Welcome to Read Before Burning, a monthly newsletter by psychologist Dr Ben J. Searle. Come here for simple but informative coverage of burnout-related concepts, research findings, and actionable advice – all firmly grounded in science.
Who am I? After earning a PhD in psychology, I spent 20 years in academia studying stress and burnout until I went through burnout myself. I now research, consult, and communicate about burnout and what to do about it.
I also do other kinds of consulting work, such as investigating psychosocial hazards and developing reliable ways to measure workplace phenomena. Reach out if you think I might be able to help you with something!
Burnout: From Disclosure to Action
Last month (in RBB Issue #10), I wrote about what to do when someone discloses that they are burning out. In short, you need to LEAD: Listen, Empathise, Ask, and Do.
Listening, Empathising, and Asking questions are all helpful tips for supporting someone through an initial burnout disclosure. But your responsibilities don’t end with that one conversation! If it persists, burnout can be devastating (see RBB Issue #01), and there’s a lot you can Do — practical actions you can take — that can make a big difference.
The four Rs of post-disclosure action are:
- Render assistance,
- Respect confidentiality,
- Report hazards, and
- Record details.
Render Assistance
For many of us, our initial reaction is to offer help. This will usually be received in the manner in which it is intended — a kind gesture to support someone in need — but even so, it may be worth taking a moment to consider how to help.
Be Specific
Here’s an observation that will baffle a lot of people. Comments like, “Let me know if I can do anything to help!” may feel like generous expressions of support, but that’s not how everyone will experience them. Vague offers of help can be a problem because:
- Such comments assume people can easily specify the help they need. Often it’s hard to identify the form of help that would make the biggest impact, even when we’re looking at our own situations. People going through burnout often struggle with many aspects of work and life, so there may be many areas in which help could be useful. And that’s before we consider the uncertainties and unknowns around managing a condition like burnout. Coming up with a clear and effective “how to help me” plan may take considerable time and effort for a person who probably already feels overwhelmed.
- Such comments also assume people know the unwritten rules. No matter how kind and generous you are, there will be limits to the help and support you’re willing to provide — and that’s ok! It’s healthy and appropriate to have boundaries that you stick to, even when helping your friends and co-workers. The problem is that your boundaries may not be as obvious to others as they are to you. The person going through burnout is expected to guess what help they can request without seeming demanding or unreasonable — at a time when they may already feel ashamed (see RBB Issue #3). This is particularly challenging for neurodivergent individuals, who often find it difficult to interpret social rules and expectations. They may be unsure what you are willing to do, or even if you are willing to help at all.
The result is that people receiving vague offers of aid may request much less help than they need — or they may not seek your help at all.
If you genuinely want to help, try offering specific suggestions about the sort of help you’re willing to provide. Specific support offers that are often welcome include:
- Being a support person for them at a difficult meeting,
- Helping them make a formal report about workplace hazards (see below),
- Taking on a specific task or project to lighten their load, or
- Performing a non-work task for them that will help lighten their load (e.g., preparing them some meals when they are particularly exhausted).
This demonstrates your willingness to help, suggests some forms that help might take (including options the affected worker may not have considered), and can even reveal the level of help you are willing to offer.
Connect to Resources
Another valuable way to help someone who is experiencing burnout (or another serious condition) is to guide them towards helpful resources.
Someone who is burning out may feel too exhausted or overwhelmed to identify helpful people, services, and other resources — let alone to take the first steps towards utilising these resources. Connect someone to useful resources might look like investigating the process of applying for stress leave, then helping them apply. It might look like supporting them while they book an appointment with the Employee Assistance Program (which can be stressful if they haven’t done it before). This not only increases the support available to the person in need, it can reduce the burden on you as a source of support.
For reference, some great resources available online include:
- My own website’s burnout support resources (applies to all regions);
- Advice from Safe Work Australia on (Australian) employer responsibilities for managing hazards that can cause psychological injuries;
- Australian mental health information and services, such as Lifeline, Beyond Blue, and the Black Dog Institute; and
- Australian government advice on accessing professional mental health services in Australia, including the mental health treatment plan.
Boundaries vs Responsibilities
There’s never a good time to learn that someone is burning out, but there are bad times. Burnout is driven by psychosocial hazards (see RBB Issue #02). People tend to realise they are burning out during peak periods of workload or organisational changes, or following a reduction in supports. So at the time someone discloses their burnout to you, your capacity to help may be limited: you may be tired, overloaded, or going through burnout yourself!
If this happens, then it’s ok to have boundaries. For example, it may not be possible for you to take on any more work to help someone who is struggling. But this doesn’t make it ok to ignore the person or the problem. At very least you can Listen and Empathise (as discussed in RBB Issue #10). Then acknowledge your limitations and try to help them access other supports — such as identifying someone who can help more than you can. You also need to follow all the steps below.
Respect Confidentiality
After the meeting where burnout is disclosed, something you must “Do” is respect the discloser’s privacy and confidentiality.
“when someone tells you they are experiencing burnout, you have a duty to keep this information confidential”
In Australia, a worker’s personal details — including the presence of any “sensitive information” about health or mental health conditions — should not be disclosed unless that worker provides consent. This means when someone tells you they are experiencing burnout, you have a duty to keep this information confidential.
