The prelude to burn-out: burn-in!
Burn-In. Presenteeism at work constitutes one of the main concerns of Canadian companies with more than 250 employees, showed a recent survey by Watson Wyatt Canada, which places this phenomenon in 7th place of employer concerns. Placed at the very top, just above an aging workforce, is workers mental health. Yet these two phenomenon are related. “Employers are still unfamiliar with the concept of presenteeism”, claims Claudine Ducharme, consultant in health and disability management at Watson Wyatt Canada
Overall, presenteeism could be defined as an employee being at work when he really shouldn’t be due to his physical or mental health; flu, depression or burn-out in disguise.
“To absent oneself because of a cold or the flu is a good form of prevention, affirms even Claudine Ducharme. That allows the employee to get back on form more rapidly and to avoid spreading the virus to all their colleagues.”
Burn-in has a more restrictive meaning than presenteeism and only concerns cases where the mental health of the person leads them to absent themselves from work. It is in this sense that it constitutes a prelude to burn-out if nothing is done to correct the issue.
To “simplify” things, we bring to attention that the health professionals bible, the Diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM), acknowledges neither presenteeism, nor burn-in nor burn-out. “In the clinical plan, highlights Dr Denis Boucher, co President of Whittom and Boucher, a firm specialized in health and disability management and productivity at work, we rather propose a diagnosis of difficulties adapting with depressive or anxio-depressive temperament. Such is the clinical definitionof burn-out.”
This definition is partially unrealistic. It puts the problem on the individual alone which could in fact have its origins in a deficient organizational culture to some extent. Of course certain individuals are more capable of resilience, that doesn’t change the manager’s responsibility when the organization’s culture is the cause of it.
Organizational predispositions to burn-in
Dr Boucher perceived two main sources of burn-in: insufficient decisional capacity and inadequate performance objectives.
He describes the first obstacle/pitfall: “The executive imposes a lot of work on the employee, but doesn’t give him any room for initiative regarding the way the work is done. The employee loses his freedom to act, therefore increasing his stress levels. He finds himself in an ambiguous situation faced with the trust (or lack of) accorded him and feels undervalued. This is one of the most dramatic factors leading to burn-in.”
The second aspect starts to look at scientific literature: companies have an idea of the performance level they expect of their employees, but rare are those who define it clearly. Result: “They appoint people to key positions, but in terms of vague objectives, underlines Dr Boucher. Then they reproach employees for not reaching the goals aimed for. As for employees, they manage too many activities alongside each other and get nowhere. They lose confidence in themselves, lose motivation and become depressed. They thus enter into a phase of burn-in. If nothing is done to rectify the situation, it will become burn-out.”
The concerns of psychological problems at work have evolved greatly over five years. Is it a phase of company restructuring in the 90s which has left “survivors” with too great a workload? No, believes Dr Boucher. “It isn’t the workload which kills people, it is the decisional capacity which goes with it.”
For Julie Carignan, organizational psychologist and associate at Pierre-Boucher, multiple causes can lead to burn-in, including workload.
She illustrates a case which took place in a high technology company. The company had received an important contract to deliver in a short deadline. To manage the project for the deadline the company appealed to the best elements of its work teams. They put their trust in them, and gave them the power to decide their method of attaining the objectives. However, several members of the elite team abandoned the job due to burn-out.
“As is often the case, notes Julie Carignan, at the time of our evaluation of the causes of burn-out, we became aware of a significant number of burn-in. 95% of members left at work slept for only 4 hours per night, seven days a week.”
What’s more, 97% of the team members believed that the deadline was unrealistic though no-one had admitted it. “People don’t openly express their doubts about the unrealistic nature of the project, states Julie Carignan. They are afraid that the company will lose confidence in them. We were able to clarify this report at the time of the individual and confidential interviews with employees as several were stressed to the point of bursting into tears.
To solve the problem, the company organized meetings with the work team and encouraged employees to express themselves in complete confidence. The deadline was revised.
An exceptional case of work overload? Not for certain! “When they are ill, the person overloaded with work tends to say to themselves that the situation will be worse the following day if they take a sick day, demonstrates Julie Carignan. If the overload lasts, little by little, mental distress and professional burn-out can set in.”
The taboo of vulnerability can lead to burn-in. The professional psychologist mentions the case of a company where 70% of managers were confronted with a burn-out problem. “The company’s culture was the cause of it, notes Julie Carignan. The managers who showed vulnerability were socially excluded from their group. They were no longer acknowledged by their peers, they were isolated. The company honored people who worked themselves to death. This is a case of a very dangerous phenomenon both for the individual and for the company. Each profession carries its hazards and risks. I wouldn’t want to be operated on by a surgeon in burn-out!”
When 70% of executives in a company are in burn-in, the risk of an outburst in the organization is great. The change of mentality is worked on over a period of some years. “The company has, among other things, to organize sensitivity workshops to force discussions on areas of vulnerability at work, states Julie Carignan. The managers also received training to improve their closeness to people, to improve their listening skills, their tolerance and support.”
How to prevent it? How to rectify the problem?
“We prevent burn-in in the same way as burn-out”, esteems Dr Boucher. According to him, the only companies apt to change are those which fix clear performance objectives. “Such a step requires questioning mentalities, he announces, without which the objectives would not be achieved.” He illustrates this step by taking the example of a person who wants to lose weight: fix precise and realistic objectives, evaluate the paths to take in order to achieve them and put the change process in place.
For Julie Carignan, it is also a case of organizational culture. “Do the company leaders firmly believe that the well-being of a company shows, among other things, through the well-being of employees who work there? It is the first level of intervention, without which, the other levels won’t follow.”
Those in charge of human resources can act as coaches for managers. “Often, underlines the organizational psychologist, the person who disposes of the best lever for detecting presenteeism is the immediate boss. They must understand that an absence of two days can avoid an eventual sick leave of a much longer duration. Ideally, they must be capable of detecting the symptoms: a person in burn-in doesn’t generally brag about it.
Certain companies annually send a questionnaire to their employees. Confidential, the responses can make a point, rectify an issue, and prevent.
Of course this is easier said than done. “What is most difficult to change are mentalities, warns Dr Boucher. It’s the same for staff management like for all habits of life. I note that managers will lose a lot of money in work efficiency, through employee burn-out, in revenues and in profits before changing their ways of doing things, especially if they have implanted them themselves. What is even more fascinating is noting the extent to which communication is a complex science. It is the best managers who accept change. By doing so they observe their capacity to question themselves and recognize that they do not have a monopoly of knowledge.”