For Leaders: Supporting Your Staff and Preventing Burnout

Course overview

Discussion of how leaders and supervisors can support your staff and prevent burnout, including factors that contribute to burnout in the workplace, common signs and negative effects of burnout, actions that leaders can take to help support staff and prevent burnout from occurring, and ways in which leaders can practice self-care. Burnout is a significant problem within the nursing profession, and may be attributed to nurses working long shifts, dealing with difficult and emotional situations often, and working in high-stress environments. In addition, external factors that are not necessarily related to the work environment also play a pivotal role in regards to burnout in the workplace. Burnout may lead to adverse health outcomes, greater nurse turnover, decreased quality of health care, and lower patient satisfaction. Leaders within healthcare systems are in an optimal position to offer staff support in multiple aspects, playing a protective role towards staff burnout. Because of the potential harmful effects that burnout may have on nurses and consequently patient care and safety, nurse leaders must be able to recognize the risk factors and warning signs associated with nurse burnout, taking a proactive stance in regards to staff support and prevention of burnout. This program discusses factors that contribute to burnout in the workplace, common signs and negative effects of burnout, actions that leaders can take to help support staff and prevent burnout from occurring, and ways in which leaders can practice self-care.