Employee burnout and the acceleration trap in modern organizations

Burnout

The acceleration trap refers to the growing incidence of firms accelerating the pace of their business without break. Acceleration succeeds in the short-term, but in the long-term it can have devastating consequences for the organization. Bruch and Menges (2010) argue that many of those consequences are symptoms. The underlying cause, they posit, of those symptoms is employee burnout. The pace of today's business world is rapid, a result of competitive pressure. In order to ensure that the company does not succumb to this pressure and fall into an acceleration trap, the human resources department needs to learn how best to define, identify and manage burnout. This paper will analyze the issue of employee burnout from the perspective of the human resources department in order to shed some light on the issue and generate some responses to addressing the burnout problem.

Defining Burnout

Burnout is considered to be "the erosion of a positive psychological state" (Schaufeli, 2009). This definition assumes a beginning point -- a positive psychological state. This state is what lay practitioners would call "normal," where employees are motivated and compelled to a normal degree by their jobs. During the early stages of acceleration, the psychological state may improve. The motivation of the challenge signals to the employee to improve output and activity. During such a period, an employee is essentially working beyond his or her capacity. This is only sustainable for short bursts, especially in terms of the psychological effects. Thus, a prolonged period of accelerated pace will result in the gradual breakdown of the positive psychological state.

Identifying Burnout

Burnout typically is identified through its symptoms. There are four categories of burnout symptoms -- nonburnout, disengaged, exhausted and burnout (Peterson, 2008). As the employees progress through these stages, a variety of specific symptoms will emerge. These include increased absenteeism, reduced productivity, illness, increased turnover, decreased morale.

For the organization, the negative symptoms of burnout are evident. Bruch and Menges identified stark differences between organizations that are suffering burnout and those that are not. Organizations that are suffering burnout feel that they do not have sufficient resources to do the job; work under constantly elevated time pressure; do not see the "light at the end of the tunnel" and seldom get the chance to regenerate. Employees feeling these symptoms are almost always in an organization that is facing a burnout situation.

Other symptoms can be found by examining the organization. Bruch and Menges identify the types of organizational activities that have a high correlation with organizational burnout. These include a rapid, prolonged period of heightened activity; constant change; employees taking on too many tasks; and employees taking on too many types of tasks. If the organization has rapidly expanded its revenues but not met that with an expansion of human resources, there is also a high chance of burnout.

Impacts

Burnout has serious consequences for any organization that suffers it. The biggest concern is that burnout is a feedback loop. Once a company gets into an acceleration trap, it is difficult to exit. Managers, stockholders and even the employees themselves view the accelerated workload as the new norm, and continue with it even after problems become apparent. The fear of competition that often drives companies to enter the acceleration trap in the first place often brings the company back into the trap even if it makes an attempt to exit.

The short run impacts on employees are obviously challenging, but there are strong negative long-term consequences of creating an environment that fosters employee burnout. One of these is that the company suffers long-term productivity declines. Even if the company emerges from the acceleration trap, employees are not going to immediate be in a position to return to a state of acceleration. Restoration will take time.

Another negative outcome, related to a prolonged state of suppressed productivity, is a prolonged slump in profits. Managers act as agents for the shareholders, so they have a duty to behave in a manner that will deliver the most profits. Indeed, the acceleration trap begins with good intentions to build profits. However, when short-term profit seeking becomes the sole raison d'etre for the business, long-term profits suffer. Strategic decisions are undertaken that do not take into account the negative long-term externalities of those actions. Burnout creates problems that last for a long time, and keep profits down to a level where the company would have been better off taking a long-term view from the outset.

Additionally, the company that creates burnout among its employees will have a poor employer brand. An employer brand is the value of the brand to potential employees. The best employees will seek out the company that has the best reputation and avoid companies that have a poor reputation. When a company burns out its employees, those employees begin to leave. Those that remain complain. As a result,-word spreads that the company is not a good one to work for. This discourages quality applicants. For years to come, a company with a reputation for burning out its employees will have difficulty attracting the best candidates. This can put the company at a competitive disadvantage. This lingering impact of large scale burnout can reduce competitive for years, an indicator of why the long-term impacts of the acceleration trap and the attendant burnout are so significant.

Implications for Human Resources

Many of the changes required to manage burnout are at the managerial level. The executive team must be front and center in addressing the changes that need to be made to prevent burnout or to recover from it, as the issues tend to be structural in nature. This does not mean, however, that the human resources department plays no role in dealing with burnout.

In fact, HR is likely to be the first point of contact for employees suffering from the early stages of burnout or for managers who suspect their charges are suffering burnout. Human resources will also see an uptick in turnover and will note any increase in absenteeism. Thus, human resources serves as an early warning system for organizational burnout. For HR to perform this function at its best, it will need to systematically equate this data with an accelerated strategic pace.

Human resources is also likely to manage individual burnout cases. The department therefore should have specific procedures for diagnosing burnout issues. This does not mean undertaking a psychological differential diagnosis, but it does mean that the department should be able to drill down past the immediate symptoms in grievance issues to find their underlying causes. As Bruch and Menges point out, burnout is often masked by other behaviors such as apparent laziness or increased recalcitrance.

Human resources must also become involved at the solution level. The department may not set strategy but it may be able to provide counseling for employees during a period where the company has identified an acceleration trap and is attempting to resolve it. Human resources can also ensure that the needs of the company during this period -- such as additional employees to relieve some workload -- are met thereby facilitating the recovery process.

Conclusion

Burnout is a major strategic issue for any organization, and it often comes as the result of an acceleration trap. Today's intense competitive environment and increasing pace of life are driving burnout in the workforce. When burnout hits on an organization wide level, it can erode productivity, profits and the company's employer brand. The strategic implications of burnout, therefore, are long-term and self-sustaining.

While companies do need to enter periods of accelerated activity, managers need to be cognizant of the fact that such periods must be temporary. If they are not, burnout is a high risk factor. There are ways, however, for the company to reduce its likelihood of burnout. One way is to slow things down every now and again. If a fast pace is responsible for burnout, then naturally moderating that pace will help to reduce the likelihood of burnout. In addition, clear goals and a coherent strategy will give the employees sufficient focus that they will be able to avoid burnout.

The human resources department may not be able to change the pace of the organization or of the business world in general, but it can spot the warning signs of burnout. Remember that burnout has many stages -- HR can identify the symptoms early and allow the organization to prevent full-scale burnout. In addition, HR is in the unique position to work directly with the employees to reduce the impacts of burnout on their daily jobs.

Works Cited:

Bruch, H. & Menges, J. (2010). The Acceleration Trap. Harvard Business Review. In possession of the author.

Schaufeli, W., Leiter, M. & Maslach, C. (2009). Burnout: 35 years of research and practice. Career Development International. Vol. 14 (3) 204-220.

Peterson, U., Demerouti, E., Bergstrom, G., Asberg, M. & Nygren, a. (2008). Work characteristics and sickness absence in burnout and nonburnout groups: A study of Swedish health care workers. International Journal of Stress Management. Vol. 15(2) 153-172.