BONITA EBY
Mental Health Resources Toolkit
Mental Health Resources Toolkit
Media
BONITA EBY
Compassion Fatigue & Moral Injury
Compassion Fatigue & Moral Injury
BONITA EBY
How to address burnout in healthcare workers
How to address burnout in healthcare workers
BONITA EBY
4 Strategies to Create a Healthy Work-Life ...
4 Strategies to Create a Healthy Work-Life Balance
BONITA EBY
How to get the mental & emotional rest you ...
How to get the mental & emotional rest you need to flourish

Mental Health Resources Toolkit

Download a PDF copy of the Mental Health Resources Toolkit

Download: Mental Health Resources Toolkit
 

Supporting employee well-being with practical strategies & resources.

Prioritizing employee well-being through mental health support is essential. A healthy, happy team is more productive, engaged, and resilient and less likely to suffer from workplace stress, burnout or compassion fatigue. This guide provides mental health resources for

  • Organizational leaders, managers, employees and frontline staff;

  • Military, RCMP, police and first responders;

  • Caregivers and those who may experience vicarious trauma on the job.

Scroll down for the Mental Health Resources Toolkit.

Practical strategies to cultivate a supportive & thriving workplace.

1. Encourage Open Conversations

Cultivate a workplace environment that encourages open conversations about mental health.

  • Lead by Example: Share appropriate personal stories to normalize conversations about mental health, occupational stress, burnout, vicarious trauma, moral injury and compassion fatigue.

  • Demonstrate Empathy: Listen attentively to understand employees' challenges and offer links to company-provided workflows, benefits, employee assistance programs and workplace wellness resources.

  • Ensure Privacy: Protect employees’ confidentiality to foster psychological safety, trust and openness.

2. Promote Work-Life Balance

Enable employees to maintain a healthy work-life balance via workplace and extracurricular resources.

  • Flexible Work Arrangements: Provide employee-driven options for remote work or flexible hours where feasible, while maintaining connection for collaboration and innovation.

  • Encourage Breaks: Ensure employees take regular breaks to rejuvenate during work hours. Consider providing stress management exercises, wellness rooms and outdoor spaces for staff to go for a walk or eat lunch in nature.

  • Discourage Overwork: Establish and model boundaries to prevent excessive working hours through disconnecting from work policies and best practices.

3. Provide Mental Health Resources

Ensure that employees have access to the resources they need to support their mental health and prevent burnout, compassion fatigue and occupational stress.

4. Recognize and Reward Efforts

Acknowledge and value the excellent and innovative work of both individual employees and teams.

  • Verbal Recognition: Consistently offer verbal praise during team meetings for exceptional work. Create environments that celebrate team efforts during group coffee breaks, lunchtime gatherings, or professional development days.

  • Written Acknowledgments: Send thank-you notes or emails to individuals that highlight specific achievements. Additionally, provide employees with consistent feedback on their performance and thank them for even a routine job well done.

  • Incentive Programs: Establish reward programs to honour exceptional performance. While monetary incentives are always appreciated, small recognitions, such as gift certificates for food and beverages or fitness memberships, go a long way to creating a positive work environment where staff feel valued.

5. Foster Social Connections

Create opportunities for employees to connect and build relationships both inside and outside of work.

  • Team-building activities: Organize regular team-building activities to foster employees’ connection and collaboration company-wide, within teams, or departments. Consider utilizing personality profiling resources, such as the Enneagram, for teams to foster cohesion, mitigate conflict, and enhance communication.

  • Social events: Host social events to provide employees with opportunities to connect outside of work. This is especially important for community-minded millennials and Gen Z employees.

  • Mentorship programs: Establish mentorship programs to connect employees with experienced colleagues, allowing them to learn the skills necessary to excel in their roles while fostering meaningful relationships.

6. Educate and Train Leaders

Provide leaders and managers with the essential knowledge and skills to enhance their team’s mental health and well-being.

  • Mental Health Awareness Training: Equip leaders with the ability to recognize signs of distress, burnout and compassion fatigue through practical sector-specific workshops and training.

