burnout has three critical dimensions, each containing various symptoms and negative experiences: 1. Exhaustion Dimension: wearing out, loss of energy, depletion, debilitation, and fatigue 2. Cynicism Dimension: negative attitudes toward clients, irritability, loss of idealism, and withdrawal from professional obligations 3. Inefficiency Dimension:... See more

Certainly when we experience burnout we need to find ways to address our compromised wellbeing. But the larger issue of burnout work culture needs to place a wider responsibility on the systems that produce them. No amount of essential oil baths or stretching exercises are going to fix your toxic work environment or provide compassion-centered lead... See more

Rather than being merely reactive to workplace concerns, are there ways in which workplace leadership and community members can identify potential threats to burnout prior to it happening?

Dr. Maslach outlined some of the factors that research has found leads to burnout: * Excessive workloads * Lack of flexibility in schedule * Lack of worker autonomy * Destructive competition among co-workers * Getting shut out of opportunities * Loss of shared common meaning and purpose at work * Workers feeling they are not meaningful change agent... See more

A great deal of the public focus on burnout has zeroed in on the skills and deficits of individual workers all the while three decades of research has demonstrated that work environments, not individual workers, have the greatest impact on the possibility of burnout and worker turnover. Work environments!

If workplaces are to be successful for the whole community, then workplace norms should emphasise wellbeing. Wellbeing, however, should be understood as a community-oriented goal, not just an individual worker’s outcome goal.

Burnout, then, is an outcome of an interaction between burnout producing environmental factors and individually susceptible workers.

When we constrain our self-care practices to avoid something bad from happening, we deprive self-care of its fundamental value in our lives. It turns self-care into an obligation, a purely defensive maneuver, or a method of somehow recovering a lost sense of motivation, morale, and hope for the future.