Burnout is a state of exhaustion and disengagement from work that can lead to mistakes and reduced productivity. Symptoms include feeling incompetent and disengaged from colleagues. Christina Maslach, a leading psychologist, has developed three questions to measure burnout. Some careers have a higher rate of burnout, and people with a history of mental illness may be more prone to it. The US offers little help for burnt-out workers, but other countries place more responsibility on employers to recognize and help meet their needs.
The expression burnt tends to refer to people in relation to their employment. It can also be used much more freely by people who are feeling stressed or exhausted from their lives. The more clinical aspects of burnout have instead been studied and refined to express the worker’s performance expectations and his emotional state.
Some symptoms of burnout include burnout and feeling that contributions to one’s work are incompetent or meaningless. Workers can also disengage from other employees and depersonalize their work environment. They do not engage personally in the work or in any way socially with the people they work with.
One of the leading psychologists in employee burnout studies is Christina Maslach, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley. Although she believes that quick tests to measure the level at which an employee is burnt out may be overrated, she says three basic questions can define the level at which a person can measure burnout.
His three questions, developed with his co-author, Michael P. Leiter, for the book, The Truth About Burnout, can clearly define the degree to which an addict suffers from this state. These questions ask whether he or she is exhausted both before sleep and after sleep. Leiter and Maslach also ask whether a person avoids all personal contact with colleagues. The last question, about insecurity, asks if an employee doubts their ability to make a difference at work or at home.
If a person is exhausted, disengaged from co-workers, and also doubtful, this represents a high degree of burnout. Some careers appear to have a higher rate of burnouts and may include teachers, air traffic controllers, doctors, musicians, and those working in highly technical fields. General practitioners appear to have the highest amount of occupational burnout.
Some argue that people who are burnt out are actually clinically depressed. It seems to be the case that people with undiagnosed mental illness, or who have battled mental illness in the past, are more prone to burn out. However, people with no history of mental illness can also experience it and are not necessarily assisted by medications prescribed to treat depression.
Exhausted employees can cause minor to major problems in the workplace. A physician suffering from burnout may make serious mistakes in treating patients, while a teacher may simply not be up to the job and may not be able to treat students adequately. The possible error factor made by air traffic controllers who are burnt out is almost too horrifying to contemplate.
In the United States, there is little help within organizations for the burnt-out worker. In general, it is up to individual employees to both diagnose burnout and seek treatment for it. It can be helped through lifestyle changes and therapy.
Some countries place more responsibility on employers to recognize and help meet the needs of burnt-out employees. This model could ultimately serve as the future for the United States, especially since employee burnout in some fields could pose a danger to the worker and to others. Additionally, these employees cost money, as they tend to be less productive at work than happy employees.
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