How Coaching helps individuals deal with Stress at Work and avoids Burnout (English Version)

In recent years, the use of Coaching to support learning and development in the workplace has accelerated, and the evidence base that supports its effectiveness is becoming stronger and stronger. The indirect results of Coaching in the workplace include stress reduction and, however, it seems that Coaching is rarely considered as a possible intervention to support workers suffering from stress at work. Perhaps this is due to the fact that stress is seen as a health problem, and Coaching is seen as a development tool. Currently, it seems that the fight against work stress and coaching practice exist within different disciplines and, at the organizational level, within different budget lines. This compartmentalized thinking may well be inhibiting the opportunity to expand the usefulness of Coaching and have a positive impact on the challenge of stress at work (Geraghty, Anthony, 2021).

Everyone already knows that we are facing a tremendous problem, for example in the UK, it has been reported that 828,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety before the first lockdown due to coronavirus in March 2020 (HSE, 2020). The pandemic has had an impact on mental health, as Americans report their lowest self-assessment of their mental health since the gallup survey began (Gallup, 2020). The latest OCDE statistics indicate that in Portugal one in five people report that they are having mental health problems such as anxiety and/or depression, although most of them are not seeking treatment.

In May 2019, burnout was included in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon. It is argued that burnout is experienced due to prolonged exposure to work-related stress, although it is not stress itself, precipitates the conditions of depression and anxiety (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001).?This suggests that a Coaching client can gain awareness of their burnout potential, and as such can create strategies to avoid reaching pathological depression or anxiety levels.

While we can find different studies that suggest that Coaching can support individuals who experience stress, these do not explain how this can be done. Let me then give you my opinion on how a Coach can support a client suffering from stress at work:

1.?????Exploration

First, offering a quiet and non-judgmental space where the client feels comfortable to share their situation and where one can explore himself. Coaching helps people work a depth of awareness and understanding about the root cause of the problem, which can be very difficult to achieve while experiencing stress symptoms.

Coaching allows the clients to explore and identify what is happening to them, make sense of their emotions, examine and challenge their thoughts and beliefs, and reflect on their behaviors, including how they may be contributing to their own experience of stress. In this phase of exploration, the Coach should help clients identify what they want and need, which creates a sense of clarity and direction, something fundamental given that normally, when experiencing high levels of stress, we get blocked thinking about the problem and what we didn't want to happen, without having clarity around what we really want.

As sometimes the origin of the problem does not necessarily originate in the individual, the Coach should also support the client in exploring his personal context and the wider environment, recognizing his personal context, including any family pressures outside work, identifying training gaps that may have been neglected, and exploring dynamics around the work situation, as the quality of relationships with their leadership and feelings of insecurity at work. This reflection should also include the analysis of the clarity and the possibility of achieving organizational expectations and the impact of organizational culture on attitudes towards stress. By doing this more comprehensive analysis, we allow individuals to explore a wider range of options that sometimes allow them to reformulate their own perspectives, and come up with different and more appropriate solutions.

At the same time, many of us do not take care of our basic physical and mental needs in terms of sleep, healthy eating, exercise and rest, so it is important to take time to identify healthy limits. Thus, by raising some critical reflection on these topics in coaching sessions, it will eventually lead to a change of attitude towards their limits around work.

2.?????Build structure and regain confidence

Experiencing high levels of stress at work usually results in loss of confidence, abilities or judgment, or an erosion of the individual's self-esteem. Coaching provides ongoing support as the individual works to improve the situation. Individuals feel empowered and are more likely to move on or stay on track when they know they have someone interested and support their progress. Coaching encourages clients to take care of themselves, and plays an important role in helping the client maintain a positive outlook and not looking at aspects of a situation that may be out of their control. By remembering their strengths, resources, coping mechanisms or the value of their intuition, they get the incentive and support they need to overcome these most difficult times.

By encouraging them to reflect on past experiences and successes, clients start exploring around their available formal or formal support systems and are invited to act on them. This is especially important if the experience of stress takes them out of existing support networks. It also often happens that coach himself becomes the client support network, because sometimes they have no one else to turn to. It is extremely comforting for clients to feel that they are not alone with the problem.

?3.?????Action

If you don't act, there's no satisfaction, and there may even be a setback. The movement created by the action creates an impulse and this, in turn, takes us away from our current situation. Coaching is being in action. The client hires us because they want to move on, and as such, Coaching helps the client develop a priority action plan to ensure that they have a clear meaning and purpose. Reducing the plan in handling steps is particularly important for stress-sufferers as it helps to limit the feeling of overload they are already feeling. Coaching can also encourage the individual to consider the personal cost of not acting which can be a catalyst for action. This plan can take many forms, such as implementing healthy boundaries around work, saying no to someone, taking a more assertive position with colleagues or with your boss, asking for help or asking for additional training.

Finally, Coaching helps develop the resources needed to implement an action plan, such as learning and practicing new skills, rehearsing potentially difficult conversations, and gathering information.

As we adapt to different challenges in the workplace, following the Covid-19 pandemic, I feel that coaches have the opportunity to play an important role, if they wish, in supporting positive social change, advocating a sustainable balance between health and performance in the workplace (Cartwright, J.2022).

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References:

?GALLUP (2020)?Americans' mental health ratings sink to new low. Available at:?https://news.gallup.com/poll/327311/americans-mental-health-ratings-sink-new-low.aspx .

HSE (2020)?Work-related stress, anxiety or depression statistics in Great Britain, 2020. Available at:?https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf .

Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W.B. and Leiter, M.P. (2001) 'Job burnout',?Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), pp.397-422. DOI:?10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397 .

Geraghty, A. (2001) ′How do coaches work with clients showing signs of burnout?',?International Journal of Evidence Coaching and Mentoring, S15, pp.139-153.

Cartwright, J., (2022) ′How can coaching support managers experiencing stress at work? An emerging theory and implications for coaching research and practice′,?International Journal of Evidence Coaching and Mentoring, S16, pp.55-67.