Job Burnout

Job Burnout in 20th Century America

By:
Abstract

This paper discusses job burnout in both a clinical aspect as well as with a statistical outlook. During the course of this paper we will examine both the cause and effects that both short term and long term job burnout can play into the lives of the working class in society today. Although job burnout is not something that can be medically diagnosed in the same manner as cancer or chicken pox it can have effects that can become just as harmful. During the course of collecting information a research survey was conducted to present real time data as to the demographics associated with job burnout.

Introduction

It’s Sunday evening and although you have had a relaxing weekend, Monday is just a few hours away. Another long stress filled week at the office similar to the previous. About the most exciting thing you have to look forward to is next Friday night and the weekend that follows it. It seems as each week passes your stress builds and the desire to show up for work decreases. You begin to wonder if this is just how life in the work force just is. Many would classify this as job burnout. Does this sound like your life as well? For many people in today’s society they find themselves working more hours and sometimes multiple jobs in order to make ends meet and keep up with the financial demands that society has brought on us to afford even the basic necessities of live. If this sounds like you then you might be experiencing what is more commonly classified as job burnout.

With a demand to work more hours and spend less time at home or even doing the simple things in life that we so enjoy comes a different level of exhaustion as well as needing to tolerate more from an employer. This prolonged exposure is what we have classified as burnout. The Mayo clinic defines job burnout as “A state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by long-term exposure to demanding work situations. Burnout is the cumulative result of stress.” As each year passes there is a continued growth in job burnout within the United States. According to the Centers for Disease and Control 25% to 40% of U.S. workers blame job burnout on stress. Another key factor is that employee stress is being linked more and more to the demands that corporate America places on productivity and competitiveness. This growth in burnout is not just affecting individuals mentally and emotionally it is also reaching our pocket books. An estimated $7,500 per employee is spent annually in the U.S. on stress-related compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, health insurance costs, and employee turnover. (Stressdirection.com) With stress being one of the leading causes in job burnout, what is the global effect that it plays on society? A recent study conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide shows that women who work full-time and have children under the age of 13 report the greatest stress worldwide. Globally, 23% of women executives and professionals, and 19% of their male peers, say they feel "super-stressed". (Stressdirections.com) Having identified job burnout and some of the root causes of it just what type of effects can this burnout play on our lives? Although each person is different and it is unknown the full effects that burnout can play into our personal life some of the effects include depression and anxiety as well as suicide. During a study that was conducted by Dr. Samule Melamed, he adds several other effects to this list. Of them he a risk of cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal pain, impaired fertility, and sleep disturbance. (Banerjee, pg.1) Any one of these effects alone can cause a ripple in there lifestyle that could have very traumatic effects to ones personal life. Job burnout is not something as easily recognized as something such as a broken bone. With a broken bone you can go to the doctor and have an x-ray and be diagnosed with a broken bone. Burnout can go unrecognized for long periods of time and people can easily blame some of the symptoms on other things currently going on in there life. Next to stress, fatigue is another leading sign that burnout has taken place. Its easy for someone who works in an office environment to blame this fatigue on something other than burnout. People might place the blame fatigue on lack of time to spend going to the gym or any other method of physical fitness. People also tend to link this with another sign of burnout which is weight gain. As people tend to become more stressed and burnout out they tend to eat less healthy or possibly consume quantities of food that under normal circumstances they wouldn’t eat. Both the fatigue and weight gain can go hand in hand. Someone has a regular exercise routine, burning more calories daily will tend to consume more calories without a negative effect because your body is burning it off. As burnout takes effect your still consuming the foods but not burning them off which can create an unfavorable outcome on your body. Job burnout is not just limited to the symptoms of fatigue and weight gain however. There is a variety of symptoms that might suggest that burnout is occurring. Additional symptoms include but are not limited to: • irritability • crying jags • anxiety attacks • teeth grinding • increased drug, alcohol, or tobacco use • insomnia • nightmares • forgetfulness • low productivity at work • inability to concentrate So just who is a target when it comes to burnout? Job burnout is not something that picks and chooses who it effects. This epidemic can hit someone in any field of work, from doctors and lawyers, to teachers and computer programmers. Although it is hard to pinpoint just exactly what percentage of people in the United States or even world wide fall into the category of burnout it is easy to understand that it is very apparent in its existence. However according to many studies conducted some of the career fields that are most susceptible to job burnout