Dealing with Job Burnout!

Summary: In today's "Information Factory" job burnout has become increasingly common and frequent. Without identifying the deeper "why," addressing it symptomatically simply does not work; it requires attacking its root-cause. Here is a way that you can do that.

Over the past few years job burnout, and, in general, burnout have become a focus of many discussions. Even on LinkedIn I was asked by its editors yesterday to write something about how to prevent burnout in a Negotiator job. So, I posted my 750-character response addressing this topic but extending it beyond just this specific job category and providing a broader use-case of this pernicious phenomenon, using some of the terminology common to this job family.

?Even beyond this topic there is a bigger issue that has plagued the job market for ever and those who participate in it. If one looks at the longitudinal surveys done about employee engagement and job satisfaction carried out by the well-known Gallop organization over the past 60+ years across the globe, the dismal results have not changed much despite the big strides in technology, labor relations, and better management techniques that have evolved over this time horizon.

?These surveys point to a degree of lack of engagement in a typical white-collar job in today’s information economy that tip the scales at 80% or even more in some geographies. This data is gathered across a large employee sample (~60,000) in all job categories that include employee levels, stretching from interns to CEOs of global companies in most civilized countries. What is alarming through this massive undertaking over this long a period is the fact that the job engagement needle has not moved despite all the new-fangled HR initiatives stemming from initiatives such as DEI, Equal Opportunity, and other such legally imposed mandates.

?Most experts provide run-of-the-mill remedies for a job burnout. These include, taking some time off from work, meditation retreats (Vipassana), work-life balance, taking on a hobby, among other obvious remedies. However, these do not address the root-cause of a job burnout; they are symptomatic cures, akin to taking a pill for your migraine! The root-cause of most job burnouts is lack of engagement or trying to do too much to please others (people-pleaser syndrome).

?Focusing only on the engagement aspects of this malady, how does this lack of engagement in a job manifest at the individual employee level?

?This phenomenon manifests differently for each employee in a variety of ways: low productivity; sloppy work output; jaded workforce; finger-pointing; poor product or service; customer complaints; and, most importantly, employee burnout. The impact on the employer is even more insidious: increased cost of quality, poor customer experience, high attrition rates, lost business, and many other effects that impact their business negatively.

?In my own coaching practice, I encounter clients that are suffering from job burnout and who want to know how to deal with this challenge. Although this is not experienced uniformly across many clients, each one has their own complaint about how they experience their quality-of-work-life and what to do about it to make it better. Despite the plethora of material out there on this topic nothing addresses the common root-cause of this malady: misalignment between the employee and the job.

?This problem is not just confined to an employee’s skills mismatch, it goes well beyond what an employee can typically do to remedy the situation. It includes the toxic environment in which the employee must work, a work culture that does not reward performance properly, bad boss, poor employment practices, among many other factors.

?In a recent New York Times article Kal Newport lays out his take on how today’s white-collar job resides in an “Information Factory,” quite analogous to the early 20th century assembly lines, where workers performed stultifying work in an endless effort to keep the line moving. In his article, Newport argues that those workers at least had a fixed time during which they clocked in a clocked out and went home to their families. Today’s Information Factories do not allow that freedom; employees are on “duty” around the clock, glued to their screens, exchanging messages. Many of his suggestions in Newport's post are symptomatic treatments of this malady!

?Some clients come to me complaining that they fear how their job may face a sudden lay-off or firing because they do not know where they stand in the eyes of their boss and others who have the power to carry out these acts. One recent client was more vivid in describing her plight: “Every day going to work I have this sick feeling that something is very wrong with me and my job. On Mondays I wake up with a knot in my stomach and I carry a sickness bag in my commute car! This client is an executive at a $5B/Yr. company that makes—ironically—products to help its customers’ employees engage more productively in their jobs for greater job satisfaction.

?So, what is the process by which one gets to this point of despair in how they are engaged in their job? The following graphic (Fig.-1)captures the process by which one gets to the point where these effects become manifest:

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?In this model the process begins with the first step of Disconnect, where the employee, those that matter to their success, and their future are disconnected in some ways. In the case of the above client, who had a stomach knot each Monday morning, she did not fully understand what her boss required for her to do in her job and they never explored that aspect of her job with him.

?This created Anxiety, which led to inevitable Stress that was constant for her to deal with. So, she started indulging in Negative Fantasies, which included a performance plan (PIP), demotion to a job where one of her team members becomes her new boss, transfer to some other department, or even a firing. This cycle of endless fantasies that she harbored created greater Disengagement in her job, which resulted in her desperate attempts to hold on to her job by focusing on the wrong elements of her job (Wrong emphasis), which further irritated her boss. So, this path eventually led her to the final stage: Stomach knot every Monday morning as she dreaded the thought of going to work. The reason this process is a vicious cycle, as depicted with the return path of the feedback loop, is because at each turn the situation gets increasingly worse as a runaway problem.

?So, what can one do to turn the tide of these events and transform the process into a virtuous cycle? The following graphic shows some of the steps that have worked for many clients who came to me with similar complaints.

?The turnaround process begins with Uncovering the source of the Disconnect (previous figure). This can be brought about setting up a face-to-face meeting with the those who can most influence your turnaround. In the case of this client her boss would be the first stop. Once you openly communicate what is required to turnaround this relationship, she must develop a Plan that shows to her boss that she has begun her recovery with the right first step. This step alone can go a long way to remediate the errant relationship with her boss.

?After the plan is accepted, she must proceed to Execute that plan and start showing some Progress to assure her boss that she is now on track to be a productive employee. Once she develops some confidence with continued progress, she can ratchet Up her game and further her reach in how she makes the right impact. At this stage she is ready to meet with her boss, show him what she has accomplished and seek more insights on the next steps.

?This is how your recover from the vicious cycle and get back on the virtuous cycle by running through this process again and again, as depicted with the feedback loop. Each cycle results in increasingly more awareness of what is still missing and getting her closer and closer to a performative employee in the eyes of her boss. The figure below (Fig.-2) is a schematic representation of this flow:

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Although job burnout is ubiquitous, and its fallout inevitable, the recovery to job re-engagement is not only possible but an existential reality with this approach.

?Good luck!