Employees’ Burnout – Demands, Enablers, Solutions – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #925

Employees’ Burnout – Demands, Enablers, Solutions – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #925

Dear Colleagues!  This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #925 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans  aims to share knowledge and wisdom from Veterans for the benefit of Community at large. Pharma Veterans Blog is published by Asrar Qureshi on  WordPress, the top blog site. Please email to asrar@asrarqureshi.com for publishing your contributions here.

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This blogpost is based on research by McKinsey Health Institute, published in August 2023. MHI is a non-profit-generating entity within McKinsey & Co. Its mission is to catalyze the actions needed across continents, sectors, and communities to add quality to life which is already seeing relative longevity across the world. 

McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) survey included exploration of Demands and Enablers.

Demands

Demands are workplace factors that require sustained cognitive, physical and/or emotional effort. These are challenges that employees face in the workplace. Following demands were measured which contribute to burnout.

• Toxic workplace behavior

• Role ambiguity

• Role conflict

• Interpersonal conflict

• Work pressure

• Job insecurity

• Workload

• Time pressure

• Physical demands

Enablers 

Enablers are factors that help to effectively offset challenges, allowing employees to move forward and experience positive growth and development. Enablers such as meaningful work and psychological safety, provide positive energy. Following enablers were identified which could offset demands.

• Meaningful work

• Job autonomy

• Leadership commitment

• Psychological safety

• Authenticity

• Person-job fit

• Sufficient pay

• Career opportunities

• Growth and learning

• Career customization

• Supervisor support

• Co-worker support

• Access to health resources

In all countries surveyed, toxic workplace behavior was the biggest predictor of burnout symptoms, followed by intent to leave. About one in four employees report experiencing some form of toxic behavior at work. Employees who experience high levels of toxic behavior at work are almost eight times more likely to experience burnout than those who do not, according to 2022 survey.

Toxic workplace behavior is less about the behavior itself and more about the way it makes people feel. It may be defined as anything that leads to employees feeling undervalued, belittled, or unsafe. This may include unfair or demeaning treatment, non-inclusive behavior, sabotaging, cut-throat competition, abusive management, and unethical behavior from leaders or co-workers.

The feelings resulting from toxic workplace behavior is extremely challenging for employees, and it is costly for employers also. Global survey suggests that employees experiencing burnout symptoms are six times more likely to say that they intend to leave their employers than those who are not. It also leads to higher rates of sick leaves and absenteeism. 

Solutions

It is always preferable to prevent a problem rather than treating it after it has happened. Same is true of burnout. The employers need to take steps to prevent burnout rather than offering yoga, and meditation remedies later. This also is not applicable in Pakistan. 

The first part of the solution is the acceptance that employee burnout is a reality and that it happens in most organizations in Pakistan. A baseline measurement of level of disengagement, toxic environment, and employee wellbeing should be carried out, preferably through a third party. 

Then a systematic approach should be adopted, including but not limited to addressing toxic work behavior and work design. It would mean that rethinking should be done for the entire organizational systems, processes, job expectations, team environments, and incentives to redesign work. 

McKinsey 2022 survey shows that addressing toxic behavior in the workplace is a vital factor in addressing burnout. Improving all other organizational factors, without addressing toxic behavior, does not significantly improve levels of burnout symptoms. However, when the level of toxic behavior is reduced, other interventions have greater impact.

Taking a holistic approach to tackle burnout, requires aligning all four components – Organization, Job, Teams, and Individuals.

Organization

Initiatives to seriously tackling toxic behavior must be supported by the senior executives. If the organizational culture accepts mistreating colleagues, all interventions that encourge team members to act positively toward each other will fail. 

Job redesing also starts from the top. While managers can help employees to paln job enrichments or rotations, it will not be possible without the approval from the top. Organization can redo salary slabs to make employees’ living comfortable, and it can offer additional benefits such as healthcare to lighten employee burden.

Job

Job redesigning is one of the most direct ways to reduce demands at the job level. Several steps may be considered, such as setting maximum working hours per day/ per week; limiting work communication to within work time, workload rationalization, pay packages, employee benefits, and insistence on availing annual leaves for refreshing and reenergizing.

Team

Team dynamics play a critical role in the health and wellbeing of employees. Team leaders should be trained properly and enabled to create healthier work environment. It is common observation that survivors of toxic team environment perpetuate toxicity when they become team leaders. Interventions that promote positive behaviors and discourage negative onescan help build a good team environment. Managers’ trainings should include creating psychologically safe environment, equitable conflict resolution, and feedback system without the fear of getting penalized. 

Individual

Research shows that having meaningful work is among the key drivers of employee wellbeing. Organizations can support their employees to to find meaning in their work by integrating their purpose into their business strategy and throughout the whole organization.

Employees may be involved in customizing their roles and careers through jo crafting. They may be offered trainings to help build self confidence and adaptability. 

Sum Up

Employee burnout is a real issue at workplaces. Burnout does not happen suddenly, rather, it grows insidiously till it becomes a big issue. Changing employees at the lower level does not change environment, but changing the culture shall certainly. Many organizations, such as private hospitals, paste a policy at public places declaring zero tolerance against mistreatment  of their employees by patients and their attendants. It should be the policy internally also. 

Employees are the biggest asset of any organization. Their wellbeing shall lead to organizational wellbeing.

Concluded.

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For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intention to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, however, it happens unintentionally, I offer my sincere regrets.

References:

https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/reframing-employee-health-moving-beyond-burnout-to-holistic-health

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-burnout 

https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/overview