Question

Introduction

According to the text, An Experiential Approach to Organization Development by Donald Brown, job burnout refers to “the emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment” (Brown, 2011). Burnout is usually felt among employees who mostly work directly with people as well as individuals “who have high levels of demands placed upon them” (Brown, 2011). The text states how one of the major sources of stress at work directly come from Job burnout. Some of the professions in which people are most likely to experience job burnout include “managers, accountants, lawyers, nurses, police officers, and social workers” (Brown, 2011). Many times, people are subject to job burnout because they set unattainable goals or try to act like perfectionists, which cause a detrimental impact to their career.

When an employee is forced to face job burnout, the individual is no longer able to handle the difficulties and stress of the job and become less willing to put effort into their work. According to the text, “the costs of job burnout, both to the organization member suffering from this syndrome and the organization, can be high” (Brown, 2011). Not only does job burnout affect an individual, it also adversely impacts an entire organization. The potential effects of job burnout are disengagement of employees from the organization, and minimal contribution to the organization.

It is important that an organization understands the many causes of job burnout to mitigate the adverse effects of this. There are also several indications for detecting job burnout to help catch it before it becomes detrimental to the organization’s success. It is also important for management to understand the several strategies for prevention to keep job burnout from happening. Since workplace stress is one of the main causes of job burnout, it is vital to note the several available techniques to help individuals cope with stress.

According to the text, a stress management intervention is “any activity or program that attempts to reduce the cause of work-related stresses or helps individuals to cope with the negative outcomes of exposure to stress” (Brown, 2011). These programs strive to help organizations eliminate harmful stressors which cause job burnout. Besides from intervention, wellness programs help contribute to lowering job burnout, “evidence to date shows a strong positive relationship between fit employees and increased productivity, higher morale, reduced absenteeism, less turnover, fewer worksite accidents, and reduced health care costs to the employer” (Brown, 2011). These are a few of the many ways to help minimize job burnout in organizations. All causes, indicators and prevention strategies will be further explained in the next sections.

Causes

            Job burnout is the biggest challenge facing today’s organizations and Human Resource departments in creating a cohesive and familiar workforce. Employee burnout is nearly 50% of the cause of all organization turnover. In a survey conducted by Kronos Incorporated, the results discovered that the top three causes for employee burnout are unfair compensation (41%), unreasonable workload (32%), and too much overtime/after hours work (32%) (Kronos, 2017). In an ideal world, every employee loves what they do and works for the enjoyment of the job and not for compensation; however, we do not live in a perfect world and for the most part employees work to simply make money to cover bills, etc. Employee motivation and performance can be highly influenced by compensation and a 2017 Engagement Report by TinyPulse found that nearly 25% of employees would take a job somewhere else for a 10% raise (Reynolds, 2017). Employees are also feeling very overwhelmed with the workload that is expected of them. “Nearly 70% of all workers feel as though they are unable to get all of their work done each week” (Reynolds, 2017). Lastly, excessive overtime and after-hour work expectations are causing more and more employees to disrupt and negatively affect their work-life balance which furthers the increase in employee burnout.
            According to Kronos Incorporated, “too much work and too little pay are problematic, but many issues fueling burnout are in HR’s control” (Kronos, 2017). Some of the causes of employee burnout that are in HR’s control include poor management, unclear employee role responsibility within the organization, a negative working environment/culture, and insufficient or outdated technology in order to help employees complete their jobs. Nearly 85% of HR managers listed improving employee retention as a crucial focus; however, there is high competition for use of organizational funds in other issues (Kronos, 2017). Unfortunately, companies are increasing budgets and revenues to focus on new talent acquisition instead of focusing on retaining the talent already in the organization. The focus on simply hiring new employees instead of taking care of current employees causes current employees to lose trust and involvement with their present organization. Employees begin to develop a “If the organization doesn’t care about me, why should I care about the organization” mentality which further increases a negative and depressing work environment/culture.