  • Communication Skills Training: Develop leaders' proficiency in effective communication and active listening, enabling them to ask intelligent, empathetic questions that foster a psychologically safe environment.

  • Healthy Boundary Training: Implement onboarding training for new leaders and managers to equip them in their relationships with direct reports. Provide workshops that enable senior staff to maintain healthy boundaries, understand why they may inadvertently cross their boundaries when helping others, and know what to do when direct reports act in a manner that is detrimental to themselves, their coworkers, clients, or stakeholders.

Implementing these mental health strategies can foster an organizational culture that values, supports, and empowers employees. Prioritizing employee well-being boosts productivity, reduces absenteeism, and fosters engagement, ultimately benefiting both your employees' lives and your organization's success.

“Happy, healthy employees create healthy organizations that thrive.”

-Bonita Eby, CEO, Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc.

Mental Health Resources Toolkit

Download a PDF copy of the Mental Health Resources Toolkit

Download: Mental Health Resources ToolKit

Mental Health Resources for Burnout, Compassion Fatigue & Workplace Stress

  • The Mental Health Continuum Model (MHCM)

    A tool provided by the Government of Canada in collaboration with the United States Marine Corps to monitor and manage mental health.

  • Burnout Assessment

    Free burnout assessment, including both professional and personal profiles.


Mental Health Resources for First Responders, Military and Veterans

General Mental Health Resources

  • Canadian Mental Health Association

    330 community locations across Canada offering mental health supports, including many free options. Find your local CMHA


Mental Health Resources in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge & Guelph

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Mental Health Resources Toolkit
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About the author

Bonita Eby is a Burnout Prevention & Organizational Culture Consultant, Executive Coach, and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc., specializing in burnout prevention and wellness for organizations and individuals. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout.

Improving Employee Experience For Productivity & Retention

Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc. CEO Bonita Eby of Kitchener, Ontario, was interviewed for The Globe And Mail. This article is based on that interview. Find the full article here.

Employee Burnout & Organizational Culture


Dayforce, Inc.’s 15th Annual Pulse of Talent report indicates that burnout and stress continue to impact employee productivity and longevity. The following stats come from the report surveying 9,500 executives, HR leaders, managers, and workers across organizations with at least 100 employees globally:

  • Burnout: 78% experienced burnout in the past year, similar to the previous three years, with 69% indicating that they may choose to look for a different job.

  • Culture matters: 48% said they have quit a job because of a bad company culture. 75% of workers under age 34 said they would reject a job opportunity because of a poor culture fit.

Burnout can affect individuals physically by impacting their immune system and can even lead to heart disease and stroke. It is more often recognized by the mental health effects such as anxiety, trouble sleeping, reduced resilience and an inability to cope.

But burnout isn’t just an individual problem that can be mitigated through only self-care. While mindfulness, work-life balance and stress management are essential, burnout and compassion fatigue are related to organizational culture. To address the root causes, companies must evaluate their culture and provide documented strategies that support workers. Systemic solutions are needed for systemic challenges that only leaders and managers can implement.

How can companies evaluate employee burnout risk?

The symptoms of burnout listed below are important signs to watch for.

  • Exhaustion: Employees may complain of being physically, mentally, or emotionally exhausted, which may be evident by the number of sick days and mental health days they take. When exhausted, employees may become more irritable and unable to deal with conflict. Often, burnt-out people experience brain fog and cannot accomplish tasks requiring executive functioning and problem-solving.

  • Reduced engagement: Quiet quitting often becomes the evidence of burnout or compassion fatigue as employees can no longer give themselves fully to their jobs. This may lead to reduced productivity, collaboration and innovation. Further evidence is lower quality work and missed deadlines, often leading to deep shame and guilt.

  • Attitude: A change in attitude often indicates burnout as employees’ stress puts them into a fight, flight or freeze response, reducing their ability to manage conflict or engage in relationships at work. Employees may find it more difficult to maintain healthy boundaries and need clarity and support.

