Health issues in the workplace - adaptation of the working model

Situation
Ms. D. has lived with a bowel disease for years. But after her surgery last year, she is now no longer herself. She was exhausted and in the office where there was a bad atmosphere she was over-sensitive and did not have the strength to contribute to an improvement in the climate. She got overwhelmed with work, was disorganised and slow. Even at her farmhouse with animals and a vineyard she owns with her husband, she did not have the energy to work. She had been to the doctor. Medically she was well, but it could not go on like this.

Request to Proitera
Ms. D. wanted us to help her deal with her limited resources and the stressful situation in the workplace.

Intervention of Proitera
Talking to Ms. D. showed how stressful the situation is at work and at home, and I learned that the coordination of office, home and field work was a great burden for Ms. D. However, since she was dependent on her income, we went searching for other working models together. Suddenly she said: “I could work on five half days to reduce the daily working time in the office. There would be free time for the duties at home.” In the next conversation, I talked about her handling of the large volume of work and found that she had never discussed it with her supervisor. She said she had to do it all on her own. Thalheim’s test showed that she was driven by doctrines such as “be perfect”, “be strong” and “do everything right”. She realised that she needed to learn to differentiate herself from others better in order to concentrate on her core tasks. We worked out possible phrases with which she was able to define herself clearly without hurting anyone and she was given homework: to practice this and write down resulting reactions and effects. The supervisor was glad that Ms. D. approached him to discuss the workload issue. He had already noticed changes, he said. Distributing the work to five days was approved without any problems, because he valued Ms. D. as a good specialist. Thus, the opportunities and dangers of the new requirements could be discussed in order to consciously and carefully address this working model. 

Result
Two months later, Ms. D. said that the redistribution had been successful. She could finally look forward to work and her garden again. She praised her supervisor, who was open to change and even told her that he was very happy for her. She also found a good relationship with her colleagues. The mood in the team became better. On the one hand, the reason lay in the retirement of one of her colleagues, but also in the fact that Ms. D. wanted to continue her personal contribution as a happy person.