Signs and Indicators of Burnout

The causes of burnout generate distinct signs and indicators among employees. These indicators suggest that employees have reached a level of dissatisfaction with their work and are beginning to resemble liabilities of a business rather than assets. While some indicators are more pronounced than others, the overall concern is that employees have lost their sense of motivation. By pinpointing the signs of employee burnout, both managers and employees can implement solutions to reduce its negative effects. The signs and indicators of employee burnout take many shapes, most of which manifest as either physical, psychological or social. In today’s business environment, managers are taking more proactive steps to both identify and control employee burnout. In a Wall Street Journal article entitled, “What Worker Burnout Feels Like” the author points out key factors that help identify employee burnout. These factors include emotional and physical exhaustion as well as self-doubt and cynicism (Feinzeig, 2017). The following section will outline the major signs and indicators of burnout, as mentioned in both the article and text.

Exhaustion can be exhibited both physically and emotionally, as stated by Rachel Feintzeig, author of “What Worker Burnout Feels Like” (Feinzeig, 2017). Quite often, exhaustion can be the trigger for absenteeism, tardiness and decreased productivity. These triggers represent the most immediate and devastating threats to an employer. Therefore, it is vital that employers pay close attention to their subordinate’s emotional and physical states. Increased fatigue, chronic sadness and anxiety are indicators that employees may be suffering from some form of exhaustion (Lukis, 2016). When employees display these behaviors, productivity is diminished, additional costs associated with burnout are incurred and the innovativeness of employees is suppressed.

Self-doubt and cynicism may be somewhat hard for employers to gauge, however they represent similar threats when compared to physical and emotional exhaustion. Self-doubt and cynicism deal more with the employee’s attitude concerning their work environment. This attitude can be triggered by many of the same environmental factors seen with exhaustion. Self-doubt relates to an employee’s pride, or lack thereof, regarding his or her work. Employees that exhibit self-doubt can potentially stifle opportunities with new clients, new business lines and innovation that could expand the business (Mohr, 2015). The indicators of cynicism include “low or no trust, blame, criticism, divisiveness, either-or thinking, pessimism, negativity, sarcasm” (Altman, 2010) and can potentially cause internal complications within an organization.

Ultimately, the factors surrounding burnout are employee and industry specific, however if any of the elements previously mentioned can be detected early, a reduction in the undesirable effects associated with burnout can be seen. As outlined in the following section, through the identification of these signs and indicators, preventative measures can be put into place that allow employees to generate solutions that aid in coping with burnout.

Prevention/Strategies

            Employee burnout is a huge problem for organizations today and preventing it is a difficult but necessary task to complete for organizational success. A great way to combat this issue is by implementing a reward system for employees based on their job performance. By putting a system like this in place, employees will be recognized for their work and will have an idea of what they should be doing, “thus eliminating the comment, "If you don't hear anything, you must be doing okay."” (Schuler, Jackson, 1983). There are many different types of reward systems that can be used and many are effective. First, one must decide if the rewards you want to give are intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic rewards are intangible and give employees a sense of accomplishment while extrinsic rewards are tangible items like money or stock options within the company. By giving these types of rewards to employees, morale will be increased and burnout will be less likely to occur.

Although reward systems are the main way to prevent employee burnout there are three other main strategies that organizations can use. One of them is used for new employees while the other two are used for current employees. The first strategy, called an anticipatory socialization program is used for new employees. This program is basically orientation for new employees and it is where they learn the organization's goals and values. The goal of this program is to familiarize the new employees with the organization and its current employees so it is easier to interact and accomplish the organization goals, “anticipatory socialization can be an effective method for decreasing the severity of the reality shock experience on the job.” (Schuler, Jackson, 1983). In the end anticipatory socialization decreases turnover and absenteeism.

The second program that organizations use is increasing participation work. Participation work is when as a supervisor or upper management asks for their employees’ input and to get them more involved in their work. When using participation work there are two key factors that need to be taken into consideration. The first factor to consider is that employees’ input will work best when it impacts their actual day to day activities. The second is that it is better to not ask for an employee’s input than to ask for it and end up ignoring it. Participation work strives to prevent employee burnout because it gives employees the opportunity to give input into decisions that they encounter daily.

