Do we care more about our machines than ourselves?
Interesting and unsettling review article on the potential biological mechanisms of burnout.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15622975.2021.1907713?scroll=top&needAccess=true
The literature indicates that there are wide variety of input health metrics that could be proactively tracked to monitor whether individuals were at risk of burnout, before more chronic or terminal indicators manifest.
In contrast to equipment maintenance where condition monitoring and data analytics are regularly used to progress from a highly-reactive mode of operating to proactive/predictive regimes, equivalent measures are essentially non-existent when addressing mental health for the general population.
Existing practices of periodically asking “How’s everyone going?” and providing access to employee assistance programs/wellness apps, are of equivalent sophistication to an engineer wandering around the plant to see if any equipment is squealing or smoking.
Given the observed correlations between burnout and cognitive decline, it is in the interest of employers to find ways to help employees to privately and objectively track relevant mental health indicators.
Aside from the costs of capturing and analysing this data, there are clearly formidable risks to be considered around how and by whom it is interpreted.
It will be interesting to see what business models arise to service this market and whether they favour the welfare of employees or employers.
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3 年Thanks for sharing this viewpoint and the machine analogy helps with understanding. Apple Watch I’m sure might introduce a measurement soon, HRV monitoring as Joshua says sounds very doable. As a recently accredited “mental health” first aider, it is a topic of great interest and anything more that can be done on the proactive detection and prevent front is most welcome!
COO and Co-Founder at Siriuz
3 年Thanks for sharing this view and the article Richard.?The team and I are looking into the biochemical and physiological abnormalities associated with metabolic syndrome and mental illness and therefore the consequences of burnout mentioned in the article lands home. I find the competition between the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) interesting and there are many start-ups and established businesses moving into this space. In broad terms, when the PSNS “repair & maintain” and the SNS “fight or flight” can respond to changes in the environment dynamically and adequately we know the overall system is working well. One of the popular metrics to measure this dynamic is heart rate variability (HRV) and we see HRV being built into an increasing number of wearable devices. Like the growth in HRV metrics mentioned above, I am seeing anxiety, depression, and mental health related metrics (objective and subjective) making their way from academia into start-ups. However, I do agree that enabling and embedding these burnout related practices are not yet foundational elements in businesses. This contrasts with the standard maintenance practices we expect in operating facilities across the globe. Regarding whether the business models will favour the welfare of employees or employers, I believe that win-win business models do exist. Just as a well-designed proactive maintenance strategy seems expensive at first but pays for itself if implemented well, the same principles will hold for managing employee burnout and business productivity.