Job Burnout:
Finding Ways to Re-energize Work

How Do You Feel About Work? Are you Feeling Burned Out or Does it Energize You?

Job Burnout: Finding Ways to Re-energise Work is the fourth article in our series on improving motivation at work.

The first article: In Search of Optimum Performance, introduces the series. If you haven't read this article yet then it may be a good place to start.

Management is essentially a balancing act and the first article introduces a model which can help you to achieve optimum performance.

The model is based on six common management problem areas:

1. Ease of work
2. View of work
3. Amount of discretionary time
4. Energy to tackle work
5. Ability to be creative
6. Getting the right things done

Job burn out is an increasing scourge on our way of working. In this article we look at the characteristics of job burn out and suggest some ways to renew your energy for work. How would you recognise job burnout? According to Maslach and Leiter, three things happen to someone experiencing job burnout, they become:

1. Chronically exhausted;
2. Cynical and detached from your work;
3. Increasingly ineffective in the job.

Their findings, based on a study of a variety of professionals, provided an interesting conclusion. Whilst typically most responses to burnout focus on the individual, they discovered that the bigger problems were with situational factors in the organisation. Yes doing things individually can help, but the context and conditions in the workplace matter more.

Managers therefore can do a lot to help ensure that conditions that reduce burn-out prevail.

What can a manager do about it?

If much of the factors associated with job burnout are situational then a manager can make a significant contribution to reducing burnout and increasing the sense of energy for work amongst colleagues. Three key areas to focus on are:

Workload: as a manager have you balanced workload with expertise with your staff? For example in our article on your view of work we stressed the importance of not being overloaded in your job. Fundamentally you should ask is there too much to do, and too few resources to do it with?

Choice: do you give choice to staff about how they go about achieving the teams goals? Secondly in our article about discretionary time we asked how much choice do you have in what you do and how you do it? Control over what you do has been found by several surveys as important to encouraging motivation in the workplace

Relationships: Do you encourage teamwork and a supportive environment? A pivotal area which can reduce job burn out is the sense of "connectedness" to others at work. Again and again relationships have been shown to be fundamental to people's happiness, and social networks at work can re-inforce supportive behaviour to reduce the risk of burn-out.

What Can an Organization Do About it?

Responsibility lies with the organisation to create the conditions where job burnout is unlikely to happen. Central to an organizations ability to do this is the sense of fairness in the organisation, and that people are not asked or coerced to do things which start to conflict with their values.

In a related research project Sirota and his colleagues found that employee motivation depended on three main areas, achievement, camaraderie and equity. The most important of which was equity; the sense of fairness in the organisation. For example, the moment appointments are made that counter that sense of fair play, or promotions are seen as favours, then a drain on the energy of individuals starts to take place.

What Can You Do About it?

Finally, in the light of what a manager and an organization can do, we will consider some suggestions to keep your own positive energy high. Burn out saps you of energy and eventually leaves you exhausted. So what things can you do? In essence, you should seek out sources of energy, and try to deal with and remove those things which sap you of energy. It may well be that using your strengths productively will do this. Certainly having a supportive network of people around you, whose energy you can feed off will help.

Here are some potential sources of energy that build on some of the principles discussed earlier:

The energy that is generated by focusing on your strengths: do more of what you are good at, and use your strengths productively.

The energy nurtured in relationships: develop and encourage a network of supportive relationships at work, whose energy you can feed off. Think especially of the power of relationships demonstrated in teamwork.

The energy born in purpose: Develop meaningful goals for yourself and for your colleagues, contribute to shaping the values in your area and more widely in the organisation.

Go to Site Map from Job Burnout

Or return to our series Improving Motivation at Work: In Search of Optimum Performance

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