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by Thérèse Fensham

“When people feel inspired, motivated and supported in their work they do more work, and that work is significantly less stressful on their overall health and well-being.” 

Ben Wigert, Gallup Online Magazine

When birds become ill, they try to stay upright as long as possible. Should they show any signs of flopping down, they become immediate prey to opportunistic vultures. Likewise in the corporate field, most employees are hesitant to admit to prolonged ill health, chronic lack of motivation, or fatigue. And once one is back at work, you are expected to be fully present and productive. Thus, there is not much space in today’s competitive environment to be booked off regularly with continued health challenges. 

In many cases, it is not only about the response of our colleagues or managers, but our own disappointment in not fulfilling our aspirations of moving up the economic ladder. It could mean losing that promotion you worked so hard for, or worse, being medically boarded on a meagre disability grant. But most of all, it is our innate assessment of ourselves which becomes the worst stressor of all, our internal voice telling us we are failures when we struggle to keep up with our work load. 

For some time now, before the start of Covid-19, big corporates have established Employee Assistance Programmes to support staff. But as more and more employees struggle with performance due to poor physical or mental health, this is no longer enough. A more systemic organisational solution is needed to address these issues. Neither is it only about the bottom line. Companies realise the importance of finding a balance between “profit” and “people”. 

Yet, it remains almost impossible to maintain equilibrium with the high on-the-job demands brought on by Covid-19. Additionally, many employees would rather still avoid using company support services than being perceived as not coping at work. With Covid-19 in the mix, an already pressurised environment has become fraught with difficulty, especially on the back of massive global retrenchments, the extreme stress of lockdown, remote working, and the threat to many livelihoods. Ironically enough, as a result of the pandemic’s devastation of the global economy, it is now more than ever paramount to stay healthy and productive in order to remain employed.

What is Burnout? 

The original source of the word “burnout” cannot be more relevant for our Covid-19 times where healthcare workers are stretched to their limits. In 1974, Herbert Freudenberger, a German-born American psychologist, became the first researcher to publish a paper using the term “burnout” in a psychology-related journal. 

Freudenberger observed healthcare workers in high-pressured clinics in the 1960’s.He characterised burnout by “a set of symptoms that include exhaustion resulting from work’s excessive demands as well as physical symptoms such as headaches and sleeplessness, quickness to anger, and closed thinking”. He observed that the burnt-out worker “looks, acts, and seems depressed” 

From there, burnout research gained traction, and it became clear that it existed in many work contexts, not only in healthcare. Thus, the concept of “occupational burnout” became an accepted term in the work environment.

Global pandemic

In 2019, after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared burnout a global pandemic, it was officially recognised as a syndrome specific to the work context, and included in the 11^th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD11).  It was defined as “chronic work-related stress when an employer’s expectations and employee work load exceed the individual’s perceived ability to cope”. 

The WHO describes occupational burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterised by “feelings of energy depletion, increased mental distance from one’s job, feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.”

According to a recent Gallup survey, 76% of employees experience burnout at least some of the time. Employees who experience burnout are 63% more likely to visit a doctor and 23% more likely to visit an emergency room. What is more, it would seem that burnout is becoming more and more prevalent amongst younger generations, like the millennials and Generation Z, and is no longer limited to middle-aged employees. Thus, organisations stand a chance of losing the very employees they invest in the most for long-term sustainable productivity and results.

In South Africa, a study PPS conducted in 2019, indicated that burnout was already a serious issue amongst top professionals. Conditions that develop as a result of the constant pressure are depression, anxiety, alcoholism, addiction to dependency-forming medication, as well as gambling, internet, drug and sex addictions. 

Surprising Causes of Burnout

Gallup’s research signifies that it is not the longhours of work that causes burnout, but rather how people experience their work load. Thus, employees’ perceptions of whether they feel valued, and their ability to self- actualise, are more important than the hours they work. 

Gallup’s study indicated the top five factors of burnout as unfair treatment at work, an unmanageable work load, lack of support, as well as unclear communication from managers, and unreasonable time pressure. 

With the onslaught of Covid-19 these factors have intensified. Add to that the fight for racial and gender equality, destabilising world affairs, as well as environmental crises, and the workplace has become an even greater contentious space.

According to Josh Bersin, an independent analyst and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, the cost to replace an employee is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 times their annual salary. Thus, the average cost for voluntary turnover in an organisation is somewhere between 40 and 54 percent of the organisation’s payroll. Burnout only increases this cost. 

Under the siege of the coronavirus, burnout numbers can well climb to crisis proportions, especially in South Africa with its already struggling economy. By February 2021, the perpetuated Covid-19 lockdown had already cost 1,3 billion job losses according to advisory firm PwC. 

How to stem the tide? 

The role the larger organisation plays in supporting their staff has now become more crucial than ever. This means support not only for middle management and below, but also top executives, who have to deal with a different kind of extreme stress. In these unprecedented times, senior teams have the near-impossible task of keeping the ship afloat under siege of the global economic backlash. 

Gallup’s research has indicated that sources of stress in an organisation are often systemic and structural rather than employee-based. A study conducted by Ahola, Toppinen-Tanner and Seppanen indicated that a two-prong approach of implementing systemic organisational interventions, as well as individual support strategies, works best to mitigate occupational burnout.  

This would include re-evaluating policies and how it supports employees. Here talent management is of the greatest importance. Factors impacting employees are the clarity of expectations from the top down, the efficacy of reporting structures, job clarity, performance management approaches, increased adaptability to role changes due to rapid global change, but most of all, creating an environment where employees feel psychologically safe.

Systemic Strategies to ensure Psychological Safety

Permanent systemic strategies should be built into an organisation’s culture by evaluating major work stresses, including employees in the process, and implementing work-life balance measures. This means that a culture shift is necessary from ‘always on’ to increased balance between work and recovery time. 

Some good news is that since the start of Covid-19, mental health issues have been far more in the public awareness, and negative perceptions are ever so slowly eroding. This might mean that employees are more inclined to look for support.

Yet, companies still need to walk a mile for employees to feel emotionally safe. More drastic measures are necessary to maintain a healthy, productive work culture. This includes recognising burnout as part of organisational culture to remove the stigma attached. 

More importantly, if the necessary skills and competencies are not learnt, embodied and operationalised in the context of the organisational eco-system, burnout is inevitable. Time, space and curiosity are necessary to build such capabilities. If not, the economic fall-out of burnout in the business sphere might well overtake Covid-19 in its pandemic proportions. 

Thérèse Fensham is a freelance journalist, content writer and Project Manager at Mitra Consulting, a BBBEE and Seta-accredited Organisational Development Consultancy, focusing on Organisational, Leader and Employee Well-being. 

Learn more about our Burnout Recovery, Resilience-building and Organisational Culture Change Processes:

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