Think You Are Immune To Burnout? Here Is Why So Many People Are Burning Out
As I help organizations improve employee wellbeing, I often find myself in conversations about the trends that contribute to the rise in burnout. This article is my attempt to uncover the leading dynamics are that have led to the surge in burnout.
Burnout is on the rise and its cost is devastating
Before I go into exploring the causes of burnout, let’s start with some numbers to show you the gravity of the recent spike in mental health issues, including burnout. As most of my clients are based in Switzerland, I looked at the Swiss situation specifically.
According to a study by PK Rück, one of the top insurers in Switzerland, the absences due to psychological issues have increased by 70% since 2012. In six out of ten cases, burnout or depression are the cause. Swica (another major insurer in Switzerland) has seen a similar increase in the number of mental health cases with an increase of 50% over the last 8 years.
Source: NZZ am Sonntag, Jan 2020
According to the WHO the global economy loses $1 trillion a year in productivity as a result of depression and anxiety.
The cost of burnout in Switzerland alone is CHF 10 billion every single year (status 2012, which is the latest number according to the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs).
On average it takes 18 months to recover from burnout, which is double the time of any other illness. The majority of the cases end in the termination of employment, which means that companies have to re-hire and re-train Source: NZZ am Sonntag, Jan 2020.
But why is burnout increasing?
Well, like anything today, it turns out that it’s not that simple.
There are many factors involved from individual risk factors to increasing pressure in the workplace.
Here are the biggest two dimensions I found in my research — analyzing dozens of articles from all over the world:
- Demands are intensifying in the workplace
- The rise in societal, cultural pressure
1. Demands are intensifying in the workplace
We are facing an unprecedented level of uncertainty
The times in which you keep a job for over a decade are clearly over. The new generation will have to change jobs every couple of years, which leads to a substantial increase in career uncertainty. This is underlying chronic stress that gets amplified when companies go through periods of layoffs.
The bar gets raised every year
On top of that, demands are increasing in the workplace. Every year the bar gets raised. Grew by 5% last year? Great — let’s double that for 2020. Shareholders expect more growth and better products in order to compete in a global economy that never sleeps. And these expectations have an impact on our individual workload. On top of that, there is an increasing emphasis on productivity and no shortage of tools to track our performance.
Our digital “always-on” culture makes it harder than ever to switch off
Technological advances have by and large improved our lives, but there is a cost to our unlimited connectivity. We now have a 24/7 working culture. Global businesses never sleep. When you wind down in the evening, your colleagues in California are just getting started. A lot of us struggle with establishing personal digital boundaries, so much so that attention management is a skill that we all need to learn in the absence of clear guidelines or expectations.
We are more flexible, but the flip side is more pressure to work from anywhere, anytime
The new flexibility offered to employees to work when they want from where they want is a great and highly valued perk. However, this flexibility often turns into a feeling of obligation to reciprocate by taking work home and being available off-hours. For most of us, the boundaries between work and home life have become more blurred than ever before.
2. The rise in societal and cultural pressure
Social media gave rise to comparison on an unprecedented level
On social media, we see happy and successful people everywhere. Even though we know that this is not the full picture of people’s lives, we fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to these unrealistic standards. And since there will always be people better than us, this may make us feel like failures.
We identify with our work and expect more from our jobs
For millennials and Gen Z, it’s no longer just enough to have just any job that pays the bills. No, the expectation today is that we do something meaningful. We want to work for “purpose-driven” companies. Yet, so many of us feel a huge gap between the aspiration to do meaningful work and the reality in our workplaces. Since work becomes a major part of our identity, our emotional stress is amplified when we have to act against our own values.
The modern mother does it all
Although it is not proven that women are more likely to burn out than men, modern mothers are juggling more responsibilities than ever before. By and large, they are no longer staying at home to care for their children. A lot of mothers are work 3 to 4 days a week and need to rush from the office to daycare in order to pick up the kids. Running the household, caring for their children AND performing at work are incredible demands. The result is that very few hours (if any) are free to care for their own wellbeing.
The social pressure optimizing everything in our lives
Any ‘dead time’ we now have is filled with podcasts, gym classes, meditation retreats or personal challenges. While the popularity in personal development is a great trend, we don’t feel complete and are always looking for the next silver bullet to improve our lives. Millennials and Generation Z are particularly impacted by this — optimizing every aspect of their lives including body, skills, and mental health. Running marathons, 30-day vegan challenges, climbing Kilimanjaro or volunteering in India… There is no end to the possibilities for personal growth. This creates a lot of pressure to be a high-achiever not just at work, but in every area of our lives with no time to recharge and simply “be”.
Burnout is slowly being de-stigmatized which leads to more diagnoses
Last, but not least, the reason we are seeing an increase in burnout is also due to the fact that burnout has been normalized in society. Burnout and mental health topics are very prominent in the media today. This increase in awareness has led to more people recognizing symptoms and seeking help, which is really good news. At the same time, we need to do a better job of talking about mental health openly in companies and removing the stigma so employees can get the support they need.
Burnout is a multi-dimensional problem and cannot be tackled by companies alone.
It will be interesting to see how these trends are going to develop in this new decade. We need to work together on every level (individual, organizational and societal) to prevent people from burning out.
The biggest shift will happen when individuals are better equipped to deal with chronic stress in companies that put people and wellbeing first. Fortunately, the high cost of burnout has been recognized and a growing number of companies are taking action to tackle mental health issues at work.
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