Nevertheles, the ideas and insights included in their original article and the suggestion for mitigating burnout are so powerful that I decided to keep the scientific style wrting on this summary...
My main reason for publishing this article is that I almost felt into burnout in finance and accounting related fields in by career, an I know that people that are dealing with this situation are desesperatly looking for options, ideas, and ways fo dealing with it...And I would have love to find this ideas earlier in my career.
In part 2 of these series, I will include why is so easy for Accounting and Finance teams to fall into burnout and talk about technical solutions (in Excel and PowerPivot of course :-)) that can help...
Without more introduction, here is the summary of the article:
THE BASIC HISTORY OF BURNOUT
For several decades, the term “burnout” has been used to describe a fundamental
disconnect between the worker and the workplace. The basic story goes like this:
"the worker entered a job with positive expectations, enthusiasm, and the goal to
be successful in the job. Over time, things changed – and now the worker has an
overwhelming exhaustion; feelings of frustration, anger and cynicism; and a sense
of ineffectiveness and failure."
The initial flame has burned out. The experience impairs both personal and social
functioning on the job, and thus carries some real costs for the individual worker,
the people affected by him or her, and for the organization as a whole.
While some people may quit the job as a result of burnout, others will stay on but will
only do the bare minimum rather than their very best.
DEFINITION OF BURNOUT
Burnout is defined as a psychological syndrome of exhaustion, cynicism, and
inefficacy, which is experienced in response to chronic job stressors.
Exhaustion
The exhaustion component represents the basic individual stress experience.
It refers to feelings of being overextended and depleted of one’s emotional
and physical resources.
Cynicism
The cynicism represents the interpersonal context dimension of burnout.
It refers to a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to various aspects of
the job. It usually develops in response to the overload of exhaustion.
Is self-protective at first, an emotional buffer of “detached concern.” But the risk is
that the detachment can result in the loss of idealism and the dehumanization of others.
Inefficacy
The third component of inefficacy represents the self-evaluation dimension of burnout.
It refers to feelings of incompetence and a lack of achievement and productivity
in work. In some instances, it appears to be a function, to some degree, of either
exhaustion or cynicism, or a combination of the two (Byrne, 1993; Lee&Ashforth,
1996). A work situation with chronic, overwhelming demands that contribute to
exhaustion or cynicism is likely to erode one’s sense of effectiveness.
However,in other job contexts, inefficacy appears to develop in parallel with the other two
burnout aspects, rather than sequentially (Leiter, 1993). Here the lack of efficacy
seems to arise more clearly from a lack of relevant resources, while exhaustion
and cynicism emerge from the presence of work overload and social conflict.
Incidence
Unlike acute stress reactions, which develop in response to specific critical
incidents, burnout is a cumulative reaction to ongoing occupational stressors.
With burnout, the emphasis has been more on the process of psychological
erosion, and the psychological and social outcomes of this chronic exposure,
rather than just the physical ones. Because burnout is a prolonged response to
chronic interpersonal stressors on the job, it tends to be fairly stable over time.
We had identified six key domains: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values (Leiter&Maslach, 1999; Maslach&Leiter, 1997, 1999).
The first two areas are reflected in the Demand-Control model of job stress (Karasek & Theorell, 1990), and reward refers to the power of reinforcements to shape behavior.
Community captures all of the work on social support and interpersonal conflict, while fairness emerges from the literature on equity and social justice. Finally, the area of values picks up the cognitive-emotional power of job goals and expectations.
Workload
The most obvious, and most commonly discussed area of worklife is overload: job
demands exceeding human limits. People have to do too much in too little time
with too few resources. Increasing workload has a consistent relationship with
burnout, especially with the exhaustion dimension (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993;
Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998).
Structural models of burnout have shown that exhaustion then mediates the relationship
of workload with the other two dimensions of burnout Both qualitative and quantitative
work overload contribute to exhaustion by depleting the capacity of people to meet the
demands of the job.
The critical point occurs when people are unable to recover from work demands.
That is, acute fatigue resulting from an especially demanding event at work
– meeting a deadline or addressing a crisis – need not lead to burnout if people have
an opportunity to recover during restful periods at work or at home (Shinn et al., 1984).
When this kind of overload is a chronic job condition, not an occasional emergency,
there is little opportunity to rest, recover, and restore balance. Such exhaustion can
lead to a deterioration in the quality of the work and a disruption of collegial relationships.
A sustainable workload, in contrast, provides opportunities to use and refine
existing skills as well as to become effective in new areas of activity (Landsbergis,
1988). It builds involvement by opening new opportunities, and by removing
concern about work overwhelming personal capacity. A sustainable workload
stops the cycle of exhaustion that is a driving force in the experience of burnout
for many people.
Control
The Demand-Control theory of job stress (Karasek & Theorell, 1990) has made
the case for the enabling role of control. This area includes employees’ perceived
capacity to influence decisions that affect their work, to exercise professional
autonomy, and to gain access to the resources necessary to do an effective job.
