According to recent data, 50% of business losses are from burnout. Everyone has heard of professional burnout, but not everyone realizes the seriousness of this condition. This condition has not yet been defined as a medical diagnosis, and burnout has been talked about since the 1980s, the term was introduced by American psychiatrist Herbert Freudenberger, as he described a condition that occurs due to a high form of stress and problems in interpersonal communication. Defined as emotional and physical exhaustion, the condition arises for several reasons, one of which is stress at work, when a person is not appreciated and there is no feedback on the results of the work they have done, when they feel underappreciated and there are conflicts, problems in communication in the team, in the atmosphere at work, when there are unclear goals and objectives, unfair, unethical and unfair relationships.
High stress at work intensifies symptoms, leads to frustration and to exhaustion. People become demotivated and frustrated because the expectations they had do not match what is happening to them. The symptoms of this condition are self-blame, finding fault in oneself, in one’s own capabilities at such times, one begins to believe that one cannot cope, one’s self-esteem changes, one becomes passive, indifferent, apathetic, feels tired, mentally unstable, immunity lowers and often peoplebecome physically ill as well. Emotional-behavioural problems often appear, associated with irritability, aggressiveness, feelings of failure and hopelessness, strong guilt, loss of empathy, often a person in such a situation does not accept the opinion of others and takes a defensive position towards others.
Stress, in fact, is useful because a person will not live a quality life if there is no stress in life. Problems occur when stress exceeds some limits, then it becomes harmful. Most often this condition is observed in risky professions and mainly in those involving active communication with people – in the field of education, medicine, police, politics, journalism, sales but practically burnout can be unlocked in the practice of any profession.
The truth is that burnout inflicts the most damage on employers, but they often underestimate it. There is legislation relating to the safety of working conditions, which states that the employer is obliged to create physical, organisational and psychological conditions for work, however the latter is not explored in Bulgaria and the social-psychological risks in the workplace are even more significant than the physical hazards.
There are numerous studies that prove that about 50 percent of lost work days are due to stress. For employers, this equates to around £80 million in losses in 2016, with the state paying £446 million in sick pay, and very often absence from work for psychological reasons lasts significantly longer. However, these are only the measurable facts that we can track. And what aboutthe indirect losses – does anyone realize that these people have impaired attention, which leads to making mistakes, lack of focus at work, less productivity and concern for the quality of products, services, relationships, and those could negatively impact the image of the enterprise. This is a condition that often goes unrecognized, a person in a state of burnout is like in a vicious circle from which it is very difficult to get out without working with a psychologist. Statistics show that around 30 per cent of leavers indicate that they fall into such a state, which is also characteristic of work accidents – around 30 per cent of them are related to a state of stress and tension. It is very important to note that 40 per cent of these people are experienced, with good self-confidence, but this burnout reduces their attention to precision and distracts them from their responsibilities.
Currently the companies that pay attention to this particularly big problem are only 6 percent in Bulgaria and they are mostly international ones. It is no secret that there is the labour market in the country is challenging and if a qualified and talented person leaves, the employer ultimately suffers huge losses, so it is important to retain quality people. And the victims of burnout are usually employees, who are well motivated and committed to the organization, but do not get adequate feedback and become disillusioned.
The necessary steps to address this problem are strategies that are workable and fast-acting that can help staff cope with stressful situations. Several steps need to be given special attention and they are arranged in the following order:
1. Assess the factors that underlie high levels of stress. These are usually factors related to the organisation of work, the way in which contributions are valued, recognised, communication within the organisation, interpersonal relationships, the management style of line managers and supervisors.
2. Find coping strategies to minimize the factors. Frequentconversations with employees about their expectations, emotions. Informing employees, training direct supervisors to recognize these symptoms and manage people’s behavior and communicate with proper style. This is a trend that shifts the focus from the organization as a whole to the individual – so-called experience management. Apart from the monetary reward, the employee wants to feel important, capable, have a say, be part of a team.
3. Training for all, employees and employers in emotional intelligence.
It should be borne in mind that burnout is not a disease, but a persistent state of mind and psyche, which is mostly expressed in a disconnection between the person’s emotions and values intheir private and working environments. Burnout lies between health and illness, and if one enters the last stage of its development, only a small step remains to mental illness. Therefore, at the end of the last century burnout was introduced as a diagnosis in Sweden, the Netherlands and other countries. The introduction of burnout in the qualification of diseases in these countries enables those affected to benefit from financial mechanisms for compensation, counselling, psychotherapeutic treatment, rehabilitation. In some cases in the final stage of burnout the assistance of experienced physicians and therapistscan prove to be unhelpful.
Mental health is about harmony and balance. In this case we are talking about harmony and balance between work and personal life, between opportunities and ambitions, between personal suitability and demands, giving and receiving, exertion and recovery, enthusiasm and recognition, idealism and realism.
We need to value the health of our employees and not hold them hostage to workaholism, perfectionism and the drive for achievement. Work itself is not a burden, the burden comes from wrong beliefs, distressing feelings, thoughts and moods, wrong attitudes, expectations and claims about work. We must learn to say no to ambitions, demands and claims that limit our personal time. We need to reflect on our priorities, because if work takes over at the expense of our health, burnout will play a bad joke on us – it will deprive us of the opportunity to enjoy our achievements, of meaning and desire for life. Naturally, employers’ measures to prevent stress in the work environment are also important. But each of us needs to review our own approaches to dealing with tension and stress at work and think about the way we perceive and respond to irritants. Stress is not what has happened to us, but how we have perceived what has happened.
Petya Stoycheva Kirivicki is a Clinical Psychologist and Master in Counselling Psychology, with practice in the town of. She has over 20 years of experience. In her practice, she uses psychotherapeutic techniques integrated in a method of work that unites a set of several specific techniques in a single, specialized approach to the person. He performs psychological consultations with the presentation of actual problems and the disclosure of possibilities for working on them, as well as psychodiagnostic assessment. Performs individual and family counseling, sports psychotherapy. Author and creator of “Anima”-the first of its kind, mobile application
