Burnout isn’t just a buzzword, with it affecting at least 79% of UK employees in 2024, and 35% experiencing extreme levels of it.
In this blog, we provide a comprehensive guide to the stages of burnout, how to help someone with burnout, its impact, and practical strategies to reduce its risks—both for employees and employers.
Job burnout, also referred to as burnout syndrome, is a state of ongoing emotional, physical and mental exhaustion occurring as a direct result of prolonged work-related stress.
While it’s not classed as a medical condition, if left unaddressed it can lead to serious repercussions, affecting a person’s mental and physical wellbeing, relationships, work performance and other aspects of their day-to-day life.
While there isn’t an agreed-upon number of stages of burnout – with some citing five, and others citing 12 – its development generally follows specific patterns:
Honeymoon stage:
Many workers may feel a compulsion to prove themselves, leading to taking on more duties than they can handle, or working longer hours. This stage is usually characterised by positive emotions.
Onset of stress:
This is where the signs of stress resulting from the honeymoon stage begin to show, resulting in issues such as reduced productivity, anxiety, fatigue, irritability, low mood, and more.
Chronic stress:
This stage is where stress deepens, causing the aforementioned issues to worsen and become more intense.
Burnout:
Here, more alarming changes in behaviour occur, with symptoms of chronic stress and signs of physical and mental illness developing, and individuals experiencing issues such as social isolation, obsessive thoughts, apathy, exhaustion, and recurrent sickness.
Habitual burnout:
Habitual burnout is where burnout becomes a habitual part of an employee’s life, potentially causing mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression, and where it becomes more and more difficult to recover, with people struggling to function normally.
Job burnout can significantly impact employees' wellbeing and performance as it often leads to chronic fatigue, reduced productivity, and feelings of detachment or cynicism toward work.
Employees experiencing burnout may struggle with concentration, decision-making, and creativity, which can diminish job performance and satisfaction.
Over time, it can also affect physical health, increasing the risk of illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, or weakened immunity.
Emotional effects such as anxiety, depression, and a sense of hopelessness can further deteriorate their quality of life, creating a cycle that's difficult to break without intervention.
Employees can reduce the risk of burnout by prioritising self-care and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Setting boundaries, such as limiting after-hours work or saying no to excessive tasks, helps manage workload and prevent overcommitment – effectively stopping employees getting into the ‘honeymoon’ phase of job burnout.
Seeking support from colleagues, supervisors, or a mentor can help address work challenges, while effectively utilising time off or time after work to recharge is crucial. Recognising and setting personal limits and asking for help when needed is also key.
Having healthy outlets for stress relief, whether that’s meditation, creative hobbies or sports can help prevent stress from escalating into burnout.
To reduce the risks of burnout, companies should seek to create a supportive and balanced work environment. This includes promoting open communication, ensuring manageable workloads, and setting realistic expectations. Regular check-ins with employees can also help make sure that potential signs of early stages of burnout are caught early, minimising risk.
Having access to quality sources of information and the opportunity to educate oneself can be particularly helpful from a preventative point of view. Therefore, businesses should provide access to mental health resources, wellness programmes, and opportunities to attend training sessions or webinars on relevant topics.
Crucially, every organisation should consider implementing Mental Health First Aid in the workplace. Having this resource in place means having a dedicated first aider trained in how to respond if an employee is experiencing extreme stress, burnout or another mental health related issue, who’s capable of pointing them towards the right form of support or professional help.
MHFAiders are trained on several key areas including factors that affect wellbeing, strategies to foster a positive mental health culture, skills to recognise and respond to signs of common mental health conditions, and tools for engaging in effective mental health conversations.
This type of training is just as vital as physical health first aid training – not treating mental health issues like we would physical issues may cause employees to hide or ignore signs of stress or mental illness, so changing the culture around this in workplaces is instrumental.
Red Umbrella works with businesses to help them implement the right culture around mental health, as well offering first-class training resources such as Mental Health First Aid. Find out more about how we can support your business by getting in touch with our team: https://red-umbrella.co.uk/contact/
Red Umbrella are ultimately here to help you find the service offering that's going to benefit your business the most through impactful change. If you want to take the first step and get started, contact us now.