SURVIVOR: The Game of One Foot in Front of the Other During December

During Christmas, it is not uncommon to experience financial pressures from debts, gifts and celebrations; family pressures due to hosting or attending gatherings (or a lack thereof). To add to the mounting social pressures, work pressures accumulate as New Year deadlines approach.

Protecting your mental health (and general wellbeing) is vital to your employer to ensure you are able to contribute creatively and productively; and, to ensure that you have the resources to get through the difficult times where your efforts and output (and let’s not forget satisfaction) may suffer.

Here are 3 tips to motivate you and safeguard your general mental health at this time of year:

1. Keep an eye out for red flags

While it is normal to experience a degree of pressure and frustration at this time of year, it’s important to note when this may become a larger problem. If you or a colleague feels sleep deprived, easily angered, anti-social, or generally and uncharacteristically negative, this may be a sign that the stress is becoming overwhelming. If people are reacting to you as if you are acting out of character, seek support and look for resources around you that you can use to your advantage. It’s normal to feel the need to seek support at these times so don’t hesitate in speaking up and finding help where you can if you feel overwhelmed.

2. Review workloads

Stress occurs when our demands exceed our resources. Quite simply, you may not have enough time or the resources to get the job done. Pay close attention to whether your efforts are sloppy or are being completed late, as this may occur due to under-staffing and over-loading rather than a lack of enthusiasm or your competence levels. Communicate these concerns with the team and where necessary, give clients advance notice that deadlines may alter during a resource-restricted period.

3. Seek feedback 

Seeking feedback is a great way to establish how you are performing. Even if you are sure that things are going well, it never hurts to ask and hear it from your managers. A simple word of appreciation can motivate and encourage anyone and, even constructive feedback can be positive for clarifying your role and tasks that are important. You don’t need to organise a long, formal feedback session, even just asking how you went on a project or task that you have just completed is enough. Feel free to talk with your employer about your concerns and inform then that their candid feedback and support could really help.

While Christmas is a stressful time of year for many, effective management through communicating with and supporting those around you can have a snowball effective to put the peace, love and joy (and put your productivity and satisfaction) back into the festive season!

5 Tips On Dealing With Burnout

This article is the final edition of our series on Workplace Burnout.

This week we share our strategies on dealing with burnout.

If you feel that your work has got you in a state of chronic stress, it is time to act. Our tips can be implemented into your every day routine to regain control of the stresses of your job to help you function at your best.

1. Recognise and manage the stress contributing to burnout:

Reflect and identify on what it is that is making you feel stressed and overwhelmed at work.You might like to write a list of all of the things that make you feel stressed on a given day. From there you might be able to see there are things that can be adjusted to make your word day less chaotic. It might be as simple as allotting certain times to check emails,  to minimise feelings of being overwhelmed and distracted by having them constantly pop up on your screen. Alternatively, it may be that you can delegate certain tasks if you feel it is the sheer amount of work that is making you feel burnt out.

 2. Schedule “You-Time":

Pencil in you diary time for yourself and stick with it. Managing burnout needs to be as important as any other meeting or appointment. Make this a time in your week spent on an interest that helps you ‘wind-down’ – something that you find rewarding and really enjoy. You might like to see this as reward for all of your hard work.

3. Be your own best friend:

Think about the advice you would give a loved one who was experiencing the same situation of burnout. What would you say to them? It would probably be along the lines of, “Make sure you are taking care of yourself.” More specifically, this advice may pertain to getting enough sleep, eating well and making time for exercise and relaxation. You want this for those dear to you, so make it happen for yourself.

 4. Make work-life balance more than just a myth

Many people see work-life balance as a distant, unattainable concept. This doesn’t have to be the case. When considering working overtime for the 4^th time this week, taking work home with you or skipping that lunch hour, saying “no” does not make you a bad employee. Overcoming burnout and having a healthy work-life balance will see you become a more productive worker and extend the longevity of your career. Taking regular breaks and not working too many hours are crucial in recovering from chronic work stress.

 5. Socialise & Seek support

Rekindle friendships and relationships that have fallen detriment to the stages of your burnout. Be open and honest about how you are feeling with co-workers, management and your social supports outside of work. You can also  talk to a professional to help you manage your burnout. Your company’s EAP service or your GP are good places to start. Or call Beyond Blue’s Support Service on 1300 224636. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Click here to read part one of our burnout series, 4 Signs You Might Be Burnt Out 

Balancing Job Demands and Job Resources

Psychology research has made great headway in relation to uncovering the factors that influence
the interplay between job resources and job demands. However, finding a practical balance between the two within your workplace is often quite challenging. This article aims to introduce you to the various factors that may come into play if you are feeling stress within your workplace. Stress within the workplace is often attributed to high demands and low resources.

Bakker and Leiter in 2010 drew up a model of how demands and resources interplay and the effect they have on engagement and stress. The most popular model at the moment is the Jobs Demands Resources (JDR) Model, which highlights the following relevant factors:

Job Demands:

• Increased workload beyond what might be reasonably completed
• Role Conflict - when conflicts arise between the multiple roles that have to be filled
• When there is a low amount of resilience in terms of handling change
• Role Ambiguity
• Work pressures from employees or managers internal to the business or, customers and clients externally
• Emotional demands – this is particularly relevant to Allied Health as we work so closely with individuals, especially when they are requiring assistance
• Mental demands – this relates to when the role is mentally exhausting and there is an inability to have rest break
• Physically demanding work

Job Resources:

• Increasing the amount of social support
• Seek extra feedback, specifically relating to your work, but also your general behaviour in the workplace
• Increasing the amount of supervisory coaching that you are receiving or rather putting a slightly different spin when you request feedback
• Increasing the amount of autonomy or control you have in your job
• Finding ways to increase your optimism within the workplace whether this be through increasing the social aspects of your work or taking a needed break
• Increasing your competence in the role – this may be through seeking extra training or gaining clarity about your role

Reducing the amount of job demands and increasing the amount of job resources has been shown to have a positive impact on:

• Mental and physical health factors which decreases the likelihood of energy depletion and burnout
• Motivational factors
• Levels of engagement
• Increased job satisfaction
• Overall happiness and levels of enjoyment

If managing stress in the workplace is something you would like to know more about, we recently wrote an article on Mindfulness in the Workplace, which you may find useful. You can read more about that here.