Effects Of Burnout On The Workplace

The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual

One of the keys to eliminating burnout in the counseling field, is for the counselor to recognize when they are experiencing some of the symptoms. Kottler (2010) reports some of the signs of burnout include experiencing emotional exhaustion, having negative attitudes for your clients, feelings of lack of accomplishment, and becoming easily discouraged. Therefore, if we notice ourselves without the enthusiasm or drive for that passion which once drove us into this field chances are we may be experiencing symptoms of burnout. Oser, Biebel, Pullen, and Harp (2013) report it is always good to have

Social workers deal with intense situations daily. It is important that social workers are aware of how they are affected by these interactions. Priscilla Dass-Brailsford explains in her book, that countertransference, vicarious trauma (VT), secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and satisfaction, and burnout are all different ways that counselors can be affected (Dass-Brailsford, 2007). This is where it is important for social workers to have a plan of self-care and stress management resources to use.

During the first scenario involving Lieutenant Fuentes, his meteoric rise to the top of his law enforcement agency was described. During his rise to the top, Lieutenant Fuentes made several critical mistakes that ultimately led to his demise. He was able to reach the level of major within a few short years and had a wonderful family. Shortly after his wedding, Lieutenant Fuentes was involved in a serious car crash that resulted in him becoming addicted to pain medications. Upon his return to work, he began engaging in extramarital affairs that eventually led to the demise of his relationship and subsequently he and his wife were divorced.

Social workers is a particularly hazardous profession due to high burnout rates, anxiety, substance use, depression, and suicide (Shanafelt, Boone, Tan, Dyrbye, Sotile, Satele, Oreskovich, 2012). Studies have found that there are two key factors were identified as relevant to social work burnout: age and setting (Brewer & Shapard, 2004; Schwartz, et al. 2007). The team found that younger social workers reported lower personal accomplishment, higher psychological strain, and higher levels of depersonalization than older social workers (Schwartz, et al., 2007).

Depersonalization occurs when employees become emotionally detached from those around them because of stress with limited or no resources available to assist the employee in coping. One of the biggest contributors to depersonalization is burnout by employees that leads to a decrease in job satisfaction, employee performance, and turnover. Conservation of resources theory (COR) addresses how burnout develops and the effects it has on an employee’s job performance. Burnout often develops because of limited work resources while attempting to keep up with work demands. This addresses the fourth hypothesis where employees with higher levels of depersonalization will more than likely engage

In many careers especially the field of social work it is easy to feel burnout and compassion fatigue. Burnout and compassion fatigue can be a slippery road for social workers to go down. It is the feeling of mental and emotional exhaustion, frustration, feeling like work has no meaning, and loss of enthusiasm ("Compassion Fatigue | The American Institute of Stress," n.d.). We do not go into the field of social work to absorb everyone’s problems and become engulfed in them, we do it for the satisfaction of being able to help others and to try and make a difference. For this reason it is important that we remember take time for ourselves and become self-aware to prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. If we no longer care about the work that we do and dread going to work each day, it will show and client’s may start to feel that there is no hope. The good thing is that there are warning signs and ways to

Burnout is a pattern of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion in response to chronic job stressors. It is a disorder characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a low level of personal accomplishments, which primarily affects people who are dealing with other people in their work (Maslach, 1982). Burnout develops due to the persistent emotional strain, which is the result of dealing with other people who cope with serious problems. Thus, burnout could be considered as a type of professional stress, which results from the social interaction between the person who provides

 "Burnout is the index of the dislocation between what people are and what they have to do. It represents an erosion in values, dignity, spirit, and will...It is a malady that spreads gradually and continuously over time, putting people into a downward spiral from which it's hard to recover"(Maslach & Leiter, 1997, p.17). Burnout has also been associated with lack of feelings of personal accomplishment and significance. Those that enter clinical practice often do so because they are willing to sacrifice a larger pay scale in exchange for doing a job that gives them a sense of accomplishment. Many social workers enter the field with an idealistic view the impact that they will have on the lives of their clients. When this view

