Out of routine or fear of a benign sense of duty, many people report for work every morning. For some, there’s little joy in doing so because they’re burnt out; they’re not impassioned by their work and seriously dread their jobs.
Professional burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment. It is a response to the chronic and emotional strain of dealing with circumstances that seem to be outside of one’s control and circumstances that seem insurmountable and unresolvable. Although it is thought that burnout manifests itself psychologically, research indicates that there is a physiological response to burnout as well. Both the physical and physiological symptoms serve to undermine the work of the employee.
As a manager, you have an obligation to spot burnout and assist your employees in dealing with it. Objective signs of professional burnout are frequent absenteeism, tardiness, passive-aggressive behavior, insubordination, inattentiveness, support errors, application development errors, lower productivity, and conflict among staff members.
What’s the Problem?
Only when you know the real cause of the problem can you work to resolve it. IT workers may tell you their burnout arises from problems such as excessive workloads, insufficient IT structure, unstable software, unreliable hardware, lack of productivity skills or tools, and pending mergers or IPOs. Other sources of employee burnout could be oppressive management, favoritism, unequal distribution of work, bias, oppressive company policies, lack of flex or comp time, deadlines, and family, money, or legal problems.
Doing Your Part to Alleviate Burnout
To address work-related burnout, it is best to confront weary workers directly. Explain that you want to help them assess their situation and work with them to resolve any issues they may have. Start out on a positive note by recognizing their accomplishments. Provide specific, objective feedback on the issues that come to light. Then create a written plan with each employee, including setting some priorities. Verbally reiterate the steps to be taken and seek agreement from each employee.
If issues contributing to burnout are outside of your scope of expertise such as insurance benefits issues, paid/unpaid time off, and so on, get other people from your company involved, including human resources personnel if necessary. If your human
resources staff doesn’t have the expertise, ask them to assist the employee to find the right resources. If your company has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), professional counselors can be brought in to help. Typically assistance is sought in fields of behavior, personal finance, time management, substance abuse, and law. Group health insurance programs sometimes cover expenses for many employee problems.
If you know what the problem is and outside assistance is not critical in the resolution, you must consider making some changes. A change in policy or environment may be warranted, including offering flex time, reallocating or outsourcing workloads, or hiring additional employees. If the relationship between management and employees is a problem, consider implementing weekly social lunches or a rewards program. In some situations, goal reassessment may be appropriate, including easing of project deadlines. If an employee is not well-organized or is not using her time efficiently, you may want to offer personal productivity training. Other options include a mentoring program or counseling. If the issue is not directly work-related, it’s possible that family or parental leave may be the answer.
Proactivity Pays
As a manager, you are responsible for your employees. Losing a seasoned team member to burnout is expensive, especially in these prosperous times. Given the expense involved in recruiting the right person for the job, presenting a competitive compensation package, providing additional training, and acclimating employees to the “culture,” employers cannot afford to lose key employees because of employee burnout.
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online