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TV director Tuomas Milonoff had a burnout although he was doing what he loved. According to Milonoff, the signs of one’s own burnout are difficult to recognise. Therefore, the work community can play an important role in the first steps of recovery.
Creativity has returned to the life of TV director Tuomas “Tunna” Milonoff.
“The creative process is the best part of my job,” he says.
Recently, Milonoff has gone public with his burnout – he has written the book Liekki (Flame) on the subject and publicly talked about what happens when stress becomes insurmountable. He wants to talk about burnout because he feels he can no longer keep quiet.
Nowadays, Milonoff thinks that showing one’s weakness is actually a sign of strength and that we should not have to pretend to cope with everything.
”The shame associated with burnout is overwhelming, because people are expected to be efficient and capable. Nobody wants to be the weakest link, but all of a sudden, I found myself in that position,” says Milonoff.
Milonoff is not alone. In 2019, 6% of Finnish employees suffered from burnout, but in recent years, the percentage has increased to 10%. Therefore, it would be paramount to stop the development that began after the pandemic right away.
”I have always taken care of my body and my mind. I have done yoga, meditated, gone to therapy and studied Eastern philosophy. I could have never imagined that I of all people would fall ill.”
Nowadays, Milonoff thinks that showing one’s weakness is actually a sign of strength and that we should not have to pretend to cope with everything. He did not recognise the signs of his own burnout, even though in retrospect, the symptoms were clear.
In 2012, Milonoff’s body gave the first warnings through an atrial fibrillation attack, but he was too busy with work to stop and rest. The next symptoms were cognitive: his memory started to falter and decision-making became more difficult.
”I thought that people are always a bit tired as they juggle the demands of work and life.” Some days were better and some were worse.
When he lost his creativity, Milonoff became worried that he had memory disorder. Previously, he had combined ideas in his mind like pieces of a puzzle, but now, there were no more pieces to combine – his mind was just empty. At this point, ten years had passed since the first symptoms.
Milonoff could not understand what was wrong with him. He would have never guessed that he had work-related burnout – after all, he was following his passion and working on fascinating projects.
”I followed what others were doing at work as if from the outside and pretended to keep up. I became cynical. Then I collapsed completely. I could not even make simple decisions on what to buy in the grocery shop, but returned home empty-handed.”
Milonoff could not understand what was wrong with him. He would have never guessed that he had work-related burnout – after all, he was following his passion and working on fascinating projects.
”My supervisor finally said to me that I was suffering from burnout. I visited occupational health care and went on sick leave.”
Milonoff’s symptoms were typical of burnout. These include, for example, chronic fatigue, learning difficulties and impaired memory, attention and problem-solving ability. Alienation from work and loss of job satisfaction are also typical symptoms.
The How is Finland Doing? study by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health shows that approximately 75 per cent of employees do not suffer from any burnout symptoms or even belong to a risk group. So most of them are doing quite well.
“On average, there are clearly more factors that support work than stressful factors in working life,” says Sampo Suutala, Researcher in work ability and careers at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.
So what is burnout all about? According to studies, burnout is a condition that relates to work – the work environment and the content of work.
Then we made an organisational change that caused confusion. There were some uncertainties between colleagues and quite a bit of friction.
“It should not be confused with fatigue caused by other situations in life or general fatigue,” emphasises Anne Mäkikangas, Professor at the Work Research Centre of the University of Tampere, who has studied the root causes of burnout.
Milonoff initially thought that his burnout was the result of too much work. At some point in his recovery, he began to realise that it was something completely different.
”There was something wrong with my work. During the pandemic, we started working remotely, which meant that we no longer met one another at the workplace or connected with our colleagues. Then we made an organisational change that caused confusion. There were some uncertainties between colleagues and quite a bit of friction,” Milonoff describes.
Personal traits, such as perfectionism or work holism, can increase a person’s risk of developing burnout, but they alone do not cause it.
Research shows that there are many risk factors for burnout, such as unclear work roles, poor management, time pressure, fragmented work, lack of resources and constant change. Personal traits, such as perfectionism or work holism, can increase a person’s risk of developing burnout, but they alone do not cause it.
According to Mäkikangas, one of the increasingly common factors behind burnout is so-called futile tasks, i.e. tasks that seem irrelevant to the person’s own work role or unimportant in general.
”For example, teachers do a lot of other tasks beside teaching these days, which take time away from the actual teaching work. The Wilma system is a good example of this,” Mäkikangas explains.
Special attention should be paid to the wellbeing at work of young employees and supervisors, as they have experienced an increase in burnout symptoms, especially in recent years.
“Managerial duties might involve a lot of bureaucracy and process management as new elements, which can make it feel like there is less time for genuine encounters and human-centred management,” Suutala says.
For supervisors, the risks are therefore increased by the futile tasks mentioned by Mäkikangas.
The immediate supervisor is important, but I would also share responsibility for the orientation with the other team members and close colleagues.
The risk of burnout among young people is increased by, for example, unclear work roles, inadequate orientation and insufficient support at the beginning of the career. Young people also feel less work engagement and more boredom than their older colleagues.
”Young employees should be encouraged to use their talent. They should be taken care of, for example, by providing mentoring and orientation so that they can enter working life as smoothly as possible,” Suutala advises.
According to Mäkikangas, orientation should be thorough and long-term, it should continue longer than the first few weeks of work and everyone should participate in it.
”The immediate supervisor is important, but I would also share responsibility for the orientation with the other team members and close colleagues. Newcomers should not be left alone, but they should feel that they belong,” Mäkikangas advises.
Milonoff was planning to do some backlog work during his sick leave, now that he finally had time. However, a complete burnout means that a person’s battery runs out, so in reality he slept for weeks on end. However, recovering from burnout requires more than just rest.
”I had to rebuild my identity when I could no longer base it on my work. I suffered from feelings of worthlessness and insufficiency, and my professional self-esteem collapsed. I had to work on all of these feelings. Writing a book was one way for me to come to terms with what had happened,” Milonoff says.
Milonoff feels that he has recovered from burnout and regained his ability to work, and he now recognises his own boundaries and factors that impact his wellbeing at work more clearly. He wants to emphasise that an employee who has recovered from burnout can be even stronger than before, even though burnout is often surrounded by unjustified stigma.
In Milonoff’s experience, support from the work community is important for the recovering employee so that they are not left alone.
While burnout is a very personal and difficult matter, it is also a matter that affects the entire work community.
”There should be zero tolerance for burnout. If even one person at the workplace starts to show signs of burnout, others should intervene and take action quickly,” Milonoff emphasises.
At its best, a challenging situation can stimulate the entire work community to review their everyday practices and make them fairer, clearer and smoother.
In Milonoff’s experience, support from the work community is important for the recovering employee so that they are not left alone. He encourages workplaces to invite employees suffering from burnout back into the work community soon, even if they are not yet able to work to their full potential.
”They should also be asked for their opinion on what should be changed in the organisation to support wellbeing.
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