As human beings, people have the ability to think and solve problems, and want to
have the opportunity to make choices and decisions. In other words, they want to
have some input into the process of achieving the outcomes for which they will
be held accountable.
Control problems occur when workers have insufficient authority over their work or
are unable to shape the work environment to be consistent with their values.
A sense of efficacy is unlikely to occur when workers are feeling buffeted by
circumstances or powerful people within the organization.
A major control problem occurs when people experience role conflict. Many
burnout studies have found that greater role conflict is strongly and positively
associated with greater exhaustion (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Maslach et al.,
1996). Role conflict arises from multiple authorities with conflicting demands
or incongruent values, and people in this situation cannot exercise effective
control in their job.
Contradictory demands interfere with their capacity to set priorities or to commit
themselves fully to their work. Role conflict is not simply an indicator of additional
work demands, but is emotionally exhausting in itself
(e.g. Siefert et al., 1991; Starnaman & Miller, 1992).
Moreover, role conflict is, almost by definition, a direct signal of an authority problem
at work. It means that a worker’s preferred role is out of sync with important qualities
of the job, such as supervisors’ expectations, client demands, or ethical constraints.
The critical issue is not the amount or even the type of work demands, but the consistency of
those demands with the capacity to determine the job.
Reward
The reward area of worklife addresses the extent to which rewards – monetary,
social, and intrinsic – are consistent with expectations.
Lack of recognition from service recipients, colleagues, managers, and external stakeholders
devalues both the work and the workers, and is closely associated with feelings of inefficacy
(Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Maslach et al., 1996). When people feel neglected
by the material and social reward system of an organization, they feel out of sync
with its values.
In contrast, consistency in the reward dimension between the person and the job means that there are both material rewards and opportunities for intrinsic satisfaction (Richardsen et al., 1992). Intrinsic rewards (such as pride in doing something of importance and doing it well) can be just as critical as extrinsic rewards, if not more so. What keeps work involving for most people is the pleasure and satisfaction they experience with the day-to-day flow of work that is going well (Leiter, 1992). An enjoyable workflow supports both psychological well being and physical health, and is also the source of recognition from others. The results of various studies have shown that insufficient reward (whether
financial, institutional, or social) increases people’s vulnerability to burnout (e.g.Chappell & Novak, 1992; Glicken, 1983; Maslanka, 1996; Siefert et al., 1991).
Community
Community is the overall quality of social interaction at work, including issues of conflict, mutual support, closeness, and the capacity to work as a team. People thrive in community and function best when they share praise, comfort, happiness, and humor with people they like and respect.
In addition to emotional exchange and instrumental assistance, this kind of social support reaffirms a person’s membership in a group with a shared sense of values.
Unfortunately, some jobs isolate people from each other, or make social contact impersonal. However, what is most destructive of community is chronic and unresolved conflict with others on the job. Such conflict produces constant negative feelings of frustration and hostility, and reduces the likelihood of social support.
Burnout research has focused primarily on social support from supervisors, coworkers, and family members (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Greenglass et al., 1994; Greenglass et al., 1988; Maslach et al., 1996). Distinct patterns have been found for informal coworker support and supervisor support (Jackson et al.,1986; Leiter & Maslach, 1988).
Supervisor support has been more consistently associated with exhaustion, reflecting the supervisors’ impact on staff members’ workload. Coworker support is more closely related to accomplishment or efficacy, reflecting the value staff members put on the expert evaluation by their peers.
A sense of community has been found to buffer the impact of feelings of inequity at work (Truchot & Deregard, 2001). Regardless of its specific form, social support has been found to be associated with greater engagement (Leiter & Maslach, 1988; Schnorpfeil et al., 2002).
Research on the social context of burnout has also attended to the broader issues associated with a sense of community in an organization (Drory & Shamir, 1988; Farber, 1984; Royal & Rossi, 1996). Research on community orientation (Buunk & Schaufeli, 1993) provides a distinct but consistent perspective. Both of these
approaches consider ways in which the overall quality of personal interactions among people in an organization have an impact on the relationships people have with their work.
The consistent finding through this research is that a lively, attentive, responsive community is incompatible with burnout. People’s subjective appraisal of their social context – their sense of community with colleagues or their communal orientation towards service recipients – reflects the extent to which the organizational community is consistent with their expectations.
Fairness
Fairness is the extent to which decisions at work are perceived as being fair and people are treated with respect. Fairness communicates respect and confirms people’s self-worth. Mutual respect between people is central to a shared sense of community. Unfairness can occur when there is inequity of workload or pay, or when there is cheating, or when evaluations and promotions are handled inappropriately. If procedures for grievance or dispute resolution do not allow for both
parties to have voice, then those will be judged as unfair.
Relevant research on procedural justice (e.g. Lawler, 1968; Tyler, 1990) has shown that people are more concerned with the fairness of the process than with the favorableness of the outcome. People use the quality of the procedures, and their own treatment during the decision-making process, as an index of their place in the community. They will feel alienated from that community if they are subject to unfair, cursory, or disrespectful decision-making. In contrast, a fair decision is one in which people have an opportunity to present their arguments and in which they feel treated with respect and politeness. Thus, fairness shares some qualities with community, as well as with reward.
