Perhaps the best thing an individual can do to avoid burn-out is to work for an organisation that has a robust Psychosocial Risk Management plan in place to support positive workplace mental health outcomes and protect their workers from chronic stress.
Burn-out is an occupational phenomenon, and it is an organisation’s responsibility to control burn-out risk, as part of a Health and Safety management plan that includes Psychosocial Health and Safety.
Who is responsible for controlling the risk of burn-out?
Responsibility for workplace health and safety does not rest solely with employers. Workers must take reasonable care of their own health and safety, including co-operating with any reasonable health and safety policy or procedures.
But few people take steps toward protecting and supporting their mental health and managing their stress levels because it is a legal requirement as per the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.
We do it because we want to feel good, and we want to avoid negative mental health outcomes. As much as it can sometimes seem like society views working ourselves half to death as a badge of honour, nobody wants to experience burn-out!
Artist credit: The one and only Garfield, by Jim Davis.
How can individuals avoid burn-out?
We’re not talking about developing resilience per se, but rather, what practical steps individuals can take to avoid burnout risk, much like avoiding a wildfire by driving around it instead of straight through the middle (or rather than donning protective gear).
Understand the risk factors
The first step to controlling a hazard is to truly understand what that hazard is - why it arises and what the risk factors are, so that you can recognise warning signs in yourself and in your environment. If you were asked to work with a dangerous chemical, you would want to know exactly how that chemical worked. Do you need gloves? A mask? Is the chemical flammable? etc. Try to consider burnout risk in a similarly methodical way.
Burnout can happen to anyone. The good news is that we can prevent it.
In this blog we will primarily look at what risk factors to look out for at the recruitment (or promotion / department change) stage. In our next blog, we will look at what to do if you realise you are already in a risky environment. For expanded info on what burnout is and the difference between burnout and stress, see our previous blogs here and here.
Environmental Risk Factors (and how to avoid them)
According to burn-out expert and Psychology Professor, Dr. Christina Maslach, there are 6 key risk factors that can increase the likelihood of an individual experiencing burnout at work.
Note that Dr. Maslach identifies the following risks as mismatches between the worker and the environment. When identifying workload as a risk, for example, it’s the dose that makes the poison, and the dose varies on the individual. What is overwhelmingly hectic for one person might be manageable for another.
In each mismatch, the greater the mismatch between the job and the person, the greater the risk of burnout and the better the match, the greater the levels of engagement.
Therefore, look out for signs that a mismatch is present in you (or your colleagues and/or team, when you are looking out for others).
Making sure you’re the job is the right match for you is important.
Artist credit: Oddball Today
The 6 mismatches
Workload: This could mean too high, too low, or too constant (always busy versus peaks and troughs which give us periods to recover), or too difficult, too easy, or simply that we have been given insufficient training and support.
Workload is often the first burnout risk that we think of but it is not necessarily the greatest risk, and can be mediated with protective factors, such as having a good manager buffering workload or good workload management and/or work control.
Control: Do you feel like you have autonomy at work? Do you have sufficient authority to organise and complete your work efficiently? Do you have the tools to do your job?
Reward: Do you feel adequately rewarded for what you do? Rewards include financial reward and other aspects of our package that we personally find rewarding, such as pension scheme, holidays, bonus, in addition to promotional opportunities, awards, time off granted after project completion, being thanked for our work and so on.
In additional to financial rewards we can also receive social rewards and intrinsic rewards from work.
Community: Do you feel like you belong? Can you be your true self at work? Do you have support systems? Having ‘good community’ at work looks like a positive team environment with low levels of interpersonal conflict, where you can bounce ideas, debrief, and feel comfortable, safe, and able to ‘be who you are’ at work.
Fairness: Do you feel fairly rewarded? Is the workload, compensation and appreciation spread fairly and appropriately?
Maslach found that people tend to be more interested in whether workplace practices are fair rather than individual outcomes - in other words, even if we don’t get the result we want from a dispute, we want to be satisfied that a fair dispute resolution process is available to us. It is important to workers that their leaders are trying to be fair.
Values: Burnout risk increases when your organisation’s ethics don’t match your own, or you need to push aside your personal values to meet your work targets rather than your work being in alignment with your values. For example, a salesperson encouraged to maximise sales with what they see as shoddy practices or a GP forced to speed through appointments in order to maximise the volume of patients seen rather than focusing on patient care.
Research shows us that levels of burnout tend to be highest in caring professions. Part of the reason for that could be that a worker’s values - wanting to put patients, clients, or a charitable cause first - can clash over time with caring systems that are exhausted, underfunded and underappreciated.