  • Absenteeism: When an employee starts taking more sick days, it's crucial to pay attention. Without appropriate intervention and support, sick days can lead to leaves of absence and, ultimately, resignations. This situation affects individuals who might feel embarrassed and guilty about letting their team down. When teams lose a member, everyone remaining must manage an increased workload, and burnout can spread throughout the team. In the end, absenteeism lets clients or stakeholders down, as well as the organization itself, resulting in lost revenue and a tarnished reputation.

  • Assessment: Managers can implement an evidence-based Burnout Assessment to evaluate employee burnout risk. Then, companies can plan personalized and company-wide initiatives based on measurable objective data.

How to effectively evaluate employee burnout risk across your organization.

Free Burnout Assessment
Free Burnout Assessment Guide

How can leaders & managers support employee well-being?

Leaders and managers must receive soft skills training to cultivate an empathetic company culture, which is essential for employee retention and reducing turnover. Managers and their teams build trust through relationships and modelling behaviours. Every employee is an individual who needs personalized support. Implementing policies that promote work-life balance and establish workplace boundaries empowers employees at all levels to thrive.

Equipping employees with job-specific skills training and burnout prevention strategies while addressing vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue boosts employee engagement. Offering flexible work environments and regularly surveying employee experiences leads to greater retention.


How to improve employee productivity & retention.

The 14th Annual Pulse of Talent: Canada report surveyed 1,400 Canadian workers in particular offers some helpful guidance on supporting burnt-out employees:

  • Tech innovation: 66% said tech upgrades improved productivity and retention.

  • Leader empathy: 87% said empathy from their organization’s leadership would enhance job satisfaction, retention, performance, and productivity.

  • Skill training: Providing job-specific and soft skills training throughout their employment increases productivity.

  • Flexible work: Flexibility and fairness remain key in employee engagement, particularly a reduction in manager administration.

  • Leader training: Targeted training to help managers understand how to lead with emotional intelligence to create a psychologically safe work environment for staff.

  • Culture surveys: Regularly surveying employees to understand their experiences and align their values with company goals can lead to better results.

Burnout can be prevented and overcome through individual self-care practices and changes in organizational culture that prioritize employee well-being. On a personal level, employees can manage stress by establishing boundaries, practicing mindfulness, taking regular breaks, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. However, sustainable solutions require systemic support from organizations, including promoting realistic workloads, fostering a culture of open communication, and providing resources for mental health and professional development. When companies actively cultivate an environment that values employee well-being, they not only help prevent burnout but also enhance job satisfaction and retention, leading to a healthier and more engaged workforce.

About the author

Bonita Eby is a Burnout Prevention & Organizational Culture Consultant, Executive Coach, and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc., specializing in burnout prevention and wellness for organizations and individuals. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout. Get your free Burnout Assessment today.


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Manager Burnout

Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc. CEO Bonita Eby of Kitchener, Ontario, was interviewed for Business Insider magazine by Diamond Naga Siu. This article is based on that interview. Find the full article here.

In today’s workforce, we’re seeing manager burnout come to the forefront. While employee engagement, staff burnout and frontline worker compassion fatigue have made headlines, what happens if your manager is burnt out?

How manager burnout impacts engagement and employee experience.

When managers and supervisors experience burnout, they have less capacity to deal with the challenges brought forward by direct reports. They may not have the energy to engage with empathy or the skill to manage critical dilemmas.

Long-term chronic stress at work affects one’s ability to navigate problem-solving, executive functioning, or higher thinking to the same extent. Under stress, the brain’s amygdala triggers a cascade of reactions, including outpouring cortisol and adrenaline from the adrenal glands. The amygdala also inhibits immediate use of the frontal cortex, where higher levels of thinking and problem-solving occur.

Diamond quoted in the Business Insider article, “This leaves their direct reports in a lurch, since managers have such a large impact on someone's role: workflows, productivity, support, growth, and more. Bonita Eby, a burnout prevention consultant, told me that's why it's important to remove the taboo — including for managers — of saying "I need help.”

