OCCUPATIONAL BURNOUT

Dr.S.Sundararajan, Professor, SIMS

A study published in the Journal of Organization and Human Behaviour found that Indian employees, across a number of sectors, including IT, healthcare, hospitality, education, manufacturing and public service, exhibit signs of stress and being burned out. Another survey by a health services company, found that 46 percent of respondents (which included two lakh people from more than 30 major companies) suffered from some form of stress.

Seen in light of a 1974 study by American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger, this is particularly troubling. Freudenberger observed that employees working in very demanding jobs suffered from a combination of symptoms, both psychological (such as exhaustion and irritability), as well as physical (headaches and sleeplessness). He called this condition ‘occupational burnout’.

Today, employees across the world are struggling to strike the right balance – the goal is, of course, to maximise the productivity without allowing the job to affect physical and mental well-being.

Occupational burnout may be because of –

1. Living style
2. Habit
3. Not having proactive approach
4. Food schedule and contents of food (as we need intake of protein added food in morning in excess quantity and light carbohydrate food in dinner)
5. Worried about future (in terms of how to make a house, purchase a car by seeing his/her neighbor’s etc.)
6. Not updating themselves not in knowledge as well us technology (lethargic in nature)
7. Wish to become billionaire in one day …ha ha ha
8. Sometime not finding torch bearer for guiding them what is right or wrong
9. Sometimes indulge in leg pulling/ politics
10. Doing work on secondary research rather than primary.

We can add more causes on the said outcome that is occupational burnout

• Though, stress is the outcome of human behavior, some stresses like residual and positive pressure (e.g., exam tempo) play a positive role.
• Human behavior is the outcome of values and thoughts thereby generated.
• Values and thoughts shape the mindset.
• Mindset is affected by two things: internal (within a person: result of culture and values) and external (environment).
• Behavior of employers and employees, thus, is a mix of within and outside stress.
• In the case of both what is needed: transparency, accountability, mind openness, positive attitude.
• Absence of any one or more of these adversely affects one’s (employer and employee) performance.

Exercise minimizes the occupational stress. In BIG organisations, the management introduced

(i) Meditation

(ii) Yoga,

(iii)  Light sports,

(iv)  Gym and

(v)  Static cycling.

(vi) Meditative music changes mood from negative to positive. Power of music has been realised and applied by many BIG business organisations.

Top managers of the organisation do meditation and yoga after the office is over.  For them the facilities are indoor. Staff and workers do opt for exercises in gym. Static cycling too has contributed a lot in lessening occupational stress. In the organisation, where these have been introduced, productivity has improved and behaviour outcomes are encouraging. It has arrested excessive irritable behaviour. Attendance of staff and workers has improved.

I believe that problem with majority of Indian employees is that they have not developed any alternative interest/passion that is as strong as their work commitment that can relieve them of the stress generated during the work hours. Across the world organizations follow 40 hours/ week policy whereas in India we have 48 as the minimum and many employees have to put up much more than that.

Further organizations are failing to create a culture of mutual co-operation and understanding as also team work. These are normally stress busters. In Indian culture, an employee is supposed to be a 24 hours employee hence he/she has no personal space or time that is resulting into lot of stress. Though, stress is the outcome of human behavior, some stresses like residual and positive pressure (e.g., exam tempo) play a positive role.

Human behavior is the outcome of values and thoughts thereby generated.

Values and thoughts shape the mindset.

Mindset is affected by two things: internal (within a person: result of culture and values) and external (environment).

Behavior of employers and employees, thus, is a mix of within and outside stress.

In the case of both what is needed:  transparency, accountability, mind openness, positive attitude.

Absence of any one or more of these adversely affects one’s (employer and employee) performance.

With work pressure increasing as also the competition, we see even nuclear family has both husband and wife working and pooling their resources to manage and maintain their family and also plan out excursion where they don’t have luxury of Government allowance. Managers have to plan their work life and balance it so that they are able to relieve their stress and contribute to the organizations.