Burnout is a major problem in the healthcare field. People work long hours caring for patients, doing physically and mentally exhausting labor that can contribute to chronic stress.

When nurses get burned out, the quality of their work can drop and they may be more likely to make errors that affect patients. Some nurses simply leave the profession altogether when the stress of working in the field gets to be overwhelming. As there is already a staffing shortage in healthcare, this causes problems throughout the system.

Preventing stress and burnout is a challenge. However, it’s an important part of your role as a nursing team leader to help the nurses under your supervision to manage their stress and maintain their ability to provide great patient care.

Here are some ways to help combat healthcare burnout as a nursing leader.

Understanding Healthcare Burnout

Healthcare burnout is a growing problem. When people experience burnout, they become exhausted in every sense: physically, mentally, and emotionally. Burnout occurs over a period of time and it can affect everything from job performance and satisfaction to overall well-being.

Nurses may become burned out due to a combination of factors. Long hours, combined with staffing shortages means that everyone else on staff has to work harder to provide adequate care for patients.

Additionally, nurses often do not get the resources or guidance they need to succeed. In some cases, they are not given clear responsibilities or expectations for their work, which can lead to anxiety and feelings of overwhelm.

Finally, nurses care for sick and dying patients on a daily basis. Some of these patients are survivors of horrific experiences and have lasting trauma to contend with. Nurses can get burned out more quickly if they experience “secondhand trauma.”

Encourage Healthy Boundaries and Self-Care

Burnout often occurs when people don’t get enough rest and bring their work home with them. As a nursing leader, you need to set the tone and encourage your nurses to set healthy boundaries and make self-care a priority.

Work-life balance is very important in preventing burnout. You can support your staff in creating these boundaries by encouraging them to unplug and avoid dwelling on work issues. Giving people more flexible work schedules whenever possible can help your nursing team improve their work-life balance.

Self-care is also critical for warding off healthcare burnout. Encourage your staff members to maintain a healthy diet, get enough exercise, engage in hobbies, and spend time with loved ones. True self-care isn’t very glamorous, but it can have a significant positive effect on a nurse’s life and career.

Build a Supportive Work Environment

Your nurses need to have clear expectations and responsibilities in order to feel like they can be productive and fully embrace their role on the team. Additionally, team members need to know that their leaders and colleagues will support them when they run into challenging situations.

Facilitating open, honest, and kind communication on your nursing team is critical for building a supportive work environment. Team-building activities can also be a great way to build trust among your nurses.

To create a supportive work environment, your nurses need to have access to the resources they need. Ensuring that you have adequate staffing levels and all the equipment your nurses need to fulfill their responsibilities will remove some of the stress, overwhelm, and anxiety nurses can experience on the job.

Being supportive also means supporting your team in terms of professional growth. Providing opportunities for ongoing professional development and encouraging your team to build their skills to advance their careers helps to improve overall job satisfaction.

Lobby for Change

As a nursing leader, there will naturally be some limitations on what you’re able to do for your team to prevent burnout. You might be constrained by budget, upper management, and other factors. It’s important to advocate for your team and lobby for change to help not only the nurses under your supervision but also nurses throughout the industry.

Collaborating with other nursing leaders and bringing your concerns to management will bring awareness to the problems nurses face. Change won’t happen overnight, but nursing leaders need to be involved in lobbying for change. Nurse activism is a key component of healthcare reform.

What to Look for In Your Staff—Signs of Burnout

Preventing burnout is almost always easier than reversing it. For that reason, it’s critically important for nursing team leaders to keep an eye out for any symptoms of burnout among their teams. Here are some of the changes to look for that might indicate burnout:

• Physical exhaustion
• Headaches or stomach issues
• Cynicism and detachment from the work
• Difficulty concentrating
• Increased errors
• Lack of enthusiasm
• Loss of job satisfaction

These are not all the possible symptoms of burnout, so keeping an eye out for any changes in your nursing team members is important. You’ll want to spot signs of burnout as soon as possible so you can address them right away. It’s important to note that although the symptoms of burnout often overlap with compassion fatigue (another problem within the nursing field), they are actually two different problems.

Benefits of Addressing Burnout Within Your Team

When nurses are stressed and burned out, they don’t do their best work. Their health can suffer and they are more likely to call out sick. Patient outcomes can be compromised. Because of these and other reasons, it’s well worth investing time and resources into addressing burnout.

Preventing and addressing burnout leads to many benefits, including better morale, lower turnover, and fewer nurses leaving the profession altogether. Nurses who come to work refreshed are also more likely to have a positive attitude and provide the highest level of care.

By working to prevent burnout within your team, you can improve the work environment, keep your best employees loyal, and ensure quality patient care.