CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF BURNOUT

What is burnout?
          Burn out is a feeling one gets after a prolonged stress. It is a feeling that makes you lack interest in what you are doing. When individuals suffer from burn out, they become overwhelmed by the problem at hand and tend to lose optimism in solving the issue out.  They may also lose tempers very fast and view everybody they work with as an enemy thereby addressing them in a demeaning and derogatory manner.
Causes of burn outs in human services staff
          Many factors cause Burnout and include individual, cultural, organizational, and social support factors.
Individual factors
           These are personality factors. There are two types of personality factors and include Type A and Type B personality. Type A personality is always regarded as too obsessed to work and like meeting the deadlines. They are stressed when they fail to achieve even very high targets while Type B
personality who are opposite of this do not like to subject themselves to stressful work although they enjoy their achievements. Type A personalities set targets that are very high and when they fail to meet them within the stipulated time, they get affected psychologically.  They can take different tasks at the same time and are risk takers. Type B personalities are characterized as having less stress. They like to work at their own pace and are not affected by failure to meet the set targets (Turner, 2011).
Cultural factors
          These include the terms of work for the employees in any given organization. If an employee feels that the policies of any given organization are not in line with their cultural beliefs, they may suffer from burn out.
Organizational factors
           Organizations can sometimes cause burnout if employees discover that there is excess work for them. Other factors may include lack of trust, less communication, or job lacking motivation (Eaton, 2011).
Social support factors
          These may emanate from either the people you are working with or people who are not involved in your work. The way you relate with other can determine how you will be at work place.
Supervisory factors
          If a supervisor takes control of everything, this can lead to employees not having the motivation required to do the job.
Prevention of burn out
          Burnout prevention methods depend, on the type of burnout observed in the individual employee. Different players can play different roles in prevention of bur out in employees.
Individual
          Individual factors causing burnout may be solved if an employee is taken through training on; time management, improvement on problem solving skills and improving the relationship with the other workers.
Job role
           Some jobs require an employee to sacrifice a lot on his part in terms of time and energy. Other may require confidentiality, privacy and secrecy. This may cause employees to feel exhausted or even feel threatened especially when dealing with very sensitive matters touching security. There should be Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) introduced to help employees overcome the symptoms of burnout (Lewis,Packard and Lewis 2012).
Organizational methods
        Any organization that has its employees experience burnout in their jobs can easily locate the cause of the problem. It may be that the goals are not clear or they are doing the same job repeatedly thereby creating monotony and add workload. That organization can restructure job descriptions to balance the needs of the employees and the organizations needs. However, supervisors should be very careful on the causes of burnout in order to come up with the right remedy.
How I reduce effects of burnout
          My self-evaluation on stress management has pointed that I like working on an environment that has little pressure on the attainment of set goals. I seem to lose my decision-making capabilities when subjected to too much pressure. Due to the differences each one of us possesses on the how we relate with others, I hate people who are always judgmental and tend to lose tempers on such people at work place than at my personal life. This may be due to the seriousness of the situation.Solving these problems require I understand the causes. With the causes known, I will come up with the plan on how to prevent the recurrence of the same problem. The best way to start is to look at the symptoms of burnout and then prevent more damage to the individual.






References
Eaton, K. (2011, August 8). essay. Retrieved July 25, 2013, from study mode: Judith A Lewis, T. R. (2012). management of human service programs. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.
Turner, J. (2011, February 28). Retrieved July 25, 2013, from Termpaper Warehouse: