad feeling and hopelessness; • tearfulness, depressive symptoms; • negative thoughts and experiences are actively exaggerated, which do not leave you alone either day or night; • migraine attacks, frequent gastrointestinal disorders; • nightmares, restless sleep or insomnia; • complete loss of strength and a feeling of persistent fatigue, which can be felt even after a long sleep; • emotional scarcity; • noticeable change in weight (weight loss or excessive obesity); • indifferent attitude to changes in the external environment (no proper reactions to a novelty, dangerous situation); • a feeling of general weakness, reflected at the biochemical level in the body; • professional burnout causes a drowsy, lethargic state; • emotional and physical stress causes respiratory dysfunction; • unreasonable outbursts of anger; • increased anxiety.
All of the above cannot be ignored, because it threatens with irreversible consequences.
Why do we burn out?
Too much work
In our age of workaholics, the number of precedents for professional burnout has increased. It’s logical: the more you work, the less you rest - and this is fraught with stress . The poem about a workaholic (“work makes horses die, but I’m an immortal pony”) is not at all so harmless and funny. Sooner or later, a person will hate the source of constant stress and just want to relax. It’s stupid to get enough sleep and take a full vacation. It would be good if he could then return to work as if nothing had happened. If not, well, you start to burn out.
Too close to my heart
The more you work, the stronger your roots grow in your work, the more acutely you react to mistakes and failures. Work becomes a part of the personality, sometimes closer than family and personal interests. Just as in human relationships there is only one step from love to hate, so it is here. If you take professional matters too seriously, one day the pendulum will swing in the other direction - you will hate this job as a once close person. After all, in your opinion, she only causes you pain.
Working too long
Let's take a break from the psychological aspects and give a simple and understandable reason: work time. It's not for nothing that psychologists and HR experts recommend changing your field of activity every five years . If you work in one place all your life, you will stagnate like a horse in a stall and want to break free. When for some reason you can’t do this, hello, burnout. You will become bored and uncomfortable, you will feel out of place.
Example of an operating mode sign
Experiencing an identity crisis
Most often, mature adults are faced with a midlife crisis. And everything seems to be fine: the business is running like clockwork, the house is full, apartments, cars, and the Maldives are available, but... something is missing. A person begins to think about the eternal, about the meaning of life. If the business gives you moral satisfaction, if you like the field of activity, maybe it will work out. If this is just a way to make money, there is a high probability that you will want to change your niche and do something for your soul.
Signs of professional burnout
Burnout is such an insidious thing that it affects all areas of human activity. This is a depletion of emotions, mind, health - in many ways it is similar to depression.
You become indifferent
First of all, burnout affects the emotional sphere. “He who has loved cannot love. You can’t set fire to someone who is burned,” wrote Sergei Yesenin. Apathy, indifference to what once attracted and pleased - these are the first bells. You can try to motivate yourself - at first it works, then the motivation disappears. Then, if you do not pay attention to this, interest is lost not only in work, but also in ordinary life.
Colleagues and clients annoy you
What you once loved now begins to devalue. The field of activity seems wrong - oh, if only you had chosen another one! Nice employees seem dumb and unprofessional. The partners, as one, look like a wolf and strive to deceive. Customers are simply pissed off - it seems that all the inadequate people have decided to take your online store by storm. Sometimes you feel real anger towards them, sometimes you lose your temper and go into direct conflict. The time is not far off when they will refuse to work with you. But you will find them to blame for this - “bad” partners and employees.
You know you don't know anything
Actually this is normal. Socrates also said: “the more I know, the more I do not know.” Only a fool considers himself an unsurpassed professional and does not want to develop - an intelligent person will always strive for perfection. And you used to strive, but now you don’t want to. And in general you feel like an amateur and a fool - your competitors are much smarter and more pumped up. So why learn something new - it won’t get any better! It won't lead to anything good anyway.
You're not doing a good job
Even if you are a big boss, you still perform certain responsibilities. You are engaged in management, regulate business processes, meet with partners, make significant decisions. How long have you been doing this? If you notice that you are increasingly avoiding these matters or shifting everything to your deputy and employees, this is a bad thing. No one will do this except you.
