What causes burnout? Six areas of work life that predict burnout

Researchers have identified six areas that are particularly relevant to burnout. If there is a mismatch or imbalance in any of these six areas, the risk of someone burning out increases. The following video will explore those six areas - Workload, Control, Reward, Community, Fairness and Values.

Video: Six areas of work life that predict burnout

Researchers have identified six areas that are particularly relevant to burnout. If there is a mismatch or imbalance in any of these six areas, the risk of someone burning out increases. The following video will explore those six areas – Workload, Control, Reward, Community, Fairness and Values.

Workload

The most obvious one that we’re all tuned into is workload. When we have a workload matching our abilities and capacity, we can comfortably get our work done, and we have enough time in our day for rest and recovery to find our equilibrium and balance. When we feel chronically overloaded, day after day, never having enough time, our opportunity to restore balance doesn’t exist, and we increase our risk of burnout.

Control

Control isn’t an objective measure in this instance. It’s more about the feeling, the perception, and the sense of not being in control. Feeling like you lack autonomy in your role can lead to burnout. Furthermore, if you lack resources, don’t have a say in decisions about deadlines or have no control over various elements that might impact your work life, this can take a toll on your mental health and put you at greater risk of burnout.

Reward

When extrinsic rewards like salary, bonuses or benefits packages and intrinsic rewards like appreciation or positive feedback don’t match the effort you put in, your risk of burnout increases. If you’re not well rewarded, you’re likely to feel like what you’re putting in isn’t worth what you’re getting out, which will chip away at you and increase the feelings of cynicism and detachment associated with burnout.

Community

Who do you work with or around? How supportive and trusting are those relationships?

Many organisations focus on improving community and engagement, especially since many employees work from home. If no one cares about you or how your day is going, if no one listens to you, if no one engages with you, your risk of burnout increases dramatically. Remote working can take away our whole community sometimes and take some of us totally out of balance if we’re not careful.

Fairness

Do we believe that we receive fair and equitable treatment? Do we get acknowledged for our contributions, or do other individuals get praised, and our work goes unnoticed? Do others in the team get regular deadline extensions, extra help, or additional resources when we don’t? Much like ‘Control’, fairness isn’t an objective measure. It’s the subjective feeling of fairness or injustice. The more we feel unfairly treated, the greater our risk of burnout.

Values

Finally, Values. In particular, is there a mismatch in values between you and your organisation? If you highly value something your company does not, your motivation to work hard and persevere is likely to drop. Suppose you’re a vegan working in customer service for a vegan market. In that case, you will be able to tolerate a much higher workload than you will if you’re a vegan working in customer service for a chicken factory. We must carefully consider how important it is to match our values with the organisation.

Individuals and organisations have deeply ingrained values, so we should consider this when applying for new jobs or starting new careers. I used to be an HR manager, and recruitment was my area of expertise, and if values weren’t aligned, there was little chance of a sustainable long-term working relationship. And a little pro tip, if you can’t find a role that is alignment with your values and you need a job, be honest and sign a short-term contract. If you’re an employer, and you can’t find someone in alignment with your organisation’s values, and you need to fill the role, be honest, sign a short-term contract, get the job done, and in the meantime, find a suitable permanent staff member.

Finding balance across all six areas

We don’t need complete fulfilment in the six areas to prevent burnout. For example, a massive workload probably won’t lead to burnout if we feel well rewarded financially or with recognition for our effort, if our job aligns with our values, or if we’ve got a robust supportive community around us. We should, however, aim to find equilibrium across all six dimensions whenever possible.

Who is at risk of burnout, and what are the signs? We’ll look at that in the next video.