Companies need to create positive organizational culture and efficient workflow systems to avoid burnout among workers.

Lina, 36, worked as an online political reporter for 10 years. She enjoyed her work before she left the job to become a NGO activist. What happened?

The eighth year of her career in journalism marked a performance slump. She struggled to concentrate at work and could no longer find interesting angles or pitch exciting stories to her editors. Her stories became “dry”. Things only got worse. She started making embarrassing typos and factual errors.

Then she suffered from chronic insomnia because at night, her mind constantly replayed her anxiety and embarrassment. She found it hard to get up in the morning and felt too lethargic to drag herself to work. Her colleagues started to call her a “slacker”.

Lina’s performance continued to worsen, resulting in a tailspin that caused her to leave journalism. She made a career detour to activism.

Lina was already used to the tough day-to-day reporting grind: covering three events and writing six online stories a day while dealing with local politicians — arguably some of the trickiest people on Earth. Why did she suddenly collapsed in her eighth year?

Apparently, what she went through was more than just stress. Work stress is inevitable and to some degree, it is even beneficial because it can motivate workers to learn and achieve more in their professional endeavors. Past a certain coping mechanism threshold and time frame, though, stress can become malignant.

This malignant stress, one over which individuals have neither sufficient coping mechanisms nor control over prolonged exposure to stressors, is what experts call work burnout.

Work burnout can cause a company’s overall productivity to dwindle, putting at risk its clients’ trust in its products and services. It also increases the likelihood among employees to suffer from various health issues like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Burnout can also trigger cases of major depression or bipolar disorder, among others.

During burnout, one’s coping strategies are no longer sufficient, leading up to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as overeating, binge-drinking or chain smoking, which can trigger these health problems.

Workplace setting matters: Companies can take simple measures to keep their workers calm amid mounting job pressures. The Mitsui Designtec office in Tokyo, for example, has plants around its office as a research study found that looking at green plants can reduce workers’ stress. (The Japan News/Asia News Network)

Psychological consultancy company Personal Growth adult clinical psychologist Veronica Adesla says burnout is mainly rooted in systemic issues inherent within the organization itself: toxic organizational culture and mismanagement. Because these elements are systemic and institutional, employees get beaten up by these dysfunctions at work.

A toxic work environment is every company’s enemy because it is the most lethal cause of work burnout. Signs of a toxic work environment are plain to see: workplace bullying due to aggressive rivalry; sexism, homophobia and biases against marginalized groups; bickering and gossiping, backstabbing and badmouthing among employees.

Lina’s former company fit some of these characteristics: some of her male bosses often bulled her out of jealousy for her ability to network with politicians. These men made sexist jokes about her “being a spinster”.

She quips that if she had a dime for every incident of mistreatment she received from her male bosses during her 10-year tenure at the company, Lina would be a rich woman today.

Then Lina still had to bear with her former company’s poor management practices.

Mismanagement could take the form of vague job descriptions, causing workers to handle tasks that do not match their titles. This is common among small NGOs, where limited resources force employees to juggle as writers, content creators, discussion moderators and logistics operators. Lina handles such multitasking.

Communication breakdowns, lack of proper workflow systems and facilities that support employees’ tasks, as well as too much micromanaging on behalf of supervisors are among organizational factors that lead to burnout.

Average employees typically do not have control over these institutional risk factors due to their low bargaining power, Veronica explains. Therefore, companies need to address these issues to retain their best talents’ health and maintain their products and services at top-notch quality.

Put it simply, work stress is inevitable, but burnout is preventable.

 

Wonder if you suffer from work burnout?