Preventative Burnout Coaching

This informal CPD article, ‘Preventative Burnout Coaching’, was provided by Champs Consulting, who support organisations globally delivering mental health first aid training, stress-free living workshops and wellbeing consultancy solutions.

Research has shown that almost 3 in 5 employees report negative impacts of work-related stress, including lack of interest, motivation, energy, and effort at work (Work and Well-being Survey, APA, 2021). These experiences are all synonymous with burnout — an officially recognised occupational phenomenon that negatively impacts employee’s wellbeing.

While burnout may be seen as an individual problem, this isn’t the case. Burnout cannot solely be solved by increased self-care or imposing better boundaries. The prevention of, and solution for, burnout also lies in the workplace itself. It is important for company leaders and people managers to put practices in place that prevent their employees from burning out.

One way you can keep burnout at bay for your team is by investing in preventative burnout coaching. In this article, we’ll explore the topic of burnout and how preventative burnout can help protect your employees.

What is burnout?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines burnout as being an occupational phenomenon that results from “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. Burnout can have severe negative effects on a person’s health and, as such, is officially recognised by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). DSM-5 characterises burnout by three dimensions:

• Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
• Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job and;
• Reduced professional efficacy.

In short, burnout can be described as feelings of emotional and physical exhaustion, depersonalisation, and low efficacy or motivation caused by work-related stress. The negative effects of burnout can spill into every other aspect of a person’s life, impacting their home, work, and social life. The symptoms of burnout can also manifest physically including headaches, stomach aches, frequent illness, and increased blood pressure. Understanding the signs of burnout is critical for learning how to prevent it from occurring or worsening.

How can you prevent burnout?

As we know, burnout is caused by work-related stress. By that logic, the best way to prevent burnout is to tackle it at the source: work. A useful strategy for preventing burnout within your team would be to make sure you are frequently checking in with your team members. Speak to them, evaluate their perceived workload, and create an environment where your team can speak honestly and openly about any work-related stressors or concerns.

Learning how to spot the signs and symptoms of burnout is also crucial for preventing it from worsening. Once you are able to understand the signs of burnout, you can put a strategy in place to reduce work-related stress. Remember, burnout may look different for everyone so make sure you understand how to recognise burnout in each of your employees.

Understanding the root cause of burnout in your workplace can be helpful for making sure your employees don’t experience it. Many work factors can contribute to burnout such as a heavy workload, lack of clarity, unfair treatment, or lack of support. Factors outside of work such as financial or family-related stressors can also increase a person’s likelihood of experiencing burnout at work. Take time to understand the root cause of burnout with the individual so you can implement effective prevention strategies.

Learning how to handle burnout can be hard. Some people’s personality or work style may mean they are predisposed to experiencing burnout. For these people, learning how to effectively recognise and prevent burnout is key for their workplace performance and satisfaction. Preventative burnout coaching can, therefore, be a powerful tool for minimising burnout for your employees by giving them the skills to manage work-related stress. 

Finally, encourage your team to engage with appreciative activities. Encourage them to focus on what is going well and how they can do more of this. Help your team understand their strengths and how to use them more, while also making them aware of what happens if they overuse their top strengths. Approaching burnout from the perspective of appreciation helps people see the bigger picture and understand what they can do to add more of the “good stuff” to their lives.

How does preventative burnout coaching help?

Coaching can be a useful strategy for navigating any of life’s challenges. Through coaching, people can learn how to make positive behavioural or mind-set changes and improve their quality of life to better align with their goals or needs. 

Preventative burnout coaching gives people an opportunity to learn how to effectively manage work-related stress, recognise their signs of burnout, and how to reduce its impact. It is focused on implementing effective strategies to ensure you can function at your highest potential without burning out. Preventative burnout coaching offers people the personal tools and abilities to effectively manage work-related stress and burnout.

1. Building resilience

The coaching sessions can explore ways of building resilience. This could include learning how to bounce back, how to be more resistant and stand strong when needed, and reconfiguring to help people build up from difficult and adverse experiences or past cases of burnout.

2. Developing wellbeing and self-care strategies

Wellbeing and self-care strategies also form an important part of preventative burnout coaching. To support the individual’s personal wellbeing, preventative burnout coaching may also help them to:

• Improve their boundaries
• Learn breathing techniques
• Understand how their fundamentals of wellbeing are effectively supporting them. For example, sleep hygiene and hydration habits 

3. Having difficult conversations

In preventative burnout coaching, coachees can learn how to comfortably navigate difficult conversations. Learning how to successfully approach and hold difficult conversations can be particularly useful for preventing burnout that may be caused by external pressure from team members, miscommunication, or contrasting work styles.

The strategies delivered during preventative burnout coaching differ depending on the role or seniority of the individual being coached. Preventative burnout coaching follows a person-centric approach meaning there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, the strategies and solutions are tailored to the individual’s needs.

4. Navigating anxious thoughts and imposter phenomenon

Burnout can often stem from feeling a need to perform at your optimum level all the time. In reality, this isn’t easy to uphold in the long-term and can lead to heightened work-related stress and, ultimately, burnout. During preventative burnout coaching, individuals can learn tools and strategies for dealing with anxious thoughts or feelings of imposter phenomenon.

Preventative burnout coaching sessions can help coachees navigate the Pressure vs Performance curve, helping them better understand how this looks for them, and where their sweet spot lies on the curve. From here, the coach can help the individual develop strategies to move into their comfort zone more regularly to alleviate pressure and recalibrate.

5. Coaching sessions are tailored to suit your needs

Preventative burnout coaching can be delivered on an individual, team, or group basis to help people learn how to prevent burnout from occurring:

• Individual preventative burnout coaching - The sessions will be tailored to meet the specific needs of the coachee and the organisation where they work
• Team preventative burnout coaching - These sessions will focus on providing teams with strategies to help them bond, recognise their strengths, develop self-efficacy, improve wellbeing, and establish how to work at their optimal performance
• Group preventative burnout coaching - These sessions unite people who may not necessarily know each other to provide them with valuable preventative burnout strategies, advice, and tools. These sessions can be effective when delivered for people who have similar roles or who are involved in similar projects or campaigns

There have been many studies conducted on the impact of burnout. A recent research paper, titled Coaching Leaders Towards Favourable Trajectories of Burnout and Engagement (Brooks et al.), explores the impact of executive coaching of work-related burnout. In this study, it was found that executive coaching intervention can significantly decrease all three dimensions of burnout while increasing vigour.

Protect employee wellbeing with preventative burnout coaching

Burnout is caused by work-related stress. As such, it is crucial that workplaces take the time and energy to protect their employees against burnout. Preventative burnout coaching allows employers, leaders, and people managers to effectively support their employees’ wellbeing, while helping reduce the likelihood of burnout.

We hope this article was helpful. For more information from Champs Consulting, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively, you can go to the CPD Industry Hubs for more articles, courses, and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.