What can managers do if they're feeling burned out?

1. Recognize the symptoms.

The first step is to recognize if you might be experiencing the signs and symptoms of burnout. The free Burnout Assessment provides essential questions across six organizational culture factors that affect burnout. Managers can use the assessment independently or as part of a company-wide strategy for mitigating employee burnout.

You can learn the evidence-based symptoms of burnout and the signs of compassion fatigue in the linked articles.

Business Insider reporter Diamond Naga Siu spoke with several experts about the signs of manager burnout. While burnout cannot be accurately assessed by others subjectively, the Burnout Assessment provides objective data to monitor burnout risk.

Signs Diamond quoted me as saying:

  • Fear: "We often see that when people are going through burnout, they become fearful, because they're experiencing such vast amounts of stress," Eby said. “Fear, stress, and anxiety all go through the same nervous (system) pathway, she said, so a burnt-out manager could be working in survival mode.”

  • Creating conflict: “When people are experiencing burn out, Eby told me they can begin to create conflicts. In a manager, this can look like inappropriate language or off-colored jokes, which can put employees in a scary and uncomfortable position.” 

 

2. Reconnect with your values.

Chronic stress and challenging life events can interfere with valued living when managers focus entirely on problem-solving and regaining a sense of control that they lose track of what matters most.

Losing touch with one's values at work is characterized by an excessive emphasis on controlling the negative rather than living out the positive. However, research reveals a strong correlation between living out one's values and resilience to stressful events.

Managers can cultivate a path toward resilience by engaging in behaviours aligned with their personal and professional values. Values are one's beliefs, ethics and deeply held convictions. When managers reconnect with their organization's values that mean the most to them, it can become a buffer against burnout and provide an impetus to regaining passion and strength.

What can leaders do to support burnt-out managers?

1. Re-create autonomy.

Managers and employees alike are facing challenges related to going from a remote working option to a hybrid model or, in some cases, a full in-office arrangement.

Managers need the flexibility to work at their optimum; sometimes, that means working from home or a remote location. Organizations that provide worker autonomy around where and when they work tend to have greater employee engagement and satisfaction. Giving managers more freedom to make choices that support their work-life balance gives them a greater chance of regaining and increasing their productivity.

 

2. Reassess support.

Regularly reassess the supports offered to managers and employees. Provide consistent check-ins to monitor how managers cope and have authentic conversations about their needs. 

Promote benefits packages and employee assistance programs every month, emphasizing what is available and encouraging usage. Stressed-out managers may only be aware of some of what is available to them to help deal with stress and exhaustion. 

Meaningful and open conversations in a psychologically safe manner can help leaders support managers to thrive, not just survive.

About the author

Bonita Eby is a Burnout Prevention & Organizational Culture Consultant, Executive Coach, and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc., specializing in burnout prevention and wellness for organizations and individuals. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout. Get your free Burnout Assessment today.

Connect with us about bringing our workshops to your organization.

 

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Compassion Fatigue & Moral Injury

 
 

Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc. CEO Bonita Eby of Kitchener, Ontario, was interviewed on CHCH Morning Live. This article is based on that interview.

Click the image to watch the live television interview.

Host: We hear a lot about burnout. What about something called compassion fatigue? Burnout Prevention Strategist and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development, Bonita Eby, joins us now with more.

What is the definition of compassion fatigue?

Host: Let's start out with what compassion fatigue is.

Bonita: Compassion fatigue is the stress resulting from exposure to suffering people. It's caused by vicarious trauma. In other words, it's witnessing or listening to other people's difficult stories or painful experiences. It’s important to note that exposure is cumulative.

Who does compassion fatigue impact?

Host: I can imagine this is something you deal with, specifically within corporate or professional roles. I can also imagine it is something that caregivers get. Are we talking about healthcare workers and social workers?

