Burnout at work shows above all as emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation of other people and low personal performance. This can be the result when a person is exposed to intensive work situations over a longer period and experiences constant stress. Burnout, for example among doctors, is extremely widespread around the world, as also shown by a study mapping burnout among surgeons in Kuwait (article, 31.01.2022). According to it, as many as 76.9% of respondents experience burnout symptoms, the highest rate being among neurosurgeons.
Burnout affects a person’s cognitive functioning, i.e. how we perceive and sense the world around us. Studies also confirm that problems with memory appear, meaning the ability to learn decreases and performance on one’s tasks is poorer.
Burnout shows in a cynical and hostile attitude towards one’s work – contributing the absolute minimum at work instead of taking on challenges with an open mind. This in turn fuels a negative self-image together with professional insecurity.
Professor Emerita Dr Christina Maslach of the University of California, Berkeley (Healthy Workplaces Center) confirms in an interview given to the American Psychological Association last year that burnout is rather a work-related phenomenon. However, we can’t speak of burnout as a medical diagnosis – it is rather a human condition, or a stress response, in which the chronic nature of the stressors plays a decisive role.
Burnout shows through physical and emotional strain, bringing an increased risk of headaches, sleep disturbances, overstrain, depression and anxiety. Burnout at work adds pressure on family life, thereby generating constant spirals of stress and conflict in a person’s life.
When we think about the risk factors for burnout, we also need to look at the person’s overall state of health, the quality of their close relationships, their ability to take care of their family and so on. Every person has their own story, their own background and a different sensitivity to stressors. Such widespread burnout, and finding solutions to it, should on the one hand be taken extremely seriously, and on the other approached with curiosity and an open mind. Employers and leaders have a big role and responsibility here, but also an opportunity, to bring about important long-term changes, for example in the organisation’s culture or structure.
What is the employee’s relationship with their work?
Dr Maslach recommends that employers explore the relationship between a person and their work, i.e. whether it is a good match and fit or not. Six critical factors have been found that carry the risk of burnout.
- Workload, i.e. high demands and few resources. A lot to do, but not enough time, people, means or information for the work to get done.
- Control over one’s work. How much choice, freedom and say a person has over their work, how innovative they are allowed to be within their work to do something a little better or differently. Or whether the person has no autonomy over it at all.
- Reward. Often what matters most is not how much pay or benefits are received, but recognition for having done something well.
- Community at work. Who are the people one has regular contact and dealings with – colleagues, the boss, people one supervises, clients or patients? Are these relationships supportive? What is the quality of cooperation when solutions need to be found to problematic work situations or when discussing how to do something better? Or is one forced to be, day after day, in a toxic environment with bullying, mistreatment, exclusion or the like?
- Fairness, i.e. the basic human need to be treated fairly in any system and with any problems. If a person is not treated with respect, it can bring out cynicism.
- Values and the meaningfulness of work, a sense of pride in doing one’s work well and in one’s contribution being valued. How would you feel if you were constantly in an environment where you sense a conflict of values, i.e. where you are asked to do something that doesn’t feel right to you or is wrong in some way?
Dr Maslach stresses that instead of fixing the individual, the focus should be turned to redesigning workplaces, to improve the situation the person faces every day. Create a dialogue and find the chronic work stressors – the pebbles in the employee’s shoe that they carry with them all the time and that constantly cause them discomfort.
The Sunergos team offers a peace-of-mind webinar, organisational climate diagnostics and stress management workshops. Feel free to get in touch with us!