Maurice William’s understands that social workers get tired because of their relentless job responsibilities, therefore, she makes sure they don’t experience burn out since it is her responsibility to keep the families intact (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). Since she is not out in the field visiting the homes, she puts her faith in her upper management team to be able to listen and pay attention to any problems or potential future problems (Laureate Education, Inc. 2011). Since she is unable to be out in the field, Williams uses her supervisory skills to train her staff to be able to identify potential problems and also to report back to her what the problems are. If there were problems out in the field (i.e., foster parents, foster children), she shoulders the full responsibility to make sure that the problems are addressed and resolved, or modify changes that are in the best interest of the children.

Burnout is a combination of factors, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and the reduced sense of personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1982). Emotional exhaustion is accompanied with a lack of compassion and motivation to work, while depersonalization leads to irritability.

It is evident that the relationship between work stress and mental health has been established by numerous research studies. As discussed in Koesky (1993), the fact that all jobs involve some degree of stress makes it all the more alarming as to the level of stress experienced by individuals working in the human services. That is, given that these individuals are heavily involved in the lives of others, they often develop mental health symptoms that are characteristic of work-related stressors. In fact, “This involvement, which requires caring commitment and empathic responding, places workers at risk for a special type of strain commonly referred to as 'burnout'” (Koesky, 1993, p. 319).

By recognizing that burnout is a serious problem that impacts an organization’s viability, an assembly of staff nurses, nursing supervisors, human resource staff, social services, nurse administrators, and a physician champion will be arranged to construct mission, objectives and strategies to help ameliorate the issues at hand. Researching literature on nursing burnout is essential so that the members of the task force has a solid grasp on potential underlying hardships contributing to nursing burnout within the facility as well as the financial effects on the organization. Furthermore, in order to determine a solution, the nurse’s work environment should be assessed (Nedd, 2006) and measured using the 26-item Brisbane Practice Environment Measure (B-PEM) (Flint, Farrugia, Courtney, & Webster, 2010). The B-PEM instrument was developed to measure nursing satisfaction within the work environment and the perceived facilities inadequacies (Flint et al. 2010; Hayes et al., 2014; Nedd, 2006). Next, the Conditions of Work Effectiveness - Questionnaire-II (CWEQ-II) will also be utilized to measure the nurses’ perceived access to the four job related empowerment structures: opportunity, information, support, and resources will be administered (Laschinger et al., 2003). Then nursing burnout will be assessed and analyzed by using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) which is a widely used instrument to assess burnout and is considered the gold standard due to its established

Any work environment can have stressful aspects that can negatively affect the employees’ performance and may lead to burnout. Oftentimes when employees are stressed or burnout their commitment at the job may begin to weaken and they may lose satisfaction. Many organizations have recognized that workers burnout is the result of aggravated chronic work stressors and embodied by enervation and inefficacy. This author will discuss the impact of stress and worker burnout on organizations. Moreover, this author will consider the implication of stress and worker burnout on the employee, as well as the short- and long-term productivity of a business.

According to Elkin and Rosch (1990) workplace related stress in a major problem in the U.S. and it creates a major expense for corporations. Koeske, Kirk, and Koeske (1993) indicate that all jobs have some level of stress but jobs that are in the human services have additional stressors because they “derive from intense involvement in the lives of others”. (p.319). They also refer to the type of stress experienced by individuals working in human services as “burnout” (Koeske, Kirk, and Koeske, 1993, p.319). Another factor that can influence our stress level is how we handle life’s demands. There are different ways of reacting to the situations we face every day of our lives. We have all heard of expressions such as ‘road rage’ and ‘going postal’. These are terms that we have come to identified with violent reactions to stressors caused by situations all of us face every day. How many of us have experiences in the road that