Writing Inspirational Short Stories to Reduce Migrant Burnout

Abstract

Most migrant workers, especially those from Indonesia, often feel boredom. Starting from difficulties adapting, pressure from superiors, work piling up, and even a lack of self-efficacy can cause excessive burnout in someone in another country. Burnout that occurs repeatedly and causes low quality of work must be addressed. Unfortunately, burnout is not easy to overcome with socialization and motivation alone. For this reason, conscious effort training to reduce burnout in Indonesian workers abroad needs to be carried out. 25 Indonesian migrants are working in Malaysia. The training method is carried out in several stages, namely planning, training, and evaluation. The instrument of this training is a written test. All migrant workers were given training to write inspirational short stories. They told stories or experiences of facing problems while being migrants in Malaysia. It is hoped that this inspiring story will provide knowledge and lessons for other migrants who encounter the same problems. Indicators of this training are having a clear theme, the ability to write a story according to an interesting plot, being able to present appropriate characterization, describing the story according to the place, positioning the point of view and an interesting language style, and inspiring for the reader. The results of this training found that migrant workers from Indonesia were able to write inspirational short stories. Short stories begin by telling the story orally. This short story contains the intrinsic elements of a literary work. Inspirational elements are also present in the short story. They feel satisfied expressing their problems and providing inspiration for other migrants. This training concluded that inspirational short story writing therapy could reduce the burnout of Indonesian migrants in Malaysia.