are lawyers, nurses, police officers, teachers, pastors, social workers, and counselors. Let’s face it, when it comes to most businesses, it all comes down to the bottom line. As long as the job is getting done who cares if the employee is a little stressed out. What some employers may not realize is that job burn out does effect the bottom line. The US spends billions of dollars a year due to job burnout. Employee turnover is just one example of a consequence of job burnout. Think about the costs of hiring a new employee, advertising the position, interviewing and background checks, training, paperwork, etc. If burnout is commonplace in the company and turnover is high, the company is likely investing more money in a new employee than they are getting back, which affects the bottom line (Takac, 2008). Recently a study was conducted with healthcare workers in Sweden to look at the differences between workers who are experiencing burnout and those that are not. Participants were placed into four groups (nonburnout, disengaged, exhausted, and burnout) based on self-report. The study found that healthcare workers in the burnout and exhausted group had a higher portion of absences and sickness compared with the nonburnout group (Peterson, et. al., 2008). If employees are not at work, productivity is down and the bottom line suffers. Healthcare costs become an issue as well. If burned out employees are more likely to get sick, they are also more likely to see a doctor for care, increasing insurance premiums. In some cases, burnout can also lead to depression, resulting in missed days, and decreased productivity and once again increase in healthcare costs (Takac, 2008). Another concern for employers is the type of employees that are more prone to get burned out. According to Redmond (2008) employees with the following characteristics are most likely to experience burnout: under the age of 40, university educated, ambitious, diligent, hard working, and those who have a hard time saying “no”. Consequently, it would appear the employees at highest risk are the types of employees most companies would want to retain. Of course, anyone is at risk for job burnout, but there are some professions that appear to be at higher risk. People who work in so-called “helping professions” fall in to this category of higher risk employees (Redmond, 2008). Andrea Ring is a Clinical Psychotherapist with New Options Behavioral Health in Salina, KS. She has worked in the healthcare field for four years and has already in her young career experienced job burnout. “Its very difficult to work in a helping profession because often you feel like you are working harder than your patient at helping them get better and you rarely see the results of your work. I once attended a professional conference in which the speaker talked about how as mental health workers, our job is to plants seeds, though the harvests are few and far between. I think this is a good analogy for my job. I work with some very difficult patients and when I leave at the end of the day, sometimes I feel like I have accomplished nothing. Not a very good feeling and it sometimes makes it hard to come back the next day.” Christina Maslach is considered to be one of the experts on job burnout. She and Micheal Leiter have identified six areas that contribute to job burnout: 1. Work Overload Most employees at times feel like there are just not enough hours in the day at some point. But, when more days then not, an individual feels like the demands placed on them are too high, stress can turn into burnout. 2. Lack of control over ones work How often is an employee told to do something a certain way and feel it is inefficient or not necessary, but have to do it anyway, because the “boss said so.” Frustrating! Nursing is an area where this is common place. The nurses are on the frontline of patient care, but the doctors make all the calls when it comes to the treatment plan for that patient. The nurse has the majority of the responsibility and very little of the control. Not a good combination. 3. Lack of reward or recognition Not feeling like one is getting paid what one is worth can lead to a lot of frustration and even resentment towards one’s employer. 4. Lack of community in the work place People interact with their co-workers more than they do with their own family sometimes, so office conflict or not feeling like one belongs can affect job satisfaction and lead to burnout. 5. Lack of fairness or respect Everybody has an innate need to feel respected and although everyone knows “life’s not fair”, constantly feeling like there is a level of unfairness within the organization one works for can be harmful. 6. Conflict in values with employer-employee If the employee’s personal belief clash with the mission and values of the company, the employee’s level of job satisfaction is likely highly affected Maslach & Leiter (1997). Employers have a responsibility to their employees to address these six areas to prevent job burnout, if not for their employees, for the bottom line. Sometimes an employer simply being willing to admit there is a problem and being willing to do something about, in itself, can have a positive impact on job satisfaction and thus job burnout. A term most people are familiar with is the Hawthorne Effect. According to Wikipedia, the Hawthorne Effect, a term coined by Henry Landsberger in 1955, means in a broad definition, people do better when they think people are paying attention to them. Sometimes an employer just validating that their employees are overworked and underpaid is helpful (2008). Andrea Ring, LCP discusses some of the steps the Director of Behavioral Health at Salina Regional Health Center has taken to address job burnout in her department:
