The Big Burnout in Our Workplaces

As technology races ahead, and the workplace becomes more and more fast-paced, employee burnout is on the rise.

Indeed, recent US research has found a direct link between a person’s lack of recovery from work-related stress - and a significant increase in health and safety problems.

This lack of recovery can be caused by many factors; from disrupted sleep to continuous cognitive arousal from constant screen or phone use. 

Worryingly, the burnout problem is growing - with recent figures indicating the cost of lost productivity to US companies is $62 billion a year and rising (that’s billion, not million).

The problem is that for many people, their work doesn’t stop at 5pm.

The stress and pressure can continue right through the night - with many employees totally unable to relax or recover.

The problem is highlighted in a recent Harvard Business Review article, which cites a Norwegian research study that found 7.8 per cent of Norwegians had become ‘workaholics’.

The study defines ‘workaholism’ as: “Being overly concerned about work, driven by an uncontrollable work motivation, and investing so much time and effort to work that it impairs other important life areas.”

Most of us will have experienced this to some extent, especially if we are in high stress jobs with a lot of responsibility.

Unfortunately however, rest does not always equal recovery.

This is because although we may appear to spend sufficient hours ‘resting’ in bed, the reality is that deep, restful sleep can be hard to find, as our minds continually replay the problems of the working day.

Thus, rest and recovery is not always the same thing - as just because you stop work, it does not always mean you are recovering.

One good way to build resilience and increase recovery is to orchestrate ‘strategic stopping’ times. 

In her book The Future of Happiness, Yale Business School researcher Amy Blankson explains how to ‘strategically stop’ work during the day by using available technology to control overworking.

Blankson suggests downloading the Instant or Moment apps to see how many times you turn on your phone each day.

Incredibly, the average person turns on their phone 150 times every day.

Even if each check only takes one minute (which is probably optimistic), this means 2.5 hours of each day can be wasted just checking your phone!

The answer of course, is to prioritise your time - and spend as little time as possible on trivial activities.

And this is easier said than done, of course.

The other driver of employee burnout involves today’s high incidence of heavy workloads, job insecurity, and frustrating work routines.

These usually include far too many meetings and not nearly enough time for employee creativity.

The problem, however, needs to be confronted at an organisational or executive level, so that organisational measures can be used to address it.

In his book Time, Talent and Energy, US author and leadership expert Eric Garton notes that unproductive employees, or those suffering employee burnout, are often the victims of the very organisations they work for.

He says burnout can be exacerbated by: unnecessary collaboration (too many meetings and interoffice emails, for example), weak time management, and a tendency to overload the most capable with too much work.

Fortunately, leaders are able to change the working conditions to help reduce burnout.

By adopting ‘agile’ principles, leaders can motivate and energise their teams; and give individual team members a way to own the results.

Lastly, by focusing on fewer and more critical activities, the team can reprioritise its job list whenever new tasks are added - resulting in a much more attainable and less stressful workload.