Building off of the last episode, I want to cover what happens when you hit burnout…what do you do first?
The first thing you need to do is talk to someone about it, then you need to figure out your options. I won’t say it’s impossible to work through burnout while continuing to work full time…it’s just infinitely more difficult.
Who do I talk to and what options do I need to figure out?
I would talk to someone in your leadership group, whether that is an HR representative or a leader you trust, is up to you. Tell them where you are at and ask what options are available to you. Every company will have a different level of support, so it’s important to understand if long or short term disability is an option, does your company off a leave of absence or a sabbatical? Can you take a chunk of PTO? Will FMLA work for you?
The key thing in this topic is to understand that depending on how healthy your company is, the news of you being burned out could be take the wrong way. There is always risk when asking for large chunks of time out or communicating that you don’t have anything left to give at the moment. It can be read as weakness or incompetence by an unhealthy leader.
HR is a good spot because there are usually protections and you can go to them and get your options without your direct leadership core knowing. From there it’s up to you how to proceed with communicating to who and when.
Make sure that you take burnout seriously because left un-communicated can also lead to risk. If all of a sudden your delivery or quality drops off, it will raise flags with your leaders and peers…if they don’t have the context, you could end up out the door anyway.
I hope this was helpful, it’s not legal advice and I suggest you know your states (or country’s) rights before pushing to hard on anything with regards to mental health and burnout. If you have any questions or want to dive more into a topic, let me know. Thanks for being here!