“Although my job is very stressful, I have a wonderful boss who truly seems to care about her employees and really wants to do what she can to help our stress level. One thing that she does is allow us to have some down time at the end of the end of the week to decompress. On Friday afternoons, no patients are scheduled. This allows the employees time to get caught up on paperwork, make phone calls or process any difficult cases they may have encountered earlier in the week. Sometimes, this time is simply used to BS with co-workers and she’s OK with that. Although we are obviously not being productive in that moment, it helps our overall productivity. I’ve spoke with other therapist who work at clinics where they have to meet a quota of patient hours and every hour of their week is scheduled out. I won’t mention the place where these therapist work, but turnover is very high and they have a difficult time maintaining good, competent staff and the patients suffer. Another change that has been made in my department recently, to address the increase in patients and work overload, has been the creation of a new position, a Psych Care Facilitator. She was hired to take over certain mundane, secretarial tasks. Such as insurance tracking, answering the phone, copying charts, billing, etc. In the past the therapist was in charge of this for their individual cases. With our recent dramatic increase in patients, since we starting working with Iraq vets from Ft. Riley, the paperwork has taken on a life of its own. Creating this new position has been one of the best decisions my boss ever made! It has decreased my stress tremendously and I can concentrate more on patient care, which is better for the patients. A sense of community is also encouraged in my department. We make sure to celebrate birthdays and have holiday parties. We even have ‘special drink day’, where co-workers take turns bringing in specialty coffees for the morning. “Sounds corny, but it helps.” We also take time on an occasion to organize work related functions such as office bowling parties which often times help to include the employees families. A study of 152 university faculty and staff found that one way employers can help increase job satisfaction is to increase employee involvement in program development (Grawitch, Trares, &Kohler, 2007). Employee Councils are one way employers are attempting to increase employee involvement. According to the University’s website (2008) Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia has an employee council that “facilitates communication between Emory employees and university administration and serves as an advisory body to the president.” This is just one example of many employers that are choosing to initiate employee councils. As mentioned earlier, “helping professions” seem to be at higher risk for job burnout. General Practitioners would definitely fall under the umbrella of “helping professions.” General Practitioners see a range of difficult patients, from mentally ill to chronic pain to dying patients. Exposure to these types of patients and the fact that there is often little contact with other GP’s in the field, can lead to compassion fatigue. In the field of healthcare job burnout is often referred to as compassion fatigue. Shortly after WWII, Dr. Michael Balint, recognized the need for peer interaction and support and created what have come to be know as Balint Groups. A group of doctors that meets regularly to discuss difficult patients. Balint groups are still in practice today (Benson & Magraith, 2005). Although employers to hold some responsibility for making changes to prevent job burnout, some of the accountability falls on the employees themselves. Personal stress, the inability to set healthy boundaries at work, personality styles, as well as multiple other variables can contribute to a person’s likelihood of job burnout.
Before a person can cure burnout they have to figure out what is causing it. They must also take into account just how severe the burnout is for themselves. The more severe a case of burnout , the more drastic your fix will have to be. Here are some possible cures as well as ways to prevent burnout that is offered by both coping.org, a website that offers advice for individuals dealing with stress and about.com offers to help deal with job burnout there are numerous ways a person can prevent or deal with job burnout: • Learn to recognize the early stages of burnout. Like anything else, job burnout is much easier to treat in the early stages, than after a long period of job dissatisfaction. • Learn to ask for help and learn to delegate if possible. • Know your limitations. If you can’t get everything done, tell your supervisor. • Use your vacation time! • If you are bored, try to change things up at work if possible. • Know specifically what your responsibilities and so “no” when you are busy and something does not fall under your job description. • Have goals for yourself at work. People feel better and more motivated when they are working towards something. • Have someone you trust that you can turn to for supervision. • Have a life outside of work. Develop healthy ways to cope with stress (exercise, book clubs). • Build a support system of people you can process your stress and frustrations with at work or outside of work. • Make a career change. • Don’t work overtime. • Quit your job. (Although in today’s market ensure you having a new source of income) Although there are dozens of sources that offer a wide range of ways to deal with burnout in the end it is the choice of the individual to decide just what avenue to persue in order to eliminate or at least reduce the effects of burnout. During the first week of December 2008 a survey was conducted as part of the research. Although a basic survey (Attachment A) the results assisted to further understand that burnout doesn’t discriminate. This survey was small in compairision to the number of people working in the Charlotte area we feel that it gives a good understanding that burnout doesn’t target just one class of people. We conducted a survey of twenty-five people in the Charlotte North Carolina area. Below are some of the statistics that where given during this survey. • Ages ranged from 18-46

