Avoiding burnout whilst working from home, during and after the Covid 19 pandemic.

By Niamh Sweeney. Source: Workee blog

To be “burnt out” is a phrasal verb that we tend to abuse when making use of the English language. Due to the hustle and bustle of a daily grind, we tend to experience stress and exhaustion. However, the majority of workers who use the term “burn out” (generally humorously) haven’t become accustomed with what Organizational psychologists currently define burnout as. Burn out is the end state of a prolonged state of chronic stress, and this can manifest in the form of three different behaviors — those being, emotional exhaustion, a cynical perspective, and depersonalization.

Surprisingly enough, burn out tends to occur more frequently when working from home, due to the lack of “home” and “work-place” division mentality. According to a recent survey carried out by Gallup, where 7500 employees participated, 23% participants said that they have experienced burnout, and 44% reported “feeling” burnt out.

We plan to share with you our three top tips for prevention of the three burnout characteristics whilst working from home!

Self-promotion of work engagement

The opposite of burn out is a term coined “work engagement”. According to organizational psychologist Shaufeli in 2002, employees who experience a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind tend to show vigorous energy and healthy absorption.

Sounds divine, right? Promotion of positive work engagement is my first tip for decreasing the risk of burnout, and you can do this is by generating your own positive feedback. As humans, it is within our nature to look to external sources for positive validation — in the case of employment, we seek the advice and reward of bosses, clients, and colleagues.

However, by writing down our own positive feedback after a long work shift, or by engaging in verbal feedback and positive self-talk after an energetic client call, we improve our internal validation and decrease our need for external validation. This lessens the risk of emotional exhaustion, as we are actively congratulating ourselves rather than waiting for someone else to do it.

Actively monitoring our self-talk also reduces exhaustion, by changing words such as “have” or “should” to “want” or “will”. Wanting to jump on the virtual meeting sounds much more positive than having to join. We would recommend keeping a written work log and jotting down a few small achievements each day as a way to congratulate yourself and sustain your positive work engagement. It may sound ridiculous, but clinical psychologists regard it beneficial! Mayo Clinic expertise currently advise that positive self-talk can reduce the risk of burnout, increase life span, and reduce the risk of developing depression.

How to balance demands and resources and more tips about avoiding burnout you can find in our full article: https://workee.net/blog/avoiding-burnout-whilst-working-from-home