You are constantly under stress
While you are at work, you feel like a tense string. Considering that modern entrepreneurs are always working - even when they are resting, you are constantly on edge. On vacation or on weekends, this condition goes away a little. But if you imagine that tomorrow/in a few hours you will have to work again - you feel so sick, you could climb the wall. Neuroses and depression gradually develop - its clinical picture, by the way, is similar to professional burnout. This is the same apathy, indifference, lack of emotions and other signs. Think about it.
Symptoms of depression
Health problems appear
Hello, psychosomatics! When psychological problems affect health, this is already a very alarming symptom. Psychosomatics works simply: when you think about work, your head starts to hurt. Or belly. I knew a man who, on the eve of Monday, naturally began to feel sick.
If the problem is not solved, the disease may become chronic. You start taking pills - although it is not the body that needs to be treated, but primarily the head and attitude to work. And how to treat it is not very clear; each case of burnout is individual.
Remember
- WHO has included professional burnout in the catalog of the International Classification of Diseases. However, the organization’s experts specifically stipulate that burnout is a professional phenomenon and should not be used to describe experience in other areas of life.
- The problem of professional burnout became especially acute during the crisis and forced self-isolation.
- To identify the signs of burnout, study the symptoms, which fall into four categories: behavioral, emotional, cognitive and physical.
- To combat this phenomenon in the work environment, remember the problems of colleagues and subordinates, devote time to your health and well-being, and practice relaxation techniques.
Based on materials from Psychology Today Ivan Ilyin Editor-in-Chief of the Russian School of Management
Who is at risk?
The following are most susceptible to professional burnout:
- Those who communicate a lot. If your job requires you to communicate with employees, partners, suppliers, or clients, be careful. You shouldn’t let absolutely everything pass through yourself; be reasonably detached.
- Those whose business is unstable. Economic and political crises can hit some businesses like a rollercoaster. If you are constantly concerned about how to survive in this crazy world, not go bankrupt and make at least a little profit, you will not work for long in such stressful conditions.
- Those who are prone to excessive self-criticism and introspection. Sometimes you need healthy indifference: if it doesn’t work out, you give up, move on, and move on with your life. If you blame yourself for all your problems, you are not far from depression.
- Those who started a new business. It would seem that there is no point in getting burned out: it’s a new thing, know how to improve and develop. But a new business is fraught with a huge number of new difficulties and problems that need to be solved immediately, right now. Many people, instead of grit their teeth and comprehend the basics, fold their paws and give up what they started.
Types of professional burnout
Symptoms of the syndrome in organizations
Very often, entire organizations suffer from burnout due to mistakes made by their management team. Most employees experience emotional exhaustion, depersonalization of workers occurs, a pessimistic mood reigns in the team, and lack of initiative is observed. The reasons for this state of affairs are: • uncoordinated actions of management, which cause disagreements in tactical and strategic plans; • empowerment of employees who do not enjoy respect and authority in the team; • there is no clear system of incentives and motivation for personnel, or it is ineffective; • the functional responsibilities of employees are not formulated; often neither the employee nor the manager understands what the responsibilities of an individual person are. • work is assessed biasedly.
The ineffective work of one employee can negatively affect the entire team. Thus, the professional burnout of a teacher will eventually affect the children, then problems with their parents will come, and then the entire work team will begin to feel feverish.
The following points can be a unique indicator of professional burnout in an organization: 1. High staff turnover. 2. Unbearable working conditions are created for young employees; they are forced to quit without working even a year. 3. Frequent smoking breaks and tea drinking with reduced work motivation. 4. Increased conflict among personnel caused by a difficult atmosphere in the work team. 5. Professional insolvency of personnel, expressed depending on the management team. Increased dissatisfaction with the actions of managers, as well as the helplessness of employees who depend even in small things on the opinion of the manager.
