Help health and care staff handle burnout

Burnout in staff is a big problem for the NHS and other health and care organisations. Roles within the health and care sector are often high pressure, with long hours and in under-staffed teams.

An article from Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals describes burnout symptoms, these include emotional symptoms like feeling helpless, irritability, numbness and feeling unfulfilled or unappreciated. Physical symptoms such as muscle pains, headache, lethargy, memory problems, lack of concentration. Finally behavioural differences like being disengaged, withdrawn, showing loss of commitment, making mistakes etc.

Any of these symptoms can cause problems for the employee, the organisation and patients. A burnt-out member of staff cannot perform at their optimal level, causing problems with productivity and potentially leading to sick leave or even handing in a resignation.

How can you reduce burnout at your organisation?

By using continuous performance management within your organisation, you can give staff the tools they need to reduce stress and keep on top of their workload. This includes:

1. Short term goals broken down into clear objectives

Making the switch from annual objectives to short term goals makes work seem more manageable. Having objectives for the entire year isn’t the way to stay productive, many people will forget them, lose motivation, or their priorities will shift making them no longer valid.??

Setting goals that can be completed within a few weeks means staff are much more likely to stay focused, have a clearer idea of what they are working towards, and as a result feel more engaged with work.?Once goals are set, they can then be broken down into clear and manageable objectives. ?

2. Facilitating regular one to ones with line managers

Giving staff members the opportunity of regular one to ones with their line manager is important, this allows them to talk through their workloads and address any blockers and concerns. These don’t need to be long meetings, but if staff don’t have the opportunity to speak to their manager regularly, they might end up suffering in silence, which can lead to burn out.??

3. Facilitating real time feedback ?

Giving your staff members the opportunity to give and receive feedback about performance can do a lot for low morale and engagement. Receiving praise for a job well done, or advice from a colleague on how to keep growing and improving at work can do a lot to boost motivation, increase productivity and improve quality of care.

If you want to make steps towards decreasing burn out in your health / care organisation, you can implement a?performance management platform, Advanced’s performance management platform is simple to use and allows everyone at an organisation to set up check-ins with their managers, set short term goals with clear objectives, give and receive feedback, and stores all of the information these actions generate to be viewed when needed.???

The system has been designed not just to help organisations boost productivity, but also to make employees’ working lives better, we believe that everyone can benefit from good performance management. To find out more reach out to a member of our team today and start boosting careers and reducing burnout.???

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