Assessing burnout risk at the recruitment stage
Organisations can go a long way toward reducing the risk of burnout by recruiting people who are a good match for the job at hand.
Similarly, workers can control their burnout risk not only by seeking out supportive organisations who proactively manage Psychosocial Risk, but by ensuring they are a good match for the job.
Of course, this isn’t always possible.
With many industries short of skilled workers, organisations may not have a huge choice when they are recruiting. Skilled recruiters are difficult to find and recruitment procedures are expensive (recruiting the wrong person and losing an individual to chronic stress level is also extremely expensive!)
On the worker side, it can be near-on impossible to get a real understanding of the job and organisation on offer. Everybody in an interview situation is putting their rosiest side in view, and if our main concern is paying our bills or finding the right next step, on paper, in our career journey then considering burnout risk may feel like a luxury we can’t afford.
Image credit: Nathan W Pyle
But burnout is expensive, and horrible for the person suffering and their loved ones. With the potential outcomes including extended periods off work, cynicism and exhaustion, avoiding burnout should at least be on our list of things to consider when considering new opportunities (including promotion or moving department).
Culture around work is changing. Understanding of workplace mental health is increasing although we have a long way to go. Workers (in many, but sadly not all) industries have more power than they have ever had before. Use it.
Red-flags to look out for
If you recognise some of these questions in your own interview practice as the interviewer, reflect on what these questions say about burnout risks and controls and if measures can be put in place to mediate the risk.
“We work hard and play hard” (we work long hours and use potentially unhelpful coping mechanisms to deal with stress)
“We need someone to hit the ground running” (we can’t offer adequate training)
“How do you juggle conflicting priorities?” (multiple teams will want different things from you)
“Tell me about a time when you have managed conflict in the workplace” (there may be conflict in this workplace)
“Salary will be discussed at a later stage” (questionable rewards and a lack of openness)
“How flexible can you be?” (we will drop a turd on you at 5pm on a Friday)
“This isn’t a 9-5 job” (we want you to be available all of the time)
“We’re like a family here” (that could mean there’s a great community, it could also mean they expect you to have no boundaries)
“There’s a bit of banter” (we tolerate discrimination and microaggressions)
“What resilience techniques do you practice?” (expect high stress levels)
Artist credit: Mark Stivers
Green flags to look out for
Mental health risks and controls are openly discussed at interview. For example, if working in an industry with known mental health risks such as a caring profession, or client-facing role with potential exposure to aggression or trauma, then risks are openly discussed and de-brief policies and support networks are discussed.
Rewards, recognition and benefits are openly discussed. The organisation is not coy about salary or bonus amounts, annual leave available, etc. They anticipate questions about rewards and are not offended by interviewees seeking clarity. Even if policies don’t apply to you right now, check what maternity, paternity, bereavement, serious illness, menopause, and so on, supports they offer. If these are the bare minimum or don’t exist, that could be a red flag (depending on the size and age of the company and the policy in question - a small, new start-up may not be able to offer the same as a large, established organisation, but they may offer more flexibility, autonomy and rewards to fit individuals).
Promotion pathways are clear.
The interviewers ask you what you need to do your job. Flexible work patterns are available for any reason.
The organisation is interested in you outside of work. They support time away from work needed to fulfil caring obligations, hobbies and education.
Mental health supports are provided and discussed as openly as any other policy.
Training is offered and a plan is in place. If they cannot offer full, structured training (for example, in the instance a handover period is not possible), then they are open about what support will be offered and they are seeking someone who is already experienced and capable of matching the challenge rather than throwing a new person in the deep end and hoping they manage to swim.
Community is available - for example, in larger organisations, you can join groups that match your interests and/or identity. Diversity is important to them and they understand why it matters (not just a legislative requirement).
Boundaries are respected - they discourage checking work emails, phone calls etc outside working hours. They respect your time and energy during the recruitment process (not keeping you waiting, frequently re-scheduling or expecting you to do unpaid work or assignments as part of the interview).
They encourage well-being practices such as having green spaces available, encouraging lunch away from the desk.
I tried to find a comic about people loving their jobs but it turns out it’s not a popular topic for satire.
Artist credit: Off in Outer White Space
Being alert to our environmental risks can help us to avoid burnout by choosing to work in an environment where burnout risks are better controlled and positive mental health outcomes are more likely.
But what can we do if we are working in an environment where burnout controls are not in place and our risk is higher? Or, if we have our mind and heart set on a career where we know burnout is a risk. What can individuals do to correct the mismatch scales?
Keep following for our next blog on how individuals can manage burnout risk in a high risk environment.
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