A previously careful and attentive worker begins to lose focus, is often distracted, and has difficulty concentrating on tasks – this is a clear sign of the initial stage of professional burnout.
Absent-mindedness and inattention
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This absent-mindedness can be caused by excessive workload, constant stress or a feeling of fatigue.
What should the manager pay attention to in this case:
The employee began to make british student data package minor mistakes more often, to be forgetful and careless in his work. Something like: "Oh, I didn't notice / didn't remember / didn't look closely / didn't think about it." As a result: minor typos in texts, shortcomings in documents, errors in reports or minor technical inaccuracies.
The speed of work has decreased. The employee began to spend more time than usual on performing standard tasks.
You have started to return tasks for revision more often due to errors made.
An employee's inability to concentrate on complex tasks and lack of self-control at work.
When such inaccuracies become more and more frequent, it means that the employee has problems. Inattention, absent-mindedness, decreased professionalism and unwillingness to change anything in this regard require the immediate intervention of the manager in the work of the subordinate.
To prevent the situation from getting worse, provide the employee with additional support and review their schedule and workload.
Decreased confidence and self-esteem
If an employee previously had no doubts about his competence, then a decrease in confidence in his professional skills and abilities may signal that he is close to burnout.
Decreased confidence and self-esteem
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This can manifest itself in different ways:
The employee avoids new and unfamiliar tasks because he is confident in advance that he will not be able to cope with them.
To compensate for their lack of confidence, the employee begins to spend more time on their tasks. Such employees are called perfectionists, who, in pursuit of ideal performance, stop meeting deadlines.
An employee may refuse to move up the career ladder. Low self-esteem and lack of confidence in their professionalism lead to a person no longer believing in their own strengths and not being ready to accept new challenges.
The employee experiences a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness when he is not sure of anything, work does not bring joy, projects fail, and the results, even the most positive ones, do not bring satisfaction and joy.
The employee reacts sharply to criticism, accompanying it with comments about his own incompetence, failure and illiteracy.
And here the manager must take a closer look at the employee’s behavior, show sensitivity and find out what exactly caused this condition: banal fatigue or professional burnout.
Deterioration of physical condition
If your employees are increasingly complaining of headaches, sleep problems, or chronic fatigue, this could be a symptom of emerging professional burnout.
Physical symptoms of burnout
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And this is the case when everything can still be fixed. Talk to the employee, find out the reasons for regular fatigue. It may turn out that the person has increased the number of responsibilities, or the tasks have become unevenly distributed.
Discuss with the employee what exactly is causing him difficulties at work, offer your help or redistribute responsibilities. You can also send the employee on a short-term leave.
The most important thing you can do to prevent employee burnout is to monitor performance indicators. As soon as the performance curve starts to creep down, that’s the first warning sign, and it’s time to figure out what the problem is.
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