mental health

burnout

Are you suffering from Burnout?

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Burnout is a real thing and can happen to anyone. Does the thought of going to work on Monday morning leave you already feeling exhausted and frazzled by Sunday at noon? Does your 8 hour workday feel like you’ve been battling in the trenches for 8 days straight? Are you finding it hard to get motivated once you are actually at work?

You might shrug it off as just going through a rough patch or a busy time – but you could be suffering from burnout! Burnout can manifest itself differently for different people, so there isn’t one centralized definition. However, in May 2019, the World Health Organization updated and added more detail to their entry on burnout. Previously defined only as a “state of vital exhaustion,” it’s now classified as a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

It’s important to note that burnout is specifically work-related and is characterized by:

  • A sense of exhaustion or depletion
  • Mental distance from or negativity or cynicism about work
  • Decreased effectiveness at work

If you’ve ever heard the saying you can’t pour from an empty cup – that’s a great analogy for burnout – you have nothing left in the cup or proverbial gas tank to accomplish anything.

So we have the definition, but what are the actual signs of burnout?

  • You aren’t excited about work anymore. Projects that you used to get excited, energized about, or make you feel fulfilled seem boring or a chore. You aren’t getting satisfaction from your work.
  • You are going through the motions. You have stopped putting in any effort or caring. You are doing the bare minimum to get by.
  • Your performance is going downhill. You are making errors you wouldn’t normally make or are missing deadlines that used to be easy to meet. You just want to get the task done; you don’t care if it’s done to your usual standards.
  • You are exhausted – all the time. You feel physically and emotionally depleted and drained. Even getting out of bed to go to work is a challenge.
  • You start having physical ailments. The symptoms can be different for everyone, but can include insomnia, chest pain, headaches, getting sick more often, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, and even GI issues.

What to do if you are suffering from burnout.

Once you’ve come to the realization that you are suffering from burnout, what do you do? The simplest and easiest step is to take some time off, but that alone won’t solve the issue – it just gives you a little breathing room. Most often you’ll need to make a more significant change like changing your attitude or changing your workload or work situation.

Often times you can recognize negative habits and thought patterns and work to stop them when they happen. If you associate with being a perfectionist, you are more likely to suffer from burnout.

Changing your work situation can have a few different options. The easiest might be adjusting your workload. If you have too much on your place, burnout can happen. Talk to your boss to see if you can lighten your load. If it’s the job or company itself, it might be time for a change. Moving to a different department and doing something different for the same company could make a big difference. Otherwise, it might be time to look for a new job elsewhere.

Burnout is hard to recognize, and it doesn’t go away on its own. Identifying and then addressing burnout requires some conscious thought and effort and the only one who can ultimately fix it is you.

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The Power of Flexible Work Schedules

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At the Red Barn, we have a standard 8-4 schedule, but we still consider it a flexible work schedule – meaning Jenn and I will typically log in to Skype around 8 am EST to connect and Jenn usually checks out around 4 pm to head to the gym but that’s about as structured as we get.

I learned early on in my career that my most productive and creative time is before the sun comes up.  (I’m writing this before 5 am)  I also know that by 2 pm on most days my brain is done for the day – mainly because I’m up at 4 and I’ve put in a good 8 hour day.  I try my best not to schedule meetings in the afternoon – but that doesn’t always happen because like any business I have customers and it’s important that I meet them where they need to be!

I know the productive times of my team and I let them work when they are in the zone and I surely don’t push them to do work when I know it will be a struggle – unless we are in an all hands on deck situation for a client.  PS – we try to avoid those moments but it happens!

Knowing your team is critical.  Knowing when they are productive is key if you want to run an efficient and effective ship.  This also includes watching for the “I need a mental health day” cues.  Everyone has a bad day or even a day when you just “can’t” for whatever reason – I just hone in on those cues and give my team the option to go home, quit early or run away from life for a few hours if that’s what they need to do.

In the end, I focus on getting GOOD work out the door – I really don’t care when that work gets done. I do care HOW it turns out.  I don’t care if someone wants to not work on Monday and would prefer to work on Sunday – I just need to know ahead of time.  I also don’t really care about the number of PTO days taken – in fact, I usually have to remind team members to take their vacation time.  Because I don’t hang PTO over their head and I only track it because I have to for HR reasons – the PTO time never gets abused.  Well, at least it hasn’t up to this point.

The flexible work schedule doesn’t work for every employee or for every business – but if you are open to trying it and seriously letting go of the corporate structure mindset – you just might be amazed at the results. Need an example – look at Microsoft – they had a 40% productivity boost when they switched to a 4 day work week.

Happy Employees = Happy Clients = Increased Revenues

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Calling in Sick – When is enough, enough?

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You get the flu, sprain an ankle, or have a sick child – these all fall under reasons you’d probably call out of work and take a sick day, right? But what happens when Susan calls out of work every other week because she has a hang nail, she has a flat tire – AGAIN, or she has a sniffle? According to CareerBuilder, about 38% of employees have called in sick when they felt perfectly fine. So, what can you do to curb employee sick day abuse? We’ve got a few suggestions.

  •  Create a combined PTO policy. Merging sick and vacation time under one Paid Time Off (PTO) umbrella may not seem like it will make a difference, but when constant sick time abusers realize that their excessive call outs may affect their actual vacation days – they may think twice about blowing through all their time by March.
  • Track the abuse. Is the employee calling out the same day of the week each time, or the same days of the month? If you notice a pattern, it could be traced to a sport schedule or perhaps their child’s school schedule.
  • Is it a medical or disability issue? An employee may have an issue at home that they don’t want to disclose, or an illness that requires a lot of doctor appointments or days when they aren’t capable of working. You’ll want to investigate whether it may be an American with Disabilities Act issue or an FMLA issue and you just aren’t aware.
  • Create a call out policy that requires speaking to someone. Employees are much less likely to call out if they must speak to their boss on the phone vs. leaving a voicemail, email, or text.
  • Talk to the employee! This ones seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how nonconfrontational some managers may be. Open the lines of communication and see if you can find out the root cause behind the behavior[/cs_text][cs_text]This next part may seem counterintuitive, BUT we think it’s pretty darn important at the Red Barn. Don’t discourage employees from taking mental health days if they really need them. Many employees struggle with work life balance and that stress can get overwhelming at times. If employees are starting to get burnt out – encourage them to take a day mental health day. Trust me – everyone will benefit from it, AND it will help prevent employee turnover. I’m not saying it’s OK to take one every week, but if they are working on a particularly tough project or account, taking one day a month won’t kill any.
    Curious what some of the most popular and ridiculous reasons people call out of work? Check out this list – there are a few good ones! CLICK HERE

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