• 8 of the 25 people where married

• 13 of the 25 people had kids

• 14 where men and 11 where women

• 11 Caucausin , 6 African Americans, 5 Hispanic, 3 Middle Eastern

• Income ranges between 20k-82k annually

• 11 college graduates, 6 currently attending college, 7 never attended or dropped out of college.

After going to random businesses during the course of a two day period and gathering this data through the use of a survey form it was reported that twenty of the twenty-five people worked forty hours or more per week. The five people who didn’t work a forty hour work week attended college and where working between twenty-five and thirty-five hours per week to help pay for there college expensises. Of the twenty that did work forty hours per week twelve of them worked between fifty and sixty hours per week and nine of the people worked a second job. People in this survey held positions ranging from managers at stores, to bankers, to just your basic clerk at various stores. Of the twenty -five people surveyed only five of them have weekends off from work while the other twenty work either one or both days during the weekend. All of the people surveyed experienced at least one of the symptoms related to burnout with the leading one being fatigue.

In summary, job burnout is a serious problem and with the recent economy, it may be a bigger problem than in recent years. The bottom line however is that burnout is caused by a prolonged work experience of stress and frustration. This is something that both parties (employer and employee) can take steps to minimize if not prevent job burnout. Although some employers may want to live in denial, they do have a responsibility to their employees to address this problem and work at preventing it. As an employer they can begin to reward hard workers in addition to ensuring that employees have the tools needed to ensure there jobs are done. For the employers’ own benefit, it needs to be dealt with for the sake of the bottom line. As an employee, yes there also to blame and should take some ownership of there job burnout. Employees need to look at their own lives and coping behaviors and make healthier choices. If you as an employee are burned out do to lack of reward and prolonged stress and your employer don’t recognize the value you hold within the organization then it might be on you as the employee to move on and find something that is better suiting you. Just how many studies and how many man hours and dollars need to be spent before as a whole we come to accept that burnout is prevalent and action needs to be taken? Unfortunately the prognosis for our countries problem doesn’t look favorable. When we investigate and see that nearly one-third of workers have no intentions on taking a vacation this spring or summer it brings to light an important question. “Are these the same people that fall into the category of people that are burned out?”

Job Burnout Survey

Date:_____________

First Name: ___________________________

Age: __________

Gender:_________

Single/Married/Divorced/Widowed: ____________________

Race: __________________

Are you a High School Graduate? Yes No

Have you attended College? Yes No

Did you graduate College? Yes No

Current company you are employed with: ____________________________________

Current job title:________________________________________________________

Hours you work weekly: _________________________________________________

Average annual Income: __________________________________________________

Do you experience any of the following symptoms? Please check any that apply

Fatigue _____ Irritability _____ Crying jags _____

Anxiety attacks _____ Weight gain _____ Teeth grinding _____

Increased drug, alcohol, or tobacco use _____ Insomnia _____ Nightmares _____ Forgetfulness _____ Low productivity at work _____ Inability to concentrate_____

The information obtained from this survey will be solely used for the purpose of a college research paper.

References
Benson, J. & Margraith, K. 2005. Compassion fatigue and burnout. Australian Family Physician, 34, 497-498.

Grawitch, M. J., Trares, S., & Kohler, J.M. 2007. Healthy workplace practices and employee outcomes. International Journal of Stress Management, 14, 275-293.

Maslach, C. & Leiter, M. (1997) The Truth About Burnout. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Peterson, U., Demerouti, E., Bergstrom, G., Asberg, M. & Nygren, A. 2008. Work characteristics and sickness absence in burnout and nonburnout groups: A study of Swedish health care workers. International Journal of Stress Management, 15, 153-172.
Redmond, J. C. (June 1, 2008). Which Professionals are Prone to Burnout. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from http://www.lovetoknow.com.

Ring, A. (2008, December 5). Telephone interview.

Takac, S. (May 9, 2008) Worker burnout can harm a company’s bottom line. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/.

www.coping.org

www.emory.edu

www.wilipedia.org

www.spherioncareerblog.com/kip_havel/job_burnout_employers_and_empl.php

www.careerplanning.about.com/od/workrelated/a/burnout_sht.htm

www.mayoclinic.com/health/burnout/WL00062

www.stressdirections.com/personal/about_stress/stress_statistics.html

www.associatedcontent.com/article/167176/effects_of_job_burnout.html

References: Benson, J. & Margraith, K. 2005. Compassion fatigue and burnout. Australian Family Physician, 34, 497-498. Grawitch, M. J., Trares, S., & Kohler, J.M. 2007. Healthy workplace practices and employee outcomes Maslach, C. & Leiter, M. (1997) The Truth About Burnout. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Peterson, U., Demerouti, E., Bergstrom, G., Asberg, M. & Nygren, A. 2008. Work characteristics and sickness absence in burnout and nonburnout groups: A study of Swedish health care workers Redmond, J. C. (June 1, 2008). Which Professionals are Prone to Burnout. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from http://www.lovetoknow.com. Ring, A. (2008, December 5). Telephone interview. Takac, S. (May 9, 2008) Worker burnout can harm a company’s bottom line. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/.