The ongoing pressure to "do more with less" is wearing people out. Burnout affects at least half of us: In a 2024 survey of 1,500 full-time employees of U.S. companies, 51 percent said they’d suffered burnout in the past year. Nearly two-thirds cited mental and emotional stress as the top cause. Fifty-four percent cited long hours, 52 percent cited a shortage of workers and 38 percent cited the challenge of maintaining work/life balance. A recent survey of 8,200 tech workers had even worse findings, with 84 percent reporting burnout at work. AI is adding fuel to the fire, with 88 percent of the most active AI users saying they're burned out. It’s probably no surprise that nearly the same number of people in that survey reported that they’re more polite to AI than to humans.
Burnout is more than fatigue. The MIT Sloan Management Review article “With Burnout on the Rise, What Can Companies Do About It?” uses a definition based on the work of Christina Maslach, a researcher and professor at the University of California, Berkeley: "a psychological response resulting from chronic stress in the workplace that shows up through three primary symptoms: feelings of exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and detachment, and a perceived lack of accomplishment."
Increasing burnout rates aren't healthy for individuals or for organizations. So, what can we do about it for ourselves, and what can we ask our organizations — or at least the teams we’re part of in our organizations — to do about it?
Please select this link to read the complete article from MIT Sloan Management Review.