Burnout & Resilience Insights: A Conversation Between Workplace Psychologists (Part 2 of 3)

Editor's Note: This discussion was moderated by Mariko Harman. It has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Part 2: Burnout prevention is the best policy.

Dr. Powell: In part one of our series, we talked about dealing with burnout. But what about preventing it? I start by helping people look at all aspects of their lives so they can pick a place to start. For example, in part one of our series, we suggested starting with exercise. But exercise is just one area. Think of ourselves as a wheel with spokes, and each spoke is important for our overall health. Typical spokes on the “Wheel of Life” might include health, relationships, career, and personal growth. Sometimes on “The Wheel of Life” there’s also a section for spiritual needs, or in my case, it’s playing music. You pick what is right for you.

For example, if someone wants to focus on health, they determine if they want to pay attention to diet, exercise, or sleep.

Dr. Yost: Right, and a cognitive section might include practicing a growth mindset, time management, goals, or planning.

Dr. Powell: When it comes to social support, organizations can be great places for people to get their emotional needs met. For people experiencing burnout, the workplace can be a good place to leverage your social connections because your colleagues understand your situation and you can openly talk about what you’re experiencing. Conversations and social connections can happen informally 1:1, or facilitated in small groups.

There’s some research out there that suggests focusing on employee engagement for burnout. However, focusing on engagement to fix burnout can be problematic because it comes across like you are asking people to dig deeper when they are already feeling maxed out. I suggest focusing on other spokes on the wheel first.

Dr. Yost: I agree. I’ve done research on decent work and meaningful work. There’s evidence that for some jobs such as ministry, nonprofits, or zookeepers – that their work is too meaningful, too engaging, and at some level they lose themselves. There is a great quote by Barbara Brown Taylor, a minister, who, in a moment of burnout said, “No how many day planners I bought, none of them told me when I had done enough.”

Dr. Powell: Burnout can be a real problem in the helping professions. I’ve coached a lot of doctors over the years. They are taught in medical school about the importance of self-care, but when they begin practicing medicine, self-care too often becomes a low priority. It’s like they focus on some of the spokes in the wheel while sacrificing others.

Dr. Yost: Examining these broad categories can help prevent burnout. Decide how you want to spend your time next week and track how you're actually spending your time; then record how you actually spend your time; how does it compare? Identify what you want to be a priority – something you want to add to your life (delegating more to others) or something you want to stop (learning ways to say no politely). Now, design a small experiment in an area you want to improve – try it out, see what happens. What works? What doesn’t? What tweak do you want to try next week? For example, let’s say it is spending more time with your family. Maybe the experiment is leaving work every night so you get home for dinner every night by 6:00. When did it work? When doesn’t it? What can you try the following week to improve?

Dr. Powell: Yes. Another valuable tool for preventing burnout is Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). Organizations that have EAPs can offer in-service training to introduce employees to the EAP or remind people the resources they have access to. EAPs have resources to help with people with many spokes on their “The Wheel of Life” – physiological, social, and even therapeutic support. They may provide elder care or childcare support. Many think EAPs are just for workrelated issues, they are not. The whole idea is they are for personal issues that affect employees in the workplace. Many even provide work-related coaching or help dealing with workplace conflict.

Ok, to prevent burnout, science and practice affirm people need to:

• Keep the sections of their “Wheel of Life” satisfied and balanced on an ongoing basis.
• Set boundaries so you can fulfill the roles that are important to you. Set small, attainable goals such as getting home at 6pm for dinner. Experiment with how to do that.
• Explore and take advantage of the company employee assistance program.

We’ve been discussing a lot about burnout, but what about resilience? When does that come in and how? We’ll be covering this next in part three, the final installment of this series.

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References:

Yost, P.R. (2024, August 7-10). Invited Address: Surviving and thriving in organizations. American Psychological Association Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, United States.

Yost, P. R., DeHaas*, C., & Allison*, M. (2021). Resilience and successful derailment. In K. De Meuse & V. Harvey. The Age of Agility: Building Agile Leaders and Organizations (pp. 301-326). Oxford Press.