Job Burnout Strangling Workers - Is There a Way Out?

There is an epidemic of burnout in this country.  Many professions are targeted.  Ask a teacher, a police officer, a politician or even your mailman about the increasing burdens that have been foisted upon them, and be prepared to hear frustrating and demoralizing responses.  The burnout malady has hit the medical profession hard and is reaching down the age ladder toward younger medical professionals.

While my generation didn’t create burnout by intention, it does seem that we have permitted and even facilitated its proliferation.  Why have we done this?  What are the consequences?  How can we push back?

Using a medical analogy, it’s often much easier to diagnosis an affliction than it is to treat it.  For instance, physicians routinely and reliably diagnose degenerative arthritis, but we can’t cure it and often our treatments are inadequate.  So, it is with burnout, particularly once it has become firmly established in our occupational landscape.

The better strategy, of course, would have been to prevent its development.  We missed that chance.  The next opportunity would have been to snuff it out when burnout first crept onto the scene.  Strike 2.  Now we face a formidable adversary with winding and toxic tentacles reaching far and wide.  And just like in a real octopus, if a tentacle is severed, a new one will take its place.  While it’s no longer seems to be a fair fight, the battle must be joined.

The burnout beast is strangling us all.

Burnout is the end result of inexorable mission creep where additional burdens and requirements are incrementally dumped onto workers and professionals.  The new tasks are typically time consuming, tedious and are not consonant with the job’s actual purpose.  It burns up time and morale. Burnout can also result from simply demanding greater job performance usually without providing additional compensation. 

Can you say overwhelmed?  Burnout exacts physical and psychological costs which do not magically disappear at the close of the work day.   It follows folks everywhere.  Do you think it might affect relationships at home and elsewhere? 

The consequences of these phenomena are self-evident.  Burned out folks clearly won’t perform optimally.  Many will retire early if they can.  There is also a contagion effect when a few simmering workers can taint the overall work culture.  And it gets harder to draw others into a profession whose workers feel overworked and underappreciated.   As an example, although law enforcement is a noble calling, many young people are choosing other occupational opportunities because the field has become so challenging.  Who wins here? 

In the coming weeks I will highlight the effects of burnout on the medical profession.  As always, I  welcome readers' comments.

This blog now has over 800 posts - no blog burnout here!