The Art of Feelings In the acclaimed AMC series ‘Mad Men,’ an iconic scene exists where advertiser...
Burnout Isn't Just Mental, But Fiscal
While not a medical illness, the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 listed burnout in its ICD-11 as an ‘occupational phenomenon that leads its sufferers to reach out to health services.
You would think burnout’s inclusion in a journal listing various diseases would warrant a more serious reaction, but the numbers do not reflect this.
As of 2024, out of 1,000 surveyed workers, close to half feel burnt out at work. WHO also back in 2022 found that symptoms related to burnout including anxiety and depression, resulted in a loss of a trillion US dollars in productivity.
While the global pandemic’s paradigm shifting of work created a new strain of not only physical disease, but workplace challenges, burnout is not a phenomena that began with COVID-19. This corporate contagion started long before.
Origins of Modern Burnout
Author Jonathan Malesic in both the Washington Post and his book “The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives,” found that while burnout is a historic phenomenon, its formal inclusion into modern society and the lexicon began in the 70’s. Malesic looks at two specific cases.
A New York-based psychologist named Herbert Fraudenberger, working with youth battling addiction, found himself unable to sustain the long hours towards his clients.
Fraudenberger used this experience to write a paper on the staff at another southern californian rehab clinic undergoing the same symptoms of burnout. The term burnout, according to Malesic, may have originated, rather darkly, from the ‘burnt out’ veins of heroin addicts.
At the same time as Freudenberger, Stanford professor Christina Maslach, observed burnout occurred in ‘human-services work’ when professionals in this space exercised far too much emotional detachment than is recommended with their clients.
Malesic posits in his book that burnout is actually a deep-seated part of the culture we operate in today. He says ‘in an individualistic culture where work is a moral duty, it’s up to you to ensure you’re in good working order…many workers who boast of their hustle embrace that duty, no matter how much damage it does.” This line of thinking is not too far from reality, as individuals who are always busy, actually are seen as beacons of hard work and esteemed individuals.
Malesic acknowledges that changing an existing culture seems highly idealistic. The difference is, employees today are already taking steps to dismantle or push back against digital overload in their workplaces through the use of AI.
Bridging The AI Gap
In a 2022 article, Wired looked at a report surveying over 30,000 desk-job workers (we can assume many of those are in tech) and found over 70% of them use AI-based tools to handle many of their tasks. The same report also found over 60% of these same workers Close felt overburdened with the amount and pace of work thrown out at them. Conventional wisdom assumes people fear the adoption of AI, but this report shows that AI seems to be more a relief than something to fear.
We all know the standard things AI nowadays makes easier, and much of that involves automation from emails, essays - much to the chagrin of college professors - and other mostly remedial tasks.
But while AI can help those burned out lessen the amount of work on their plates, burnout involves a more mental element that must be addressed.
As we already mentioned, we must emphasize the specific gravity of COVID-19 shifting work from the office to home, as well as those unable to conduct their work remotely and continue to work.
The Scientific American wrote a wonderful piece on the pandemic’s effects, where they aptly stated “the shift to remote work led to the complete collapse of the work-home boundary.”
They go on to mention that because places such as fitness centers, movie theaters, and parks closed down “workers experienced more stressful exhaustion, became more negative and cynical about the workplace and felt an erosion of self-confidence—the triple markers of burnout.”
It can be difficult as managers and leaders to pinpoint these markers. Most of the time employees, as well as people in general, rarely are forthcoming about how they feel. According to acclaimed psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg, author of ‘Nonviolent Communication,’ observes “a lot of settings, especially in businesses, where people are not used to being vulnerable. They're all in a competitive game.”
But with AI there’s not really a need to pry out emotions or sentiments from your employees. If we understand burnout signs as cynicism, stress and negativity, just like in real life, communication reveals a lot about a person’s feelings without actually stating them verbatim.
For example, take Grammarly, while it is famously known for helping users correct their grammar, it can also pick up on your feeling and tones based on how you go about arranging your sentences.
The company Crystal utilizes AI as well, but looks at public profiles on Instagram, LinkedIn and others to understand personalities of said users.
Another option, that Worksense implements, is an aggregate of both Crystal and Grammarly, which integrates with most communication tools like Slack, Teams and Zoom and picks up on all these things while providing real-time insights. In fact when it comes to burnout, these tell-tale signs mentioned above can be nipped in the bud before they get worse.
For example, say your employee used to crack a lot of jokes or exhibited a light-hearted tone over Slack, and suddenly one fine week the jokes are gone, the sentences are shorter, or sound frustrated. Worksense and other AI-based tools can pick up on this immediately and provide possible insights as solutions for leaders to address burnout in this context.
AI's Preemptive Nature In Dealing With Burnout
With the barriers between work and personal life no longer as clear, more than ever employee emotions are an important part to consider when thinking about the livelihood of the company itself. You can think of burnout as a shady saboteur looking to cause mayhem in the workplace through casting doubt and stress into employees. But with taking a more vested interest in acknowledging employee sentiment and their emotions, acting more like a vigilante on the side of those you work with, you could nip burnout in the bud before it can happen.
A tool to consider in aiding this initiative is Worksense AI that can act as a possible safeguard and advocate for your employees to prevent burnout from costing your valuable employees valuable mental real estate.
Additional sources:
- https://www.hrdive.com/news/employee-burnout-productivity/703405/
- https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/work-burnout-signs-symptoms/
