Tag: alleviating burnout

HERO Traits

In reading one of the burnout books I alighted on the concept of HERO traits. Those of us who possess these traits are thought to do better on the job and in life.

The HERO traits are:

Hope

self-Efficacy

Resilience

Optimism

Gratitude

Empathy

Mindfulness

Social media algorithms purposed keep people on sites like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) using metrics designed to keep people antagonistic towards each other.

I say lay off getting sucked into these agents of acrimony. Try asking a real live person out for coffee. To talk about what makes them tick. To have fun. Instead of wallowing in online fury.

Red and blue make Purple. Purple is a gorgeous color. United we stand. Divided we fall.

Why not devote time to using the HERO traits to better ourselves.

We can also use these traits interacting with others like coworkers.

Offsetting Burnout

I attended a Zoom burnout session. In future blog entries I’ll talk about what I learned there.

While burnout is NOT the employees fault some things can help alleviate the stress that are person-centered as referred to in The Burnout Challenge:

Staying Healthy

Getting enough sleep

Relaxing

Understanding oneself

Developing new skills (on the job)

Getting away from the job

Getting social support

In terms of developing new skills on the job circa 2008 I took training to help customers create resumes and conduct job searches.

This made all the difference in sparking joy at work.

It can be tough when staff feel they can’t approach management to get things done in terms of the 6 causes of burnout. What if the upper echelon doesn’t see fit to change things?

A new 2023 book at the library titled Exit Interview was a memoir and expose of working in the corporate Amazon office. The woman author said she had in effect sold her soul: After 12 years working in that environment she no longer recognized the person in the mirror.

I buy things on Amazon that I can’t find locally or anywhere else. I admire Jeff Bezos for how he transformed Amazon from an online bookseller in 1997 to the Marketplace of the World. However I’m NOT a fan of how Amazon treats its workers. Warehouse staff are given health insurance precisely because their jobs in the warehouses cause ill health.

Sadly the cure for burnout is not job-hopping if you risk going “out of the frying pan into the fire.” The next job you get could be like reliving the old job.

I will talk further in future blog entries about visionary ideas for making the workplace a better place to work.

The Pomodoro Technique

A method for controlling your time on the job that I think everyone should use is the Pomodoro Technique.

Creator and author of the book the Pomodoro Technique Francesco Cirillo originally used a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato. Pomodoro is Italian for tomato.

I wrote about this before: You set a kitchen timer for 25 minutes. Use the block of time for a section of a work project. When the timer goes off set it for a five-minute break period. In the five minutes do nothing related to the work project.

Schedule 3 to 5 Pomodoros in the morning. Take lunch. Continue with 3 to 5 Pomodoros in the afternoon.