Burnout Prevention in Human Services
The Individual Human Services Workers Role in Burnout Prevention
Casey L. Sheppard
Saint Petersburg College
Human service professionals face a wide variety of complex and often distressing problems as a regular part of their job. Because of the excessive amount of stressors related to work in this field, the profession often takes its toll on ill-prepared workers in the form of burnout. For the purposes of this document, a definition of burnout put forth by Dr. Christina Maslach and Dr. Michael Leiter will be utilized. In their book The Truth About Burnout, Dr. Maslach and Dr. Leiter define burnout as,” the index of the dislocation between what people are and what they have to do. It represents an erosion in values, dignity, spirit, and will -- an erosion of the human soul” (Maslach & Leiter, 1997). Multiple factors contribute to a person arriving at a place of professional burnout. Many of these factors are beyond the control of the individual. Some of these are management styles, financial compensation, society’s view of workers in the human services field, and employer expectations. However, the worker can influence and even control many burnout factors. Those factors, and how the individual human services worker can manage them successfully to prevent burnout, will be the topic of this paper.
Human services workers, more than the members of most job groups, entirely involve the emotional, intellectual, and physical aspects of themselves in their work. Due to the variety of skills and knowledge required of them, workers know there is always more to be learned, practiced, and applied to provide the best possible outcomes for the client. The fact that human beings are the central common ingredient in this work guarantees the need for emotional intelligence in social interaction, with customers, personnel from other agencies, and coworkers. Human services workers must have well developed sensitivity to both verbal and nonverbal communication, and they need
Casey L. Sheppard
Saint Petersburg College
Human service professionals face a wide variety of complex and often distressing problems as a regular part of their job. Because of the excessive amount of stressors related to work in this field, the profession often takes its toll on ill-prepared workers in the form of burnout. For the purposes of this document, a definition of burnout put forth by Dr. Christina Maslach and Dr. Michael Leiter will be utilized. In their book The Truth About Burnout, Dr. Maslach and Dr. Leiter define burnout as,” the index of the dislocation between what people are and what they have to do. It represents an erosion in values, dignity, spirit, and will -- an erosion of the human soul” (Maslach & Leiter, 1997). Multiple factors contribute to a person arriving at a place of professional burnout. Many of these factors are beyond the control of the individual. Some of these are management styles, financial compensation, society’s view of workers in the human services field, and employer expectations. However, the worker can influence and even control many burnout factors. Those factors, and how the individual human services worker can manage them successfully to prevent burnout, will be the topic of this paper.
Human services workers, more than the members of most job groups, entirely involve the emotional, intellectual, and physical aspects of themselves in their work. Due to the variety of skills and knowledge required of them, workers know there is always more to be learned, practiced, and applied to provide the best possible outcomes for the client. The fact that human beings are the central common ingredient in this work guarantees the need for emotional intelligence in social interaction, with customers, personnel from other agencies, and coworkers. Human services workers must have well developed sensitivity to both verbal and nonverbal communication, and they need