BURNOUT IN HUMAN SERVICES STAFF

Causes and Prevention of Burnout in Human Services Staff

Causes and Prevention of Burnout in Human Services Staff

Burnout

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion resulting from working with people in emotionally demanding situations. It has three major components; emotional exhaustion, feelings of low personal accomplishments with clients and a dehumanizing, uncaring attitude towards clients (Lewis, Packard, & Lewis, 2007). A person experiencing burnout has a lack of autonomy and feels as if they cannot do as they want. This person tends to move away from idealism and concern for clients and begin more mechanical behaviors.

Individual, Cultural, Organizational, Supervisory, and Social Support Factors that Cause Burnout

Burnout has a serious effect on human service staff, clients, and organization. According to the text possible causes of burnout may be: (Lewis, Packard, & Lewis, 2007)

1. Individual- Personality factors

2. Cultural- Policies that are not for employees' with different cultural beliefs

3. Organizational- Low motivation and excessive amount of conflict

4. Supervisory and social support factors- Lack of participative in decision making.

Studies show that " high emotional demands, high demands for hiding emotions, high quantitative demands, high work pace, low possibilities for development, low meaning of work, low predictability, low role-clarity and high role-conflict predicted burnout on at least one burnout scale." (Borritz, 2006). According to the text “work overload, a lack of control, insufficient rewards, a breakdown in community, the absence of fairness and conflict values are all related causes of burnout” (Lewis, Packard, & Lewis, 2007).

Various Individual, Job Role, and Organizational Methods to Prevent Burnout

There are measures in preventing burnout with human service workers. Managers or supervisor can identify or become aware of employees who are experiencing burnout due to a demanding or stressful work environment or those having the same tedious routine. By restructuring job responsibilities, lowering the caseloads, having flextime, part-time work, and job sharing are just few measures in preventing human service worker from being burnout (Lewis, Packard, & Lewis, 2007). Other measures could be making all goals and expectation of each section of the department clear. Managers or supervisor have to be aware of his or her responsibility in keeping each employee happy. This could be done by setting the example or become a role model, communicating, and motivating the employees. This will produce an effective workplace and guidance for employees who are overworked under stress.

According to the text it states “that managers ...