• FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • LOGIN
  • SIGN UP FREE

CFO Daily News

  • FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Payroll
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Finance Technology
  • More
    • Employment Law
    • Strategy
    • Policy and Culture
    • Fraud
    • Payments and Transactions
    • Budgeting and Forecasting
    • Banking
    • Staff Management
    • Cost Control
    • Supply Chain
    • IT

Burned out! 13 symptoms to watch out for

Jennifer Azara
by Jennifer Azara
July 16, 2010
  • Payroll
2 minute read
  • SHARE ON

Stay out too long in the sun and you’ll get burned. Stay too long in a stressful or unfulfilling job and you’ll get burned out. Is it a problem in your office?

It very well may be.

The odds of burnout are higher than ever, as many people have been asked to do more with less for several years now.

Check out the 13 signs identified by the Mayo Clinic as warnings there’s job burnout afoot:

  1. Being more cynical, critical and sarcastic at work.
  2. Loss of the ability to experience joy.
  3. Difficulty getting into work and getting started once there.
  4. Increasingly irritable and less patient with co-workers, customers or clients.
  5. Feeling like there are insurmountable barriers at work.
  6. Lacking the energy to be consistently productive.
  7. No longer feeling satisfaction from your achievements.
  8. Having a hard time laughing at oneself.
  9. Co-workers constantly asking “Are you OK?”
  10. Feeling disillusioned about the job.
  11. Self-medicating — using food, drugs or alcohol — to feel better or to simply not feel.
  12. Changing sleep habits or appetite.
  13. Troubled by unexplained headaches, neck pain or lower back pain.

The more signs you recognize, in yourself or other Finance staffers, the more likely there’s a problem.

So what can you do about it? Take a look at the causes of burnout:

  • Lack of control. When people feel they have no control over what they do: which accounts they work, when payment approvals will come in, etc., stress levels rise. Some things may never be in their control, so try to put something in it, such as where they want to cross train, what day to set open office hours, etc.
  • Unclear job expectations. If Marnie doesn’t know whether or not she has the power to approve that expense report, she’ll start to feel worn down. You don’t have to give her the power necessarily – just clarify the uncertainty one way or the other.
  • Poor job fit. Perhaps Todd just isn’t interested in processing payroll, even if he’s good at it. If the person’s a great performer it’s probably worth seeing if another area is a better fit. Better to keep him somewhere in your department (or company) than to have that individual burn out and leave all together.
  • Extremes of activity. Sometimes a frantic pace is unavoidable, especially in Finance. But if the frenzy of month-end is starting to last all month long, it may be time to see if there’s a way to slow the pace a bit now and then so staffers can catch their breath.

Addressing these issues is your best chance at righting the ship before things get really bad, for the burned out person and the rest of the team.

Jennifer Azara
Jennifer Azara
Jennifer, a member of the CFO Daily News staff, has covered business and finance for more than 22 years. She has written for CFOs, credit and collections professionals and accounts payable practitioners and has spoken at industry conferences on sales and use tax compliance.

Keep Up To Date with the Latest Finance News

With CFO Daily News arriving in your inbox, you will never miss critical stories on accounting, benefits, payroll & employment law strategies.

Sign up for a free CFO Daily News membership and get our newsletter!
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
CFO Daily News Logo
  • ABOUT CFO DAILY NEWS
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
  • WRITE FOR US
  • CONTACT
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Payroll
  • Policy and Culture
  • Employment Law
  • Fraud
  • Finance Technology
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Strategy
  • Payments and Transactions
  • Budgeting and Forecasting
  • Banking
  • Staff Management
  • Cost Control
  • Supply Chain
  • IT

CFO Daily News, part of the SuccessFuel Network, provides the latest Finance and employment law news for Finance professionals in the trenches of small-to-medium-sized businesses. Rather than simply regurgitating the day’s headlines, CFO Daily News delivers actionable insights, helping Finance execs understand what Finance trends mean to their business.

Privacy Policy Terms of Service
Copyright © 2021 SuccessFuel

WELCOME BACK!

Enter your username and password below to log in

Forget Your Username or Password?

Reset Password

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Log In

preloader