The last program or strategy that organizations use to prevent employee burnout is increasing feedback about performance. Many times, in jobs, employees only hear about what they have done wrong and rarely hear about their good performance. Organizations need to give their employees the positive feedback for a job well done or their morale and thoughts on the organization will be negative. This can be used for all employees, supervisors, and managers to indicate their job performance. The easiest ways for organizations to show job performance is a client survey because it comes straight from the customer to the employee. Also for managers and supervisors subordinate surveys will show them their performance as well. It is wise to get feedback from many different sources to make sure it gives an accurate assessment of one’s performance. This information will let employees know they are doing a great job and will keep their morale high.

Conclusion

Job burnout refers to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment. Employees who feel these burnouts are usually employees that work directly with people or employees who have such high demands or high pedestals placed upon them. It causes stress and anxiety on the employees that have a high demand placed upon them. This means that they have special standards to accomplishment and anything less is considered mediocre. Due to high stress workplaces, it is understood why many employee’s burnout over time. These individuals usually set their own goals, and fathom the unattainable goals. They are perfectionists at their craft and are their own worst critic at criticizing their work and thinking less of themselves. When job burnout occurs, the employee will no longer be able to face the stress of a job and/or environment. This causes the employee to not fulfil the willingness to put effort into the work. These individuals stop caring and do the bare minimum to advance.

Employee burnout is almost nearly the cause of 50% of all organizational turnover. Not everyone enjoys working at their current organization. Many people continue to work in these stressful environments to pay for bills and other necessities. Some individuals must work paycheck to paycheck even to live the lifestyle that best suits them. By offering compensation or incentives, it may positively influence an employee’s performance. If Human Resources tries to connect with their employees more, performance will increase. Individuals who do not have a work-life balance are more prone to burnout. The excessive amount of overtime that some employees face is infatuating. Unfortunately, not everyone is paid for their overtime. It becomes a burden and causes the employee to become tired and miserable.

There are specific signs and indicators for burnouts. Some signs and indicators reflect within the dissatisfaction of their work. Some indicators show the loss of motivation. If managers and Human Resource staff can indicate these signs early on, they will be able to reduce the negative effects. Not every sign is the same. They can many shapes and forms. Recently, managers are taking reasonable steps to help identify and control the burnouts. With less exhaustion and the demand of employee standards, there should be less employee burnouts.

Implementing incentives or reward systems for employees based on their job performance, contribute to a decrease in burnout. When implementing incentives or reward systems, the employer must understand whether it will be an intrinsic or extrinsic reward. Increasing feedback about an employee’s performance helps prevent burnouts from occurring. Sadly, most people hear about what they are doing wrong and not what they are doing right. Some employees just want to hear an acknowledgement coming from a manager. If managers stop referring to negative actions and acknowledge the positives more, there will be less burnouts. It is vital for all individuals to understand the severity of burnouts. They adversely affect individual and organizational success. If organizations place an emphasis on reducing burnouts from occurring, the chances of a successful work environment are high, resulting in a positive workplace culture.

team 8 answet this questions

1-What are 4 key things you learned about the topic from reading their paper?

2-How does the topic relate to you and your current or past job?

3-Critique the paper in terms of the organization and quality.

Answer 1

1-What are 4 key things you learned about the topic from reading their paper?

After reading above paper I learned many thinks, from them important Key things are

    1. Job burnout means people are not satisfied with their work because of heavy stress

    2. To reduce employee burnout, companies are using different methods or strategies, those are

        Anticipatory socialization program.

        Increasing participation work.

       increasing feedback about performance

3. There are different symptoms to identify employee dissatisfaction, those are

    Loss of motivation, low productivity .

4. The success of the organization based on employee commitment towards their organization.

2-How does the topic relate to you and your current or past job?

    Yes, this topic is very close to my workplace; in my workplace we are also feel stress because management is

  not recognizing our work, pay is very low and there is no incentives for extra work and better performance.

3-Critique the paper in terms of the organization and quality.

This paper is very useful to understand the feeling of human force in the organization and how they are essential to every organization to get success. This paper tells us without having satisfied people, organization cannot get success in the long-term.

This paper useful to every organization, to reduce dissatisfaction and stress in the people and how to change them if they are not satisfied with company. It explains different methods to change people and improve productivity.