Fairness has also emerged as a critical factor in administrative leadership (e.g. White, 1987). Employees who perceive their supervisors as being both fair and supportive are less susceptible to burnout, and are more accepting of major organizational change (Leiter & Harvie, 1997, 1998). It appears that employees value fairness in itself and consider it to be indicative of a genuine concern for the
long-term good of the organization’s staff, especially during difficult times. When employees are experiencing stress, they look to management not only for problem solving, but for optimism, fairness, and high expectations for organizational and personal performance. They expect that management will give due consideration to people’s contributions and will allocate resources and opportunities equitably
(and not to the personal advantage of privileged individuals or cliques).
Values
The values area is at the heart of people’s relationship with their work. It encompasses the ideals and motivations that originally attracted them to the job. It is the motivating connection between the worker and the workplace that goes beyond the utilitarian exchange of time for money or advancement. Contributing to a meaningful personal goal is a powerful incentive for individuals. When this work contributes as well to the organizational mission, people may be rewarded with additional opportunities for meaningful work. As such, mutually compatible values produce a self-perpetuating dynamic that supports engagement.
However, when there is a values conflict on the job, it can undermine people’s engagement with work. The greater the gap between individual and organizational values, the more often staff members find themselves making a trade-off between work they want to do and work they have to do. In some cases, people might feel constrained by the job to do things that are unethical and not in accord with their own values. For example, in order to make a sale or to obtain a necessary authorization, they might have to tell a lie or be otherwise deceptive or not forthcoming with the truth. People can also be caught between conflicting values of the organization, as when there is a discrepancy between the lofty mission statement and actual practice, or when the values are in conflict (e.g. high quality service and cost containment do not always co-exist). In other instances, there may be a conflict between their personal aspirations for their career and the values of the organization, as when people realize that they entered an occupation with mistaken expectations.
One resolution of the tension resulting from value conflicts is to bring personal expectations in line with those of the organization (Stevens & O’Neill, 1983); another is to leave the organization in search of more fulfilling career opportunities (Pick & Leiter, 1991). The distress associated with value conflicts and the lengths to which people go to reduce the associated tension are indicative of their central
role in the burnout and engagement process. Research has found that a conflict in
values is related to all three dimensions of burnout (Leiter & Harvie, 1997).
A consistent theme throughout this research literature is the problematic relationship between the person and the environment, which is often described in terms of imbalance or misalignment or misfit. For example, the demands of the job exceed the capacity of the individual to cope effectively, or the person’s efforts are not reciprocated with equitable rewards.
There is a long history within psychology of trying to explain behavior in terms of the
interaction of person and environment, and this is particularly evident within the fields
of personality and of vocational psychology (e.g. see Chartrand et al., 1995; Walsh et al., 1992).
Many of these interactional models viewperson and environment as independent entities,
but characterize them along commensurate dimensions so that the degree of fit,
or congruence, between person and environment can be assessed. This approach
is evident in some of the earliest models of job-person fit (French et al., 1974,
1982), in which better fit was assumed to predict better adjustment and less stress.
Subsequent theorizing continued to highlight the importance of both individual
and contextual factors (see Kahn & Byosiere, 1992), and recent research continues
to utilize this person-environment approach (e.g. Finnegan, 2000; Lauver
& Kristof-Brown, 2001; O’Reilly et al., 1999).
Thus, a model of job-person fit would seem to be an appropriate framework for
understanding burnout. However, prior conceptualizations of job-person fit are
limited in terms of their direct application to this phenomenon. For example, the
“person” is usually framed in terms of personality or an accurate understanding
of the job, rather than in terms of emotions or motivations or stress responses.
Similarly, the “job” is often defined in terms of specific tasks, and not the larger
situation or organizational context. The notion of “fit” is often presumed to predict
such outcomes as choice of job/occupation or of organization (entry issues), or
adjustment to the job (newcomer issues). In contrast, burnout involves a later point
in the process, when the person has been working for a while and is experiencing
a more chronic misfit between self and the job. Thus, the challenge is to extend
the job-person paradigm to a broader and more complex conceptualization of the
person situated in the job context.
The Areas of Worklife Scale
Our goal was to develop a measure that would apply the concept of job-person fit
to the assessment of the six key areas of worklife, in a generic format that could
be utilized easily by a wide range of employees. We chose to focus on the fit
This new measure, the Areas of Worklife Scale, has the potential to
provide useful diagnostic information to organizations interested in interventions
to deal with burnout (Leiter & Maslach, 2000).
The developmental research found that the new scale had a consistent factor structure
across these initial samples and showed consistently high correlations with the three
burnout dimensions measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Scale (MBI-GS;
which is the general version of the MBI that can be used with all occupations). The AWS is
available through Leiter and Maslach (2000) or through Leiter and Maslach (2002).