Experiencing Burnout Or Something Else?

Creating positive, caring and supportive workplaces is the responsibility of the employer

 
If you like fresh orange juice, chances are you squeeze your own. If you squeeze your own, you know that at some point during the juicing process, the orange stops producing juice. The orange has given up all the juice it can.

Workers are like oranges. When workers are squeezed too hard, they will eventually stop producing. Burnout is one result of squeezing employees too hard and/or for too long.

The phenomenon of burnout is not new. It has been researched, studied and written about for more than 50 years now. Despite this, burnout has, according to some, become an epidemic in today's workplaces.

But are we really dealing with burnout? For the past several years, I have been questioning that we really are dealing with an epidemic of burnout. We are dealing with something, but is it actually burnout? Burnout is a very specific occupational-related syndrome. Burnout consists of three very specific components.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) classified burnout as an occupational syndrome in 2019, they set the criteria for burnout syndrome as being:

 

 

The WHO components are very similar to the components of burnout identified by burnout researchers over the past 50 years.

Research has also determined a strong link or association between stress and burnout. In 2019 when the WHO classified burnout as an occupational syndrome, their press release stated: “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” ⁽¹⁾ Therefore, when an employee states they are burned out are they really burned out or are they stressed out? There is no question that stress is a huge issue in today’s workplaces.

Despite the very clear criteria associated with burnout, the term burnout has, like stress, become a watered-down, generalized, overused term. While it is common today for employees to say they are stressed out or burned out, are they really burned out?  In no way am I suggesting that burnout is not real nor are some employees actually experiencing burnout. But are all employees experiencing burnout to the degree that we are being led to believe?

How we view burnout is important, as burnout is an important issue needing to be addressed in today's workplaces. Unfortunately with the watering down of burnout, we are seeing burnout being used in other areas other than occupational settings. This is unfortunate as the World Health Organization has stated: “Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.” ⁽¹⁾ One example of this is the emerging literature surrounding the issue of parental burnout. And athlete burnout is yet another example.

While employees may not be actually struggling with burnout, I don't think there is any question that employees today are, in fact, struggling. But are they actually burned out? Unfortunately, for the past several decades, the leading workplace philosophy has been “Do More With Less.” The adoption of any philosophy comes with it both intended and unattended consequences. You can only squeeze the orange for so long before it stops giving up its juice.

The recent research on burnout suggests that our efforts to address employee burnout have been less than successful. I would suggest that this is the result of focusing primarily on the individual employee alone. As a result of this recognition, we are seeing increasing attention being paid to organizational level stressors and to organizational areas such as employee wellness/wellbeing and employee engagement.

Employee burnout is a function of the employee experience. The employee experience has 3 components: the individual, the organization/workplace, and the intersection of and interplay between the individual and the workplace/organization. Stated another way, the employee experience consists of the inner realm, the outer realm, and action. It is no coincidence that a simple view of life consists of the inner world, the outer world, and behavior.

While the issue of employees actually being burned out can be debated, I would suggest that there is no debating that if employers want healthy, happy, and engaged employees (and given the research why wouldn’t they?), employers must address all three components of the employee experience: the inner realm, the outer realm and the situational context or intersection of the inner and outer realms.

The good news is that we are getting better at creating tactics and strategies that actually focus on the elements in the inner realm. There is also emerging recognition that employees are in fact human (subject to all the human foibles) and not machines.

Increasing attention is being given to the need for employers to create human-centered workplaces.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) now has a human-centered workplace standard: ISO 27500, Human Centered Organization. This is good news as employers need models and frameworks to guide the development and implementation of their human-centered strategies and tactics. For examples of the role standards play within the workplace, look to the areas of safety, quality and the environment.

While I remain unconvinced that the issue today is really burnout, I don't think there was any question that workplaces need to become positive, supportive and caring places. And creating positive, caring and supportive workplaces is the sole responsibility of the employer.

After all, why should we ever expect to have healthy, happy and engaged employees when they are working in unhealthy or even toxic workplaces? We shouldn't!

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