Bonita: You are completely right. We're seeing it a lot in healthcare workers, anyone from nurses and doctors to intake workers. We also see compassion fatigue and moral injury in emergency response workers, from paramedics to forensics, and we also see it within purpose-driven nonprofits.

How has compassion fatigue emerged in recent years?

Host: Is compassion fatigue new, or is it just something that people are now recognizing based on how they are feeling and acting?

Bonita: Burnout, compassion fatigue and moral injury have existed for a long time, though it's just recently that the public is beginning to understand what it means. Even with burnout pre-pandemic, it wasn’t talked about or largely understood. Now that we’re in what’s called a post-pandemic world, the word burnout is regularly overused, attributing it to too many things. Burnout is evidence-based and a recognized term with a specific meaning.

Similarly, compassion fatigue has become public knowledge. People in helping professions have experienced an increased prevalence of compassion fatigue, moral injury and burnout throughout the pandemic, and it continues post-pandemic.

Host: And because it's happening so much, there's simply no time to stop and just take a breather at work?

What is moral injury & how does it happen?

Bonita: Well, that's just it. One of the main issues is a lack of resources. People in healthcare, emergency response and nonprofits want to help, but there is an incredible lack of resources in which to provide the help that people need.

This is where moral injury comes in. Helping professionals want to help those they serve, but they are often powerless to do so due to a lack of funding or long waiting lists. They are highly trained professionals, and yet they feel like their hands are tied.

What can we do to prevent & support those experiencing compassion fatigue?

Host: I can imagine what frontline workers are seeing on a day-to-day basis. What's being done to stop the issue that's causing all of this?

Bonita: We're always going to have suffering people. But what we need to do is care for the people caring for the suffering people. It means putting strategies and resources in place.

It’s important for organizations to look at their company culture, their systems and processes for providing care. Leaders must create psychologically safe environments for employees to talk about compassion fatigue, burnout, and moral injury and seek support.

A great place for organizations to start is by using the free Burnout Assessment on my website. Leaders and employees can download and use it to evaluate employee burnout risk and put strategies in place to mitigate burnout, compassion fatigue and moral injury. The Burnout Assessment is used globally by organizations to care for their people and culture.

Signs of compassion fatigue

Host: What are some of the signs of compassion fatigue?

Bonita: One of the things we're seeing regularly is the quiet quitting phenomenon. When people are experiencing compassion fatigue, they become fatigued. They're exhausted, not just physical exhaustion but also mental and emotional exhaustion.

When highly skilled professionals desire to help others but are physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted, they often begin to self-protect. They put up a metaphorical wall between themselves and those they serve because they simply can’t give of themselves as much as they have in the past.

Sometimes. as their capacity decreases, they have less tolerance for others. Even kind, loving people begin snapping at others, almost like their personalities have changed. Suddenly they are acting poorly, not caring, or causing conflict within their team.

Host: And we need those people, and we need them to be highly functioning.

Bonita: That's right, and they want to be. I've never met someone in one of the helping professions who doesn't want to be highly functioning. They're giving it their all. They're in their profession because they want to make a difference in this world.

Connect with us about bringing our workshops to your organization.

Workshops

About the author

Bonita Eby is a Burnout Prevention & Organizational Culture Consultant, Executive Coach, and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc., specializing in burnout prevention and wellness for organizations and individuals. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout.

To learn more about the symptoms of burnout, read The Symptoms of Burnout.

Download your free Burnout Assessment.

Burnout Assessment

Consultant Helps Leaders & Organizations Overcome Burnout

Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc. owner, Bonita Eby, was a featured guest on The Digital Executive podcast. This article summarizes that interview. Click to listen to the full podcast, Consultant Helps Leaders & Organizations Overcome Burnout with CEO Bonita Eby | Ep 605.

On a mission to end burnout.

Host: Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast. Today's guest is Bonita Eby. Bonita is a Burnout Prevention Strategist and CEO of Breakthrough Personal and Professional Development, Incorporated. She specializes in burnout prevention and organizational culture at the intersection of health and leadership development. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout. 