There are some exceptions to this rule. For example, you may be required to disclose health information if there is a serious and immediate threat that the individual could pose a serious threat to the life, health, or safety of themselves or others. This exception is unlikely to be relevant in most burnout cases (unless the affected individual reports suicidal intentions, threatens violence against others, or seems so tired they risk injuring themselves or others).
Some people are willing to be open about their experience of burnout, but you should never assume consent is granted: always check whether, to whom, and under what circumstances you can disclose sensitive information like this. Even if they grant consent, it’s best to get it in writing (see below, under Record Details).
Report Hazards
“workers have a duty to report workplace injuries and hazards”
Another “To Do” that should follow a burnout disclosure is reporting. Yes, this does seem inconsistent with respecting confidentiality, and yes, there is a solution.
In many regions, workers have a duty to report workplace injuries, hazards, and other safety-critical incidents. In Australia, failure to report these can be a breach your employment contract. If your inaction is deemed to be negligent, there may even be legal implications!
But although burnout is widely regarded as a psychological injury caused by psychosocial hazards, burnout disclosures often go unreported. This can be due to problematic attitudes to burnout (as discussed in RBB Issue #09), but it need not be. As I’ve suggested above, confidentiality requirements can discourage people from reporting psychological injuries.
One way around this is for the affected worker to grant consent to being identified in reports. This can have some advantages. For example, consent makes it easier to explain one’s circumstances and to seek special leave provisions, workplace accommodations, or other forms of support. It can also mean quicker access to support and quicker action to address the underlying causes. In a psychologically safe work environment, this approach can help reduce shame and stigma. But not all environments are psychologically safe, so I can understand reluctance to be identified in a report. Some workplace incident reporting systems have strong access limitations making identifiable details accessible only to authorised personnel, but this isn’t always the case.
Instead, a better solution is often to simply report the hazards without identifying the individual. Those investigating workplace hazards associated with burnout and mental health conditions are often unaware of who was injured. After all, the most important details are What hazard(s) contributed to the injury? and What can be done about each hazard? This is a good opportunity to check if your organisation’s reporting system requires identification of the affected worker to be identified. If it does, suggest this be changed!
Helping the affected worker to complete a hazard report is more than just a duty, it’s a helpful action that can reduce their workload, and may even help them to make the report more confidential. That said, I don’t recommend that you try to complete the report during their initial disclosure conversation or immediately afterwards. As I said in RBB Issue #10, it’s rarely appropriate to interrogate someone during disclosing a serious condition! But don’t leave it too long — psychosocial hazards usually affect more than one person, so everyone benefits when those hazards are reported and investigated promptly.
Record Details
“it’s a good idea to keep a record of conversations and actions”
It’s great when employee burnout and the contributing psychosocial hazards are handled well and are resolved effectively amicably. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Accusations can be made, actions can be disputed, and other parties can be called upon — even months afterwards, when you may not be confident about the details — to verify who said or did what, and when. So even if it’s not formally required by your workplace, I suggest you keep a record of conversations and actions you were involved in that relate to an employee’s burnout disclosure.
Note that these records can also qualify as sensitive information (because they contain details of an individual’s health conditions), which means they:
- Should NOT be accessible to anyone who hasn’t been authorised to see them; and
- SHOUD continue to be accessible to you, even if you lose electronic devices or change jobs/employers.
A simple solution is to use your personal (non-work) email account to send yourself notes (e.g., “Met J again today, discussed how to approach HR about stress leave”). This allows you to maintain records with independently recorded time/date stamps within a password-protected but easy-to-access system that your employer doesn’t control. Best of all, you don’t need to set up anything new just for this purpose.
Those are the four Rs I recommend for taking action when someone is burning out. But remember, it’s up to you to ensure your actions are consistent with local laws and with workplace policies and procedures. Contact your HR/WHS team if you’re unsure.
Wow, I’ve just written three newsletter features on one specific topic! I don’t know whether to apologise for the narrow focus or to make multi-issue features the model for how this newsletter works going forward. As always, I’d value reader feedback!
References
Jones, A. M. (2011). Disclosure of mental illness in the workplace: A literature review. American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, 14(3), 212-229.
Meluch, A. L. (2023). Core and catalyst criteria for disclosing one’s burnout in the workplace. Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 24(1), 61–67.
Safe Work Australia. (2022). Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work: Code of Practice. Canberra: Safe Work.
Safe Work Australia. (2025). Model Work Health and Safety Regulations. Canberra: Safe Work.
Wheat, K., Brohan, E., Henderson, C., & Thornicroft, G. (2010). Mental illness and the workplace: conceal or reveal? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 103(3), 83-86.
News
Coming Soon
- The second report of findings from my Experiences of Burnout 2025 study (read the first report here).
Monthly Updates
- Burnout symptom status: Low to moderate.
- Secret burnout book query status: [REDACTED]
- Podcast status: About to recommence after school holiday / technology problem hiatus!
- Number of electronic devices / household appliances that somehow started working again days or weeks after seeming completely broken: Three.
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(c) 2026 Ben J. Searle