8 Tips for Getting Back to Work After Burnout

In Australia as well as many other countries, the occupational phenomenon of job burnout is a rising trend. In its wake is a legacy of lives left to face a long-haul road to recovery and wellness. What then follows can seem just as daunting, the transitioning process of getting back to work after burnout.

For the recovering burned-out individual, their experience most likely will alter the future way they see themselves and their expectations of a workplace. It may come from gaining new insights of their own coping capacity and a deeper understanding of the factors that led to burnout. It is well known from studies that the impact of this workplace chronic stress-induced state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion can last up to a great many months or even years.

Different situational circumstances may conspire to create an unhealthy setting ripe for job burnout. Among them, an unrelenting work overload, emotionally demanding interpersonal relationships, conflicting values, injustices, lack of control, low rewards, and a managerial or socially unsupportive workplace culture. An environment of this nature which entraps and erodes workers’ health and wellbeing is hardly an enticing prospect for a burned-out person to want to rush back into.

In the fall-out of burnout, it is not surprising that some affected individuals will be highly critical of their employer, perhaps seeing the organisation as an enemy. At the same time, they may be dealing with guilt about their effectiveness having deteriorated or feeling a sense of shame about letting down people who relied on them. Other commonly associated struggles can be with self-image, and anxiety because of perceptions of prejudice from supervisors or managers.

During the pre-return-to-work recovery phase, it is highly beneficial to stay surrounded by a network of support from family, friends, and trusted coworkers. Also, an individual’s own determination to self-evaluate past patterns of thinking and behaviour and accordingly adjust their mindset, especially around a rebalancing of workplace and personal life demands, is positive preparation for the path ahead.

Here are 8 tips for careful consideration for successfully getting back to work after burnout:

1. Unhurried, taking the necessary time to fully rehabilitate and feeling confident of readiness to return to work may reduce risk of regression.

2. Possessing self-awareness of the slippery slope of self-imposed unrealistic demands to be perfect or brilliant which tends to increase stress-levels.

3. Being equipped with a raft of self-care strategies that strengthen resiliency and provide a buffer of protection from workplace-stressors.

4. A commitment to focus more on the “path” to achievements, to help safeguard health and wellbeing from being jeopardised in the process of pursuing goals.

5. Becoming empowered by having clarity of guiding values and clearly set occupational / workspace boundaries.

6. Resolving in advance any changes in job-fit abilities and work effectiveness and whether that may require a different role or responsibilities going forward.

7. Weighing up the merits of whether to restart in a different organisation or to walk back into the same job and workplace.

8. Establishment beforehand of the adequacy of an employer’s available support and resources from a return-to-work rehabilitative aspect, particularly the expected degree of transitional easiness of assimilation back into the workforce.

Getting back on your feet and returning to work can also be benefited by the help of a professional counsellor. The support of family and friends is invaluable in contributing to a faster recovery. But the therapeutic insights, skills, and strategies that a specialist counsellor offers, is another source of support that can be drawn upon when navigating the way back into the workforce after burnout.