Good afternoon, Bonita and welcome to the show. You've got quite a career in health and culture as a trainer and the CEO of Breakthrough Personal and Professional Development. Could you share the secret to your career growth with our audience and what inspires you?

Bonita: It all started when I went through burnout and compassion fatigue. I found a lack of resources to help on a personal or corporate level. Over time, I researched burnout and compassion fatigue: What causes it? How do you overcome it? From that research, I created proprietary training and models for preventing employee burnout through the lens of organizational culture. 

A unique methodology.

Host: Let's talk about your methodology, which is informed by extensive research and data and is evidence-based, which is always good to hear. You also say that your method is different than the rest. Could you share what makes you unique?

Bonita: I started my career in healthcare and spent about a decade in that space before transitioning into leadership development. I’ve spent about 25 years in the leadership space. 

When I transitioned into working with burnout and compassion fatigue, I began researching. Because of my healthcare background, I accessed quality research, understood it, and broke it down, making it usable for leaders and organizations to implement. 

We custom-design workshops and training for organizations based on our discoveries while consulting with leaders. In a nutshell, we meet our clients at the intersection of healthcare and leadership development, which differs from most other companies.

How to excel in your career.

Host: Can you share something from your career experience that would be helpful for those looking to grow their career in coaching or entrepreneurship?

Bonita:

1. Invest in quality apps. They make a significant difference in being able to prioritize and be effective and efficient at work. 

2. We often hear stories about people who just got lucky and their businesses exploded. And while that is possible, I appreciate the quote, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” That's my experience. It doesn't mean working yourself to the bone. I work in burnout prevention; overworking is not the point. But do the work. 

3. It takes time to become an expert in your field. Surround yourself with great leaders. Never be afraid to have people around you who do things better than you. That's how we grow. That's how we learn. We need to depend upon others who can do pieces we cannot, which is a key part of leadership.

4. And lastly, trust your gut. So many times, we see what others are doing and may wonder if we should be doing the same thing. Learn and grow, but don't try to be someone else. Trust your gut. Know that you have something special to bring into the world, and then do it with integrity.

Host: Your personal experience and what you’ve learned throughout your career and life brings much to this show. I appreciate it, and thank you very much, Bonita. It was a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Bonita: Thank you, Brian. Have a wonderful day. Bye for now.

To learn more about the symptoms of burnout, read The Symptoms of Burnout.

Download your free Burnout Assessment.

Burnout Assessment

About the author

Bonita Eby is a Burnout Prevention & Organizational Culture Consultant, Executive Coach, and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc., specializing in burnout prevention and wellness for organizations and individuals. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout. Get your free Burnout Assessment today.

Connect with us about bringing our workshops to your organization.

Workshops

How to address burnout in healthcare workers

I’ve had the opportunity to work with many healthcare organizations in the private and public sectors. In this article, you’ll learn the challenges healthcare workers face, including primary care physicians, surgeons, nurses, intake workers, mental health professionals, and healthcare human resources professionals.


Burnout & stress factors facing frontline workers.

The original feedback from frontline workers came through workshops and training facilitated by several universities’ faculty of medicine, specialized conferences, hospitals, long-term care facilities and critical care teams. As we walked through the causes of burnout, compassion fatigue and moral injury, these are some of the challenges healthcare workers identified as primary challenges.


Workload challenges

  • Staff shortages, with support staff and nursing shortages in particular.

  • Additional caseload and items added to the workload, requiring much more time and effort.

  • An increase in client needs, often due to a lack of resources, requires a higher degree of innovation.

  • Policy implementations require an increased demand for documentation.

  • A lack of resources caused healthcare workers to improvise due to long-term service waitlists.

  • Returning to normal with the backlog brought upon by the pandemic over the past three years.


Control challenges

  • An inability to set one’s schedule or losing autonomy over one’s schedule.

  • Attempting to balance the backlog of work with emergent issues.

  • Unfair perceptions from families that do not match ministry or facility requirements.

  • The lack of transparency from management paired with constant change.

