You walk through the front doors of the building. Your eyes are bright, eager with anticipation. This is going to be your new home for 30-40 hours a week. This role will integrate within you as a part of your identity. You take a seat at a table with several others. These individuals will become your work family. A bouncy brunette exudes more enthusiasm than is necessary. They are thrilled to have you on board. You are now a part of a team and as an individual, your job is important to the company as a whole. There is no such thing as a small role. It is orientation day and they introduce the many perks of being part of the company family. It’s impossible to not drink the Kool-Aid. The contagious excitement is tangible from your fingers to your toes. Your needs are going to be met. They care about you as an individual and will reward you for your hard work while also respecting your needs of a work/life balance.
We fast forward in time and you can barely recognize the enthusiasm that churned inside you just a mere nine months earlier. Granted, you see it in new hires. Their naivety creates a spark of pity- it quickly goes out because your job has sucked the living soul out of you. They’re lucky I still show up, you muster a smile to cover your grimace. Just you wait, you’ll see behind the smoke and mirrors eventually. You nod a greeting as you walk by.
An all too familiar scenario in the working world. Why does this disconnect from the previously engaged employee happen? This process can be termed as job burnout. According to the Mayo Clinic, this non-medical diagnosis of job burnout can lead to medically diagnosable conditions such as depression. It involves a loss of personal identity and feeling of reduced accomplishment resulting in a state of physical or emotional exhaustion (Mayo Clinic, 2018). What can companies do to prevent job burnout to retain passionate employees in the workplace? We will begin by exploring different employee needs as defined by the self-determination theory (SDT) and the possible predictors of job burnout. Then we will finish up with ways to prevent job burnout from occurring.
According to the SDT, humans have evolved three basic psychological needs: the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Gagné, 2014). Competence refers to the self-efficacy that an individual has. The fact that they believe that they are capable of achieving determined tasks. It has been reported that employees with strong self-efficacy report higher competence which leads to less instances of job burnout. Autonomy is the ability to have freedom of choice in their own actions. Additionally, it refers to the fact that their contribution matters and that one is rewarded for taking initiative. Study’s have shown that low autonomy is related to higher instances of burnout. Lastly, relatedness is how an individual is emotionally connected to others via interpersonal relationships. Cohesion among employees has been determined to be important when related to employee retention and protection against burnout (Dreison, White, Bauer, Salyers, & Mcguire, 2016).
Not many are fortunate to be purely intrinsically motivated by their job. Intrinsically motivated is to mean that there are often some cons to their job and is not always spurned by complete interest in the activity (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). There are usually extrinsic motivators such as needing money to eat or pay for shelter and other key Maslow needs. With that understood, employers must find ways to navigate job burnout prevention while also meeting the goals of the business at hand.
Prevention of job burnout begins with supervisors providing support to their subordinates. Evidence has shown that leadership training can equip supervisors with tools to be supportive in communications with employees. Co-worker support groups have been proven to be helpful for companies growing cohesion among their team. Utilizing methods such as dialectical behavior therapy can not only increase relatedness, but also equip employees with the means to prevent emotional and mental detachment from their job. Lastly, providing employees with continued training and properly assigning tasks based off of capabilities increases the likelihood of an employee maintaining a level of high self-efficacy and resulting feelings of increased competence (Dreison et. al., 2016).
Work is an inevitable aspect of many individual’s lives. For most, it is a means to an end. Unfortunately, it too often comes at the cost of our mental health. By using the SDT, companies can implement methods to prevent job burnout before it occurs.
References:
Bruni, L., Commim, F., & Pugno, M. (2008). Capabilities and happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dreison, K. C., White, D. A., Bauer, S. M., Salyers, M. P., & Mcguire, A. B. (2016). Integrating Self-Determination and Job Demands–Resources Theory in Predicting Mental Health Provider Burnout. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 45(1), 121-130. doi:10.1007/s10488-016-0772-z
Gagné, M. (2014). The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Know the signs of job burnout. (2018, November 21). Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Losing motivation can have some bad consequences if work performance starts to deteriorate. The employees around the person who loses motivation will most likely be affected as well. Companies often try to keep high morale for this very reason. The psychology of workplace efficiency is somewhat complex. If there are employees who feel burned out, the company could lose money.
Great post about job burnout! I have observed this happening everywhere I go, including in my own personal experiences. The main reason why employees loose this motivation is because they get underappreciated by their employer. “58 percent of workers don’t believe employees are appreciated enough in the workplace. Right around 54 percent of respondents said they personally feel underappreciated, with 41 percent saying they’re demotivated as a result”( Alton, Larry., 2017). They make people work overtime and request them to do extra work but they may not even receive a simple thank you. A survey done by website monster.co.uk involving 2,000 workers and 500 employers found that 75% of employees don’t even recieve a “Thank you” for their hard work and effort (Roberts, Hywel., 2014). Another way they can be underappreciated is by being forced to work on holidays every year. This is the time they should be home their family, instead they are working just like a normal day. Sometimes employers forget about the common employee, and some employers don’t even realize the harm they are causing their employees by not meeting their basic needs.
Refrences:
1. Alton, Larry. “How Underappreciated Employees Impact Your Business.” Small
Business Trends, 16 May 2017, smallbiztrends.com/2017/05/impact-of-
underappreciated-employees.html.
2. Roberts, Hywel. “More than Half of Employees Feel Undervalued, Says Study.”
Home, 6 May 2014, http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/more-than-half-of-
employees-feel-undervalued-says-study.