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Tackling Burnout: Making Workplaces Healthier

Writer's picture: Jonathan H. Westover, PhDJonathan H. Westover, PhD


Burnout has become an increasingly concerning issue in recent years, with rates rising steadily across various industries and professions. The World Health Organization's decision to formally classify burnout as an "occupational phenomenon" in 2019 brought greater attention to this workplace crisis. No longer viewed solely as a personal struggle, burnout is now rightly seen as a systemic organizational problem requiring systemic solutions.


Today we will explore how organizations must take responsibility for creating unhealthy working environments that breed burnout in the first place.


Defining and Diagnosing Burnout


Burnout is a condition characterized by emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of reduced personal accomplishment resulting from chronic workplace stress. Key symptoms include drained mental energy, impaired task performance, lack of engagement, and diminished morale.


For individuals, the personal costs of burnout are massive – linked to serious physical and mental health risks like anxiety, depression, insomnia, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. Organizations also pay a heavy price, with burnout fueling turnover, absenteeism, lower productivity, and poorer service quality.


Clearly diagnosing burnout is the necessary first step. While burnout manifests at an individual level, closer examination reveals its underlying organizational causes. As the original text argued, burnout is not a personal failing but rather the result of dysfunctional workplace dynamics.


Poor Organizational Hygiene


The metaphor of hygiene emphasizes that organizations have a responsibility to proactively maintain a psychologically healthy work environment, just as proper hygiene prevents the spread of disease.


Hallmarks of poor organizational hygiene include unreasonable workloads, job insecurity, lack of autonomy, office politics, conflict with coworkers/managers, unclear job expectations, long hours, unsupportive leadership, and neglect of work-life balance. Even workplaces that appear well-resourced on the surface may have underlying cultural issues that corrode mental health.


When a workplace routinely permits or implicitly encourages such conditions, burnout inevitably results. No amount of yoga, mindfulness apps, or resilience workshops can protect employees from the grinding strain of unhealthy organizational hygiene. While self-care has its place, the onus is on employers to tackle the root causes of burnout.


The Need for Better Data


Data is a powerful tool for diagnosing and addressing burnout. Organizations often rely on vague gut feelings or basic turnover/engagement metrics. But limited data obscures the true drivers of burnout.


Richer, more specific data paints a clearer picture. Useful sources include company records on absenteeism, disability/workers' comp claims, employee assistance program utilization rates, and healthcare costs. Anonymous employee surveys can also measure perceived stress levels, job satisfaction, work-life balance, and observations of organizational culture.


This data helps organizations identify burnout warning signs at a macro level. Data can also be broken down by department, tenure, demographics, etc. to pinpoint which groups are most affected by unhealthy workplace dynamics. The text rightly argues that such granular data is essential for developing targeted burnout interventions.


Smarter Budgeting


Budgets reflect priorities. When organizations under-invest in employees' psychological health and over-invest in short-term productivity, burnout worsens. The text advocates "micro-budgeting" - carefully examining each budget item's impact on wellbeing.


Ways to align budgets with burnout prevention include: providing paid mental health days; rewarding reasonable workloads, not long hours; funding continuing education; creating wellness spaces; subsidizing child/elder care; hiring mental health staff; purchasing ergonomic equipment; and paying living wages that reduce financial stress.


While such budget reallocations require upfront investment, they repay dividends via healthier, happier, and ultimately more productive employees. Wise financial stewardship treats employee wellbeing not as a cost center but as the long-term business asset that it is.


Integrating Wellness and Wellbeing


Finally, standalone wellness programs are insufficient. Yoga classes and stress management seminars make little difference within fundamentally unhealthy organizations. True wellbeing requires integrating support for employees' mental health into everyday operations.


Examples include training managers to recognize burnout warning signs; evaluating workload distribution during hiring; encouraging vacation usage in policy and practice; providing access to counseling; solicitating employee feedback; fostering social connections; creating employee resource groups; and making self-care convenient through onsite amenities.


Such integration allows support to be accessed by those who need it most. It also reinforces that employee wellbeing is central to the organization, not an ancillary activity relegated to the sidelines.


Conclusion


Burnout has reached crisis levels, and workplaces play a major role in creating the conditions for burnout to thrive. But when organizations recognize their responsibility and take action, they can cultivate work environments where every employee is energized and empowered to thrive. This requires moving beyond band-aid personal solutions to enact lasting systemic change.


Genuine burnout prevention means addressing root causes through improved organizational hygiene, better data, smarter budgeting, and integrated wellbeing. When people feel valued, empowered, supported, and mentally healthy at work, burnout fades away. Both employees and organizations will reap the benefits of healthier, more humane workplaces. Tackling burnout may demand upfront effort and investment, but the rewards are well worth it.

 

Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.



Human Capital Leadership Review

eISSN 2693-9452 (online)

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