  • Feeling anxiety about things I cannot control, nor are they my responsibility to control.

  • Experiencing the shame of being burnt out due to unhelpful stigmas.


Reward challenges

  • Longer working hours that extend into evenings, weekends and atypical shifts.

  • A lack of overtime compensation.

  • A lack of comprehensive benefits to cover increased expenses for self-care and mental health support.

  • Feeling unappreciated by team members, management, and patients.

  • Inflation and the increased cost of living leave many helping professionals living pay cheque to pay cheque.

  • Benefit package levels are insufficient despite the increasing cost of services.

  • Unfair compensation as some staff members receive wage enhancements while others do not.


Connection challenges

  • A lack of in-person connection with patients and co-workers.

  • A critical lack of debriefing and support from managers and supervisors following difficult experiences and vicarious trauma.

  • Lack of collaboration and creativity to problem-solve among team members.

  • Higher staff turnover means losing long-term team members and onboarding new staff with insufficient training and team building.

  • Fewer opportunities for holiday celebrations.

  • Working as a team, but feeling alone and isolated.


Fairness challenges

  • Constantly changing directives and protocols.

  • Continued personal protective measures long after the rest of society stopped taking precautions.

  • A lack of mentorship from seasoned staff and supervisors due to a lack of time and resources.

  • Inauthentic messaging from higher management regarding worker care, but without behaviours to back it up.

  • Fewer opportunities for training and lunch and learns.

  • Ageism, gender inequality, and racism lead to microaggressions and a lack of growth and development opportunities.


Values challenges

  • An inability to provide high-quality care and referrals due to a lack of resources causes patients to survive rather than thrive.

  • Documentation that seems to come first before actual client care.

  • A lack of work-life balance due to increased work responsibilities and reduced compensation.

  • An unanswered desire for critical incident debriefs after emotionally-charged emergency situations.

  • Experiencing stress as a baseline due to supporting clients within systemic inequalities.

  • A feeling of hopelessness and grief without sufficient time to internally process.

  • Giving so much of oneself to work that there is insufficient time or energy for family, social life and self-care.


What can be done to support healthcare workers?

Frontline staff, as well as upper management, require strategies to prevent and overcome workplace stress, burnout and compassion fatigue. The following are a few recommendations to get you started.


Complete an organizational culture evaluation.

Evaluate company culture factors, including workload, autonomy, employee satisfaction, workplace community, fairness and organizational values. Follow up with workshop sessions that invite staff to collaboratively create solutions. 


Address high workloads.

Engage employees to learn how they would like their workload challenges to be addressed. You’d be surprised how often people know the answers to their problems but lack autonomy for innovation.


Encourage autonomy.

While not all areas of work can be controlled, offering employees simple options that empower personal autonomy goes a long way toward workplace satisfaction. Helping staff feel in control of even small parts of their job builds confidence and enthusiasm.


Communicate gratitude authentically.

Employees need to hear that they are appreciated. Even when they lack control over responsibilities, expressing thanks publicly often raises morale. Additionally, make sure that written and spoken values are lived out in real-life situations and promoted through recognition.


Reestablish team building and growth opportunities.

Get creative with team building through social events and team training by encouraging professional development learning to improve employee self-efficacy and collaboration. Offer workshops and lunch and learns that do not interfere with workplace responsibilities.


Evaluate employee burnout risk.

Use the free Burnout Assessment to assess employee risk. It is available online or digitally as a service. Download it today or contact us to learn more.


Train effective debriefing skills

Provide managers. supervisors and team leaders - anyone in a leadership position - training on how to facilitate critical incident stress debriefs. By training all leadership levels to understand how debriefs work and providing a consistent outline to follow, staff that experience stressful events feel heard and cared for.


About the author

Bonita Eby is a Burnout Prevention & Organizational Culture Consultant, Executive Coach, and owner of Breakthrough Personal & Professional Development Inc., specializing in burnout prevention and wellness for organizations and individuals. Bonita is on a mission to end burnout. Get your free Burnout Assessment today.

 

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