Evidence suggests more than half of employees fall into one of these profiles, with a strong negative score in exhaustion, efficacy or cynicism. In fact, Maslach and Leiter’s newer research identifies three profiles in between: overextended, ineffective and disengaged. But while burnout – the kind defined by three negative MBI scores – is a profile that Maslach says typically applies to 10% to 15% of people, that doesn’t mean everyone else is all the way on the other end of the spectrum. That survey did not use the MBI, and chances are most of those respondents were using the colloquial definition of burnout, not the scientific one. And more than two-thirds said the pandemic had made burnout worse. Early this year, when job search site Indeed surveyed 1,500 US workers across ages and industries, more than half reported that they’re experiencing burnout. “Certainly, more people are heading in that direction.”īurnout is a spectrum, and most of us are on it. “Qualities of burnout are on the rise,” concedes Leiter. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem, or that conversations around burnout aren’t increasing for a reason. “It’s not an epidemic it’s over-diagnosed,” says Leiter. It takes all three – exhaustion, cynicism and lack of efficacy – to get what’s scientifically defined as burnout. While I’ve definitely experienced exhaustion, and even some disengagement, I still love what I do and haven’t become cynical about my work. They don’t care about the clientele, or the work.” Still others may have low efficacy, with careers that are stalled for one reason or another.īut fewer people can report that all three conditions apply. There’s another group that are just cynical. “They’re going to work and it’s not exciting, it just pays the bills. “The second largest group, after people who are just exhausted, is people who aren’t fully engaged,” says Leiter. There are plenty of others who meet one of the MBI criteria. That’s overextended and exhausted, but it’s not burnout.” “They’re delivering babies at all hours of the night, and they’re totally exhausted, but they’re bringing new life into the world, and making people’s lives better, and they care about that work. He gives the example of obstetricians, who often work chaotic schedules. “People use burnout as a synonym for tired, and they’re missing the point that there’s a world of difference between those two states,” says Leiter. The biggest misconception about burnout, adds Michael Leiter, a Nova Scotia-based organisational psychologist and the co-author, with Maslach, of The Truth About Burnout, is that it’s the same as exhaustion. “There’s a tendency to think if you score negatively on one measure, you’re burnt out,” says Maslach, but that’s an incorrect usage of the MBI. A burnout profile requires a negative score in all three. Respondents get scores in all three areas along a continuum, from more positive to more negative. The MBI attempts to clarify the subject by evaluating burnout based on three criteria: exhaustion or total lack of energy, feelings of cynicism or negativity toward a job and reduced efficacy or success at work. So, are we all speaking the same language?” “It’s a catchy term, so people apply it to all kinds of stuff. “The challenge is people use the term to mean different things,” says Maslach. In 1981, Christina Maslach, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), to define and measure the condition. That doesn’t mean we aren’t on the way there, though, and understanding how to really measure burnout can help individuals and organisations change course before it’s too late. And based on that criteria, a lot of folks who think they’re burnt out – myself included – really aren’t. In this stage of the pandemic, after more than a year spent trying to navigate its challenges, the general feeling is that we’ve all hit the wall.īut there is a scientific definition of burnout, and standards by which to measure it. Right now, more of us may be feeling it than ever. We tend to think of burnout as an intangible – one of those things we can’t define, and we just know when we feel it. For a long time, I’ve been calling that burnout. A few times a year, I hit what feels like a creative wall: I’m fresh out of good ideas, and I just really need to nap. Making a living as a freelancer can often mean working long hours, and trying to keep a lot of very different plates spinning at once. On lots of occasions, I’ve told myself – and my friends and colleagues – that I’m experiencing burnout.
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