Stages of professional burnout
1. Minor errors in work. You seem to forget simple actions that you previously knew by heart. You may make a mistake in drawing up a standard contract, forget the date of important business negotiations, order one product instead of another... This is the first stage, which is often confused with simple overwork. A person can laugh at himself or be surprised: they say it’s me. In fact, this is the first alarming symptom. It can occur within 3-5 years from the start of work.
2. Decreased interest. You don’t want to communicate, generate new ideas—you don’t want to go to work at all. Instead of solving management problems, you sit in your office and play shooting games. You already understand that something is wrong with you, but you don’t want to change anything. You abstract from the company's problems and put everything on the employees: let them handle it. If they don’t cope, so be it.
This stage occurs on average 5-15 years after starting a business. At this stage, psychosomatic manifestations are possible: you develop diseases that you have never heard of before. Maybe it's just age - or maybe not. It’s as if the brain is giving the body a signal: stop, have pity on me, I can’t do this anymore!
3. If you do nothing, stage 3 will occur. Emotions have already burned out - personality destruction sets in. From an ordinary person - lively, cheerful, albeit with cockroaches in your head - you turn into an apathetic creature who has lost interest in life in general. Nothing makes you happy, nothing motivates you - it’s time to climb into a noose. Yes, yes, at this stage (15-20 years of work), if things are really bad, a person may have thoughts of suicide, worthlessness and uselessness of himself and his business. “Why all this, why do I live?” - these are the characteristic thoughts of a burnt-out person.
Stages of professional burnout
By the way, professional burnout can “eat up” not only the manager and employee, but also the company as a whole. If the boss is burned out, the employees feel it and involuntarily become imbued with the general mood. And now the same zombies with empty eyes are already walking around the office, dreaming of only one thing: to quickly hold out this strap until the evening and run home. Who would like to deal with such people? Clients and partners love those who have a sparkling eye, who support their proposals and offer something themselves. In addition, conflicts begin within the team, dissatisfaction with each other grows - and now the once cohesive team is falling apart before our eyes.
In order not to reach the third stage, it is better to track the signs that have begun in time and take action . We found signs of the first stage - run to change the situation. We'll tell you what you can do.
Advice to the manager
• The employee must feel needed at the workplace. • Remove total control on the part of the manager, which interferes with professional growth, initiative and independence in the workplace. • Remove competition between employees, which causes discord in the team and lack of coordination in actions. Without such discomfort, work will be more productive. • Clearly formulate job descriptions and define the range of functional responsibilities. • Objectively evaluate the contribution of each employee to the common cause. • Have a stress-relieving room (with sports equipment or music for relaxation). • The policy of “divide and conquer” should be replaced by “unite and conquer”. In a team with a favorable climate, labor productivity is always higher than in an unfriendly and tense one.
How to be reborn from the ashes?
- Realize and accept the situation. You're not the first person this has happened to - well, it happens. Now the main thing is to get rid of the destructive: do not feel sorry for yourself, do not cry (“Boss, everything is gone!”) but decide what to do next.
- If burnout is just beginning and you don’t want to radically change your activities, try to find new facets in your usual work . Sign up for professional training, find a coach you trust. Expand the range of your online store, attract an additional target audience, find new partners - and life will become better, life will become more interesting! If finances allow, think about how you can scale your business.
- If burnout occurs in your area of activity, it’s time to change something. Study the market, think about what business niches you are interested in, in which of them you have reliable partners and possible allies. What did you have your eye on before, but for some reason didn’t implement the idea? Where are you drawn, what is your soul, in the end? It is not at all necessary to sell your previous business - you can give it to a manager or deputy, and immerse yourself in a new project.
- Go to a psychologist. Well, seriously: if professional burnout has affected your personality and character, you have become irritable, lost interest in life - this cannot continue. Run to a specialist and get ready to work together for a long time. There is nothing wrong with visiting a psychologist - you will be able to understand yourself better and determine the main vector of further development.
Of course, it’s better not to go to the last resort. Pay attention to alarming symptoms and try to change the situation. I think if the Phoenix bird had a choice and a little more instinct of self-preservation, it would not burn itself and then be reborn from the ashes.
