Reference no: EM132803907

Assignment: Exercise 1: What leads to burnout?

Think of an organization where you have worked. If you have not yet worked in the human services field, any organization will do, even a fast-food or convenience store. Take a piece of paper and jot down some responses to the following questions. Write your responses not as gripes, but as specific behaviors and identifiable concrete problems that occurred there. As an example, instead of writing "The shift supervisor was a louse," write "The shift supervisor never gave specific instructions on clean-up procedures as to who was to do what, and when. As a result, there was a lot of confusion, and we often flunked health inspection." Write these down as quickly as you can. Now think about and respond to the following questions.

1. What observable stress did you see in fellow workers because of a problem?

2. What stress responses did you have behaviorally, cognitively, and affectively?

3. What do you think would have happened if management would have brought in an

4. outside consultant to deal with the workers and the organization?

5. What stumbling blocks might there have been?

6. Picture yourself as the outside consultant. How might you have handled these issues?

In a previous organization where there were workplace dysfunction and poor leadership support, employees exhibited several work-related stress symptoms. For instance, they often complained of fatigue, headache, and sleep difficulties. Consequently, they exhibited psychological symptoms such as irritability, depression, feelings of being overwhelmed by work, increased absenteeism, mood swings, decreased creativity, and lower tolerance and impatience ("Work-related stress", 2012).

In response to work stress, I had several cognitive-behavioral and effective responses. First, I communicated my concerns about being overwhelmed by work to my human resource manager and recommended assisted tasks that I can handle effectively without feeling drained; I also made sure I remained organized by prioritizing my tasks. Consequently, I embraced relaxation exercises such as Yoga and meditation and often communicated my work problems to my family members and listened to their advice.

If an outside consultant was hired, several causes of work-related stress could have been identified. The consultant would establish that the employees were being subjected to heavy workloads and strict deadlines, which led to fatigue. There also lacked employee autonomy since the supervisors were overbearing, and the relationships between employees and superiors were strained (Scott, 2020). There was also limited equipment to facilitate job execution, with some employees not having relevant skills to execute tasks due to low staffing levels in certain departments.

Stumbling blocks that would have been experienced include lack of leadership support, low staffing levels to share the workload, and lack of collaboration between employees and supervisors.

As a consultant, I would have called for the development of work management plans that involve the employees, addressed implied grievances, and devised a stress management policy.

References: Scott, E. (2020). 9 Tips for How You Can Better Handle Stress at Work.

Work-related stress. (2012).