EMPLOYEE BURNOUT

Employee Burnout

Employee Burnout

Introduction

Employee burnout is a growing issue in the modern workplace, where fewer employees can accomplish much more work with the help of computerization, the Internet and mobile technology. You, as an employer, must know how to recognize and prevent employee burnout; otherwise, your highly productive employees can be eventually overwhelmed and suffer from the stress of their fast-paced jobs. When you are aware of the possibility of burnout, you are not only addressing the physical and mental health of your employees, but also protecting your business' most important assets as well as the future success of everyone.

Discussion

The image of idealistic workers entering human and social service jobs, seeking to “ do good ” but then “ burning out, ” retains a strong hold on our collective imagination. Traditionally, the nature of the work is considered an important cause of this phenomenon (Maslach & Jackson, 1981). Particularly in the human services, a central focus is on the demands of the job that human service workers perform (Cherniss, 1980). In addition to the often difficult physical demands of this work (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Trinkoff, Lipscomb, Geiger-Brown, Storr, & Brady, 2003), the emotional work or labor of interacting with clients is seen as highly demanding and thus contributing to burnout (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Leiter & Maslach, 1988). A second important explanatory factor is the influence of individual differences, such as individual personality characteristics that are related to a greater propensity to burnout (Beasley, Thompson, & Davidson, 2003; Carroll &White, 1982; Zellars, Perrewé & Hochwarter, 2000). Although job demands and personality factors are clearly important, as has been argued by Johns (2006), understanding organizational context can be critical to having a more complete view of organizational phenomenon. In this case, the organizational context within which the employee works, particularly the values and procedures in place that reflect the respect with which the organization treats its employees, are also predicted to influence burnout.

ORGANIZATIONAL RESPECT/DISRESPECT AND BURNOUT

The pervasive perception of organizational respect or disrespect could influence employee burnout in several ways. First, as organizational disrespect is the perception that the organization does not treat employees with respect or dignity, burnout can occur from employee demoralization. Disrespected employees may need to mask their true emotional reaction regarding how their organization treats them while they assist their clients. This masking and suppression could increase emotional exhaustion (Grandey, 2003), a major component of burnout studied in the human service industry (Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Cherniss, 1980; Cordes & Doughterty, 1993). Disrespectful behavior has also been shown to influence stress (Lim & Cortina, 2005) which in turn can lead to greater burnout (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). Lack of respect could also influence burnout by negatively influencing feelings of trust towards the organization. Although they did not examine it empirically, Tenbrunsel, Smith-Crowe and Umphress (2003) describe an organizational climate for respect, defining it as “ organizational members ' shared perceptions regarding the extent to which individuals within their organization are esteemed, ...