How do I know If It’s Burnout? - S02 E03

Outline

Work-life balance and burnout prevention using the AWS scale.

• Overload work demands exceed human limits, leading to burnout.
• Researchers Leiter and Maslak identify six areas of work life contributing to burnout: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values.
• I explore the work-life balance scale to identify areas of burnout.

Work-related factors leading to burnout include workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. 

• Workload, lack of control, and inadequate rewards can lead to burnout.
• Control, resources, and rewards are essential for job satisfaction and preventing burnout.
• It’s easy to feel unappreciated when work doesn't lead to tangible rewards or recognition.
• Poor social support and conflict at work can contribute to burnout, reducing morale and increasing stress.
• Perceived unfairness at work can lead to burnout due to erosion of respect, trust, and values.

Work-life balance and burnout prevention. 

• I experienced burnout due to a lack of alignment with work values.
• Interventions targeting work-life areas can reduce burnout, the study suggests.
• Assess your work-life balance and control to prevent burnout.
• Evaluate workplace satisfaction with rewards, relationships, fairness, and values.

Transcript

Today, we delve deep into the six critical areas of work life that, if misaligned, can lead to burnout, as noted by Leiter and Masak. In their research, one of the most obvious and commonly discussed areas of burnout is overload, where job demands exceed human limits. But today, we're going to explore how not only workload but how control reward, community, and fairness also contribute to burnout. So, stick around for today's episode.

Welcome back to another episode of Rat Race Reboot, where we explore burnout through multiple angles to see what we can learn about ourselves. What can we learn about burnout, and the impact that it can have in our lives? But more importantly, how can we transform that burnout once we're already in it? And we recognize we're in a burnout cycle? How can we transform it into something positive? Or how we can use it and leverage it as a catalyst for change once we're in it. So, we're going to dive in and discuss each of those levels of burnout that Leiter and Maslak are talking about in their research so we can better understand each area. And as we do that, I want you to reflect on how these areas connect with your experience. 

So the research back in 2004, by Leiter and Maslak, focused on the organizational context of burnout, emphasizing six areas of work life which are workload control, reward, community, fairness, and values. They develop the areas of work-life scale, AWS, and that scale measures those areas, finding any mismatch matches in those domains, or any of those areas can be a predictor of burnout. It's interesting because the study shows that when employees perceive a better fit in each area, they're more likely to experience work engagement rather than burnout. The implications of this are really significant for developing workplