How to avoid burnout at work – experts advise

IT is an area in which there is not only creativity, but also tight deadlines, and the need to constantly be ready for changes, and a lot of responsibility. All of this makes it especially vulnerable to the symptom of professional burnout. The task of HR specialists and project managers is to identify it among employees as quickly as possible: you cannot bring it to a state where apathy arises, indifference to work, to projects, to colleagues, and to life in general appears. In this state, one more step – and you can get a letter of resignation.

To avoid this, preventive actions are needed, especially when it comes to the so-called “risk group” – those who work for wear and tear, do it really selflessly, worry, delay, recycle. These are “excellent students” in the best sense of the word; those who strive to be the first, the best. And that’s how it works.

No one from the project management team, HR employees, and colleagues should stand aside and be indifferent to the situation. Any problem requires an individual approach: talking to everyone, and not formally, but about what he really needs; do it regularly; help him talk about his problems. He needs to trust the company; to the people with whom he works next, he shared real problems, talked about difficulties, joys, successes, excessive workload …

It would seem how simple – to listen, to understand what are the reasons for dissatisfaction, to remind about the positive aspects of work, to distract from the negative, which today, for various reasons, is trying to fill our life. Practice shows that often just a professional and honest conversation is enough.

This is not all. It is imperative to communicate with the manager of such an employee. Only together it is possible to adjust his work plans and KPIs, free him from routine, “light up” new stars – and this, believe me, is the strongest motivator. We try to use this approach in our company.

Good tools for preventing professional “burnout” are training programs, various trainings so that employees can develop in other areas of activity. It is also effective to conduct regular team-building events, for example, sports and corporate. Until recently, the company held such events, but remote work has made some adjustments. Now it has become more difficult to determine the degree of “burnout” of employees working at home, and in order not to lose communication, we interact with them through other communication channels (often by phone). At the same time, we always determine the range of the most significant questions to the employee, draw up a conversation plan. And, of course, we regularly hold remote meetings with all employees of the department (as a rule, once a quarter). Then the information received is analyzed. If necessary, we involve other participants in the workflow in this process. In any case, if an employee has difficulties or issues that are in our area of ​​competence, we immediately solve them.

I will say one more thing. I believe it is extremely important that senior managers, department heads, and HR specialists act as a whole. Each of them has its own set of tools in its arsenal, but the synergy that is obtained as a result of clear and motivated interaction between departments and specific people can hardly be overestimated.

Finally, today we all find ourselves in an unusual and difficult situation: both in everyday life and in communication with loved ones. But the business mechanisms adopted at work involve the interaction of large numbers of people; but keeping the team spirit; but the effectiveness of joint work (especially during stress – economic and personal) – their organization is much more difficult. Here and the so-called “remote”, and the need for much greater self-organization, and the inner qualification of responsibility, and “the temptation of the sofa. In order not to lose yourself in these conditions, and, moreover, to learn to make the most of the opportunities that have opened up, and, at the same time, to really abstract from the negative, many people need help. This function can be taken over by HR specialists, and some large companies have full-time psychologists whose work is aimed, among other things, at helping colleagues cope with professional burnout.

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