How to Prevent Burnouts? Things to know!

How to Prevent Burnouts? Things to know!

“Prevention is better than cure”, is an age old saying. But in the modern world we are in a speed culture, so we don’t have enough time for prevention or we don’t care about it. Because we are almost sure any situation can find a cure by our developed knowledge and scientific development. It is equally applicable to a burnout situation of a person.  Most of the people think that they will not have a burnout or even if it happens there are ways to repair it.  It is interesting to notice that many of the educational institutions and companies talk about burnout prevention, but they don’t do anything much for preventing it. They might support the people those who are already undergoing a burnout in order to get them better and to be back in their work.

If a real burnout prevention programme is implemented in their system they can very well avoid those situations.  Many companies spent thousands of euros to deal with burnout related issues. If an employee is facing a burnout, actually the company is also passively suffering. Because those on the top of the company cannot really notice the real problem the individual is facing. They can only see somewhere something is not right. They can only see the effect of it in the running of the company.  So by the time they find out the real cause of the problem in the functioning of the company it is already too late. So, they fire those employees for not functioning well or cut those positions.  If they want to keep that position, they have to recruit immediately another person to replace the vacant positions due to burnout related issues.

But it is not an easy job. It is not as easy as just picking out a rotten packet of tomato and by replace it with a new packet as in a supermarket!  They have to undergo the complete selection procedure. And there is a period of gap which has to be filled and managed until the new person is in place. And this gap is usually filled and maintained by rest of the employees which will lead to further burnout situations due to over tasks. And this vicious cycle is being repeated and it becomes an ongoing process in any institutions and companies.

But if a company has a real burnout prevention programme that help the employees to relax and function better, the companies wouldn’t suffer so much. Many companies will have to keep a selection team active for the replacement of the employees that are laid out, because of burnouts.  This itself is considered as a strategy for some of the companies to present themselves as very active and progressing even though internally they are struggling and at a certain point they will even end up in bankruptcy because of improper management.  The educational institutions are not really affected by bankruptcy situation because the financial sources are students.

And students are the immediate group that are affected by a burnout or the ones that will face a burnout in their next job because of stress and the uncertainty of future which was already building up while they were in the educational institutions. The only possible way to solve this issue is to provide them with a burnout programme which is inexpensive and easily accessible by the students wherever they are. If the students themselves have to find out these programmes, it would be an additional stress for them and to find the time to attend it apart from the curriculum. So, it should be the responsibility of the institutions to make sure that these programmes are incorporated into their educational system.

The purpose of the education should be to help the students to lead their future life, stress free and achieve their goals. Education shall not be just oriented towards the paper certificate which makes a person eligible to get a job. Every level of education should be holistic. It is time to change the job oriented education to life oriented education.  Most of the time students are misled by the concept that if they get a degree on such and such thing they will have a job and their life will be okay.  But in reality, that is not the case. After having the degrees most of the students struggle and struggle to get a job, may be some of the lucky ones manage to get into a job for which they studied.And the rest will give up after a short while their eagerness to get a job according to the qualifications they have and start looking for activities and jobs that is fulfilling their actual passion. As a result, the energy, the effort and the money spent on the degrees would become a waste. So, it would have been a better choice from the part of the education system to provide an extra support for the students that will guide them in their struggle in the life. Life management tools are better than the degrees when one facing a situation of struggle and difficulty. So, it should be a priority from the part of the institutions to provide its students with those tools. But if we analyze we notice that many of those educational institutions around us lack such a support. If at all there is something like that, it is very minimalistic. It will be just for the sake of having something of some sort to show the public that they care for their students. Do they actually care for? It is still questionable! As long as the authorities wholeheartedly support and understand the real need for providing a life management tool for their students and take the responsibility and the willingness to implement such a programme into their system, the education system will continue as it is and we will have a vicious circles of study programs, graduation, job search, stressful job and burnout. And start again with new courses for new certificates!