61% of Professionals are Burnt-out, Are You?

A recent Blind study concluded that nearly 61 percent of professionals are burnt-out. With such a positive movement towards destigmatizing mental health, burnout should now be included in that conversation.

However, the burnout conversation is not linear; the health implications include anxiety, insomnia, depression, substance abuse, and coronary heart disease. To add another layer, burnout can feel personal. According to our survey, the top reasons for burnout range from an unmanaged workload, insufficient rewards, lack of managerial support, and even unfair treatment. So what can employers do to address a personal issue systematically, and should the burden of mental burnout be the responsibility of the employer?

With researchers determining that the psychological and physical problems of burnt-out workers cost an estimated $125 to $190 billion a year in U.S. healthcare spending, there is a business case to tackle this obstacle. Additionally, it was discovered that Bloomberg has the least burnout professionals among the surveyed employers. This is not surprising, considering Bloomberg ranked in the top 5 on our previous company rankings, where employees provided sentiment on their personal and professional growth in the past year. 

Our insights also portrayed regional trends. Philadelphia’s workforce is the least burnt-out, followed by New York and Boston. Contrastly, Portland and Florida have the most burnt-out professionals, with 66% of their workforce answering “yes” to “are you experiencing burnout at your company? Here is a breakdown of the questions: 

Q1. Are you experiencing burnout at your company?

  • Yes
  • No

Q2. What is the main cause of employee burnout at your current workplace?

  • Unmanageable workload
  • Unfair treatment
  • Lack of support from the manager
  • Lack of control over work
  • Insufficient rewards
  • Burnout is not a problem here
  • Other

Q3. What business unit do you work in?

  • Engineering and Technology
  • Marketing and Communications
  • HR
  • Business Strategy/Operations
  • Sales/Support
  • Finance and Accounting
  • Other

A pivotal question from all this data is, what can employers do to engage their professionals? Companies like Bloomberg, Intuit, and Zillow Group seem to have the answer. Competitive pay, work-life balance, and excellent work culture are ways to hedge burnout risks. Georgetown University’s Christine Porath noted that when you ask workers what matters most to them, feeling respected by superiors often tops the list. According to Harvard Business Review, employees that get respect from their leaders reported 56% better health and well-being, 89% greater enjoyment and satisfaction with their jobs, and 92% greater focus and prioritization. Those that feel respected by their leaders were also 1.1 times more likely to stay with their organizations than those that didn’t. 

This same Blind survey reported that the top three job functions suffering from burnout are marketing and communications, finance and accounting, and sales and support. There’s a stream of research that suggests that adopting a purpose helps a firm to develop a set of shared beliefs, and then further work that suggests such shared ideas help drive strategic alignment, lower labor costs—in the sense that people who are motivated by purpose will work harder for the same compensation—and clarity and credibility on the part of senior management. 

The good news is that burnout is not inevitable. A recent Gallup survey tells us that not only can employers prevent burnout, they can also reverse it, tiresome employees. Organizational leadership can do this by changing how they manage, lead, and uplift their talent. If organizations do not tackle the hurdles that cause their talent to burnout, then the organization will miss out on opportunities to empower employees to feel and perform their best. The key ingredient in an effective company is human capital. Companies who lead this way have access to entirely different talent pools because people are searching for purposeful work and leadership that provides it.

View full report here.