Three tools help to fight burnout: recognize the signs of burnout, reverse the practices leading to burnout and build resilience against future burnout. Those three tools are called three R-s of burnout.
- Recognize: signs and symptoms of stress and burnout
- Reverse: understand the effects of stress and burnout by seeking outside assistance
- Resilience: being accountable for the personal health and well-being, building the skills to be able to withstand future burnout.
Those three R-s were originally spelt out by Olivia N. Johnson in “Occupational Hazard: Depression on the Force,” The Journal of Law Enforcement 1, no.2 (2011), ISSN: 2161-0231.
How do People Burn out Usually?
In most instances people tend to burn out gradually. A recent top performer gets gradually overworked. They are being assigned more and more tasks. Being perfectionists they tend to enjoy the trust and importance. Ultimately tiredness kicks in and sooner than anybody notices the former top performer falters under the workload. In most instances in real life, the situation tends to be irreversible – usually the person would be sacked from the organization due to poor performance and they require long-term vacation to recover from the experience.
Our Response – Early Diagnosis and Prevention
The aim of our team at Be Well at Work was to find the tools that would help to recognize those who are on the verge of burnout and work-related depression and give people smart tools to reverse the situation and build resilience until it is too late.
For this purpose, we developed and tested a set of surveys that would be usable by an employee at the end of their working day using just their smartphone.
Research and Testing Project
The Project “Development of Self-Diagnosis and Support Tool for Employee Burnout and Depression” was carried out lead by the team of SeriousPlayPro OÜ experts to test the tools:
- Aim of the project (from project description): “BeWell – depressioonis või läbi põlenud töötaja seisundi enesediagnostika ja toetamise vahend”
- Applicant: SeriousPlayPro OÜ
- EU Social Fund Support: 39’523.- EUR
- Project implementation period: 02.03.2020 – 01.09.2020
- Target group: people with special needs or their family members
