Mental Health Awareness Week Day 3: Recognizing burnout in yourself and others
In tomorrow’s Live Speaker Series, we’ll hear from John Fitch about strategies for identifying and managing burnout. Today, we’ll start the discussion of what burnout looks and feels like in an all remote environment, for both ourselves and our team members.
In an all remote environment, we’re faced with unique challenges when it comes to
- Identifying burnout in ourselves
- Identifying signs of burnout from our team members
- Balancing the achievement of OKRs with the mental health of our team
- Connecting and empathizing through text and video communication
Recognizing burnout in ourselves
Identifying and coming to terms with the feeling of burnout in ourselves can be challenging. This self assessment tool called The Burnout Index can help you identify feelings of burnout in yourself.
Our handbook outlines feelings and experiences we might notice in ourselves related to burnout, GitLab Handbook: How to Recognize Mental Health Struggles. Take a moment to review these indicators and ask yourself if you have felt or identified with any of these statements in the last month:
- You're constantly tired
- You no longer enjoy things
- Your job performance suffers
- Your physical health suffers (headaches, irregular breathing patterns, etc.)
- Your relationships are strained
- You feel socially zapped
- You disable video for team calls to prevent others from seeing your pain
- You are perpetually concerned with whether you are doing enough
- You worry that your contributions are too few or too insignificant
- You feel unable to choose family first
- If any of these statements ring true for you, it might be time to start a conversation with your manager or a person you trust about how you can manage your experience with burnout at GitLab.
Recognizing burnout in others
See Me Scotland created a campaign called The Power of Okay
The campaign is ...all about getting people talking about mental health and being there for each other. If someone you know is struggling with their mental health, ask them if they are okay, and really listen. It could make all the difference.
Examples of teammate behavior where asking ‘are you okay’ can help:
- You notice your team members who usually posts often in the #craftlab (or any social channel) has been silent there for a while.
- A colleague who typically has their camera on in team meetings has kept their camera off for the last few weeks.
- During a team call, you notice a team member is unusually quiet about a topic where you know they have a strong opinion or don’t agree with the conclusion