You had burnout – Do not make these 5 awful mistakes

Introduction

Employees coming back from burnout face an uphill struggle. Their road to recovery can be long and full of stumbling blocks. Blunders made during a reintegration process can cause many problems, produce additional costs, and can result in even more tension. What are the most common mistakes and more importantly, how can they be avoided?burnout recovery mistakes

You are sitting at home with burnout and have to go back at one point in time, but you really do not want to. What do you do? You start your own internet business! Check out how in the last paragraphs.

Burnout

One in eight employees suffers from burnout complaints. The length of sick leave varies quite a bit: from a few weeks to sometimes longer than a year. The costs for the organization are high and run in millions of dollars. Any organization will be or at least should be aware of this nasty illness and its consequences.

Not wanting to work after burnout

An employee who calls in sick for a long time is difficult to motivate to get back to work. The fear of what awaits him or her in the workplace only increases. Research shows that almost half of sick employees feel too pressured to return to work as usual. During the reintegration process, this classic blunder often leads to an extension of absenteeism and possible relapse. Below you will find a list of the most important blunders, plus tips on how to tackle them better.

1. Applying too much pressure

under pressureSick is sick. It happens far too often that sick employees are harassed with the question of when they can return to work, or that they are obliged to attend a certain meeting despite their absence. This often leads to stress, a feeling of guilt, and ultimately even more complaints.

Another pitfall is that employees must immediately go through a performance and assessment process during their reintegration. In this way, the feeling of guilt grows: as if getting sick is a mistake that you can be judged on.

How should it be? Especially by listening and showing understanding. An employee would like to be asked first how he is doing and then that an appointment is made to properly prepare the return.

2. Poor communication

It is striking how often employees, despite the employer’s obligations to contact them regularly, hear little or nothing from their manager. Good and regular communication ensures more recognition and understanding, which promotes the road to reintegration after burnout. So it’s not just about pragmatic matters, but also sending a card or flower on behalf of the entire department.

Knowing that you are valued, respected, and appreciated will expedite the curing process. How difficult to understand is this?

3. Leaving colleagues in the dark

The reason for (long-term) illness is often unclear among the staff. That is not surprising: after all, the privacy ofleaving colleagues in the dark every employee is important. Nevertheless, the radio silence and lack of clarity can lead to unrest and even irritation towards the sick employee. The result is gossip, tension, and thoughts about the possible departure of the colleague. Once he or she returns, the workplace has turned into a hostile climate.

To prevent this, the supervisor must discuss with the sick employee how colleagues are informed. For example, by drawing up a plan for an e-mail, or by indicating what a manager or teammate can say about the absence during a meeting.

4. Say you saw it coming

No manager likes it when his employee drops out because of burnout complaints. You feel let down and can’t believe it’s because of your leadership skills or the work atmosphere. This can put the blame on the employee himself.

Some managers are quick to mention the Peter principle in the event of a dropout: this means that the work was just above the employee’s ability, and failure was therefore inevitable. In other words: everyone saw the failure coming from miles away, the work was simply too heavy.

Instead of ignoring the problem, catch it early. Talk to the employee about his performance and well-being. Compliment someone for being so committed to the job, and refrain from making statements about their own fault – especially if someone has actually dropped out.

5. Not having a return plan

office return planSuccessful reintegration after burnout requires a lot of preparation from the manager. That’s difficult. In the event of long-term absence, it often becomes unclear over time which agreements have been made and what exactly needs to be arranged to ensure that the return of the sick employee goes as smoothly as possible.

For example, it can happen that there is still a replacement at the workplace, the login codes of the sick employee no longer work and his or her things are still stored somewhere in a box. Surprised colleagues storm the recently returned employee with all kinds of questions about the return, and the employee receives a huge load of emails and news.

Going to work too soon after burnout

A common problem is a relapse. With the right intentions, employees and employers will try to get to work quickly. Going to work too soon after burnout leads to relapse. The burnout persists. This is of no use to anyone. So take your time. This applies to the employee, but certainly also to the employer.

To prevent this, coordination is necessary: ​​a clearly structured plan of what must be done and when. This also means that it is clear which jobs the employee can start with so that he or she can maintain an overview. In addition, agree on good rules of conduct with the team when the colleague returns and prevent everyone from asking how things are going and what actually happened.


General tips for returning to work after burnoutback to work plan

  • Carefully prepare for the return of a sick employee. Start with tasks without too much time pressure, what someone can handle and what gives a sense of control. This must be working at a level (and therefore no archiving jobs).
  • Make sure any unresolved conflicts are resolved.
  • Provide structure. Usually, someone starts with a few hours a week. Then agree that someone will take a break and leave on time and that the work is occupational therapy and therefore only carried out if it is really possible.
  • Make appointments for consultation moments and discuss how things are going. Give feedback and express your appreciation. However, don’t be too patronizing.

