Conquering Burnout: Spot the Signs and Reclaim Your Work-Life Balance
Conquering Burnout: Spot the Signs and Reclaim Your Work-Life Balance
Feeling drained and disillusioned with work? It’s not you, it’s likely your workplace. Burnout expert and author Suzi McAlpine shares her insights on identifying and preventing burnout with Jessica-Belle Greer.
Suzi’s Wake-Up Call
Thirteen years ago, Suzi McAlpine, a senior executive in a leading HR consulting firm, had an eye-opening experience. During the school run, her son asked for a hug, but she refused, citing a lack of time. Moments later, overwhelmed with emotion, she pulled over, unable to see through her tears. This incident marked her personal encounter with burnout, a condition she had often observed in others throughout her career.
“To this day, the look in my son’s eyes haunts me,” Suzi writes in her book, Beyond Burnout. “I was exhibiting a key sign of burnout—emotional distance and depersonalization.”
Today, Suzi’s tone is lighter. She has recovered from burnout and built a successful business as an executive coach, international speaker, and author of The Leader’s Digest blog. Her first book was inspired by the need to shift the conversation about burnout from the individual to organizational and environmental factors.
Understanding Burnout
Psychologist Herbert Freudenberger first named burnout in 1974. Suzi defines it as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged work-related stress. She identifies three red flags:
- Chronic exhaustion
- Cynicism or depersonalization
- Reduced sense of accomplishment or professional efficacy
Burnout can affect anyone, but certain professions and high performers are more at risk. It impacts businesses through lost productivity, absenteeism, presenteeism, and poor employee engagement. According to Gallup, stress causes one million workers to be absent daily, costing larger companies over $3.5 million annually.
Burnout also leads to health problems, including type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and high cholesterol, adding up to $190 billion to American health spending annually.
Causes of Burnout
Suzi identifies several causes of burnout:
- Overwork
- Insufficient reward
- Isolation
- Absence of fairness
- Conflict or mismatch of values
- Lack of control
Isolation worsens burnout, often caused by ostracism, microaggressions, excessive politics, or unmanaged conflict. Leaders must create psychological safety and trust within their teams to buffer this sense of isolation.
Preventing Burnout
Suzi offers four strategies to tackle burnout from the top down:
- Recognize: Identify the signs of burnout in yourself and others.
- Destigmatize: Create an environment where people feel safe discussing stress and mental wellbeing.
- Socialize: Foster connections and encourage meaningful communication.
- Organize: Prioritize workloads and ensure employees have the resources to do their jobs.
Technology can exacerbate burnout, especially when leaders send emails outside work hours. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified feelings of isolation and lack of control, but Suzi notes that burnout was prevalent before the pandemic. However, it has highlighted the importance of mental health and setting boundaries.
Do We Work Too Much?
New Zealanders work hard, with 14% of employees working over 50 hours per week. Suzi warns that working over 50 hours significantly decreases productivity. In our culture of busyness, more people are suffering from burnout than ever before.
For more information on workplace wellbeing, visit the World Health Organization’s page on workplace mental health.
