Why burnout is such a hot topic

Are we the burnout generation?

88% of UK employees have experienced at least some level of burnout over the last two years, with one third claiming to suffer from physical and mental exhaustion frequently due to pressures within the workplace (Source: LumApps, 2023).

Why does this matter?

In short, it matters because it causes significant suffering of the burnt out individual, and has profound effects on their work and lives outside of the workplace.

The complexity of recovery from burnout remains poorly understood by both employers and burnt out employees. Not only does burnout causes significant distress for the individual affected, but it takes 1- 3 years to recover on average. It requires intense medical and psychological support as well as significant changes at work in order to sustain recovery. Recovery has to be multifaceted in order for it to be successful and sustained.

Employees need, on average, a period of 3.5 months off work to help kick start their recovery, but some may need up to a year (Bernier, 1998).

Annnual healthcare spending due to workplace burnout is estimated to be anything from $125 billion to $190 billion, according to the Harvard Business Review.

Burned-out employees cost $3,400 out of every $10,000 in salary due to disengagement. Companies and organisations with a burnout culture suffer from high turnover of staff and lower productivity from the ones left behind. The replacement cost for the average worker is one-half to two times the annual salary.

In healthcare, burnt out doctors are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents, slow low professionalism, and are more likely to be involved in being named in complaints (Hodkinson et al, 2022). 4 in 10 junior doctors are currently thinking of leaving the NHS (BMA, 2023).

How can we improve burnout culture?

“If the canary dies in the toxic environment of the mine, you don’t need a more resilient canary”

In the literature there are 6 workplace factors that have been identified as causing burnout. They are workload, reward, community, fairness, values and control (source: Maslach, multiple studies). Burnout occurs under long term workplace stress caused by a problem with just one or more of these factors. If you change workplace burnout culture, you will stop employees from burning out in the first place, and like most things in healthcare, prevention is so much easier (and cost efficient) than cure. Creating an anti-burnout culture might mean tackling multiple problematic domains of the workplace in order to be truly successful.

For those that have burnt out, being appropriately supported to recover and return to work sustainably is crucial for service provision, organisational reputation, retention, productivity, performance, employee engagement and profitability. Knowing how to successfully support these employees to return to work well is incredibly important. Burnout recovery needs follow a process that few companies are aware of.

I help individuals, businesses and organisations with evidence based strategies to help prevent burnout in the workplace, and to help those who have burnt out to recover and return to work well.