Leaving the company

And here comes one very important matter. Think in advance about the continuation of the career and, if necessary, arrange a development assessment when someone has recovered. Because it could well be that someone is not in the right place. This is what happens in almost half of the cases! But only when someone has recovered can it be continued with good decency. At an earlier stage, the employee will experience this as a disqualification. A severance package is also best discussed when the employee has recovered.

Anticipating this, I return to my suggestion above that you start your own internet business. Here is how!

Starting your own internet business

start businessMore and more people have become entrepreneurs and still, more would like to become their own boss. There is an easy way to start your own business with the help of the internet and become your own boss. Anyone of us can do it, you just need to be told how.

The internet contains a ton of possibilities, yet you need to find the best, honest and scam-free options. I can help you in the right direction and point you to the best internet business support program right now. One of the most popular business models is affiliate marketing. I will explain to you in short how this works.

Affiliate Marketing

You will need to create a website and the program I will be proposing will take care of that. Then you will choose your website niche (a topic you are going to write about). There are millions of niches, but you should pick your topic from one of your hobbies, passions, or interests.

As soon as you have that, you can start building out your website with articles relevant to your niche and with the aim to help people. Subsequently, people will begin visiting your website and as you build further, you can start promoting products relevant to your niche.

You will find these products on the net with various merchants and you will look for the ones with affiliate programs. You apply for their program and as soon as accepted, they will give a link to their products for you to be promoted. Your audience will then be directed to the merchant’s website through the link on your site and when sold, you will receive the commission. No need to buy, store or deliver anything! The investment for this program will be minimal.

Here is the program I recommend as number 1.

Wealthy Affiliate (WA)

Established in 2005 by two Canadian entrepreneurs this unique program has been growing ever since to become theWA most popular of its kind. Low investment, the best training, and an enormously strong and helpful community have attracted many newbies as well as professionals. But there are so many features that make them great.

Being a member myself since 2014, I have prepared a full review of the ins and outs of this world-class program. You can access this review by clicking here. The review also contains a link with which you can become a member for one week for Free, without any commitments whatsoever. In this way, you can experience the system firsthand.

6 thoughts on “You had burnout – Do not make these 5 awful mistakes”

  1. Burnout must be a devasting thing to suffer from for both employee and employer. 

    I was surprised to read that about half of the workers don’t come back to work at all after burnout. However, luckily there are other options nowadays like the fact that you can start your own business online with far less stress as you can work the hours you feel you are capable of without any feelings of guilt or pressure from the boss.

    Reply
    • Well, I said that 50% do not feel like coming back, but in the end, a lot of them have no other option. This is exactly why I give them an opportunity to start working from home and becoming their own boss.

      I can only feel for persons in that situation, but never really know what they are going through. Anyway, I am past that now as I work on my own already.

      Reply
  2. Unfortunately most bosses don’t take burnout seriously and they think its a way for employees to avoid work. I have been there and really know how bad it feels and how hard it can be to get back on the horse. And the more your boss will push you the more difficult the whole process is made. That’s why I believe working online and be the boss of yourself is the best thing one can do. The amount of freedom and phycological difference is vast.

    Reply
    • Bosses should start to realize that having dissatisfied employees or the ones having burnout, will have negative consequences for the company. One thing for sure: productivity will be down. Yet, a lot can be done by theme in avoiding those burnouts or by carefully bringing them into work. This article will hopefully help in doing so.

      Reply
  3. This blog post could not be more timely with all we have going on globally today.  It is almost impossible after COVID to get some people to return to work and my guess is a lot of the problem has to do with the burnout you are speaking of here.  People have had some time off, whether they were sick or not, and have been able to analyze how they really feel about their careers and contemplate the realities of their workplace environments. 

    In way too many cases, I think people are nervous to return to too much work or to feel shamed by their superiors for not coming back sooner. I think this is a great reminder for employers and employees alike to take it slow when returning. 

     Also, thanks for addressing the fact that this may be the best time to start a new type of career, one where you don’t have to worry about a boss or other coworkers because you get to be your own boss!  I will be checking out this Affiliate program you recommend.  

    Thanks a bunch. 

    Reply
    • You make a very good point here that people have come to their senses during their working from their homes period. They were forced to stay at home, thus creating some distance to work. And they set them thinking of what they were really doing at the company.

      Many might have come to the conclusion that it is not what they wanted. Then this article will be an eyeopener in the sense that other possibilities exist, one of them being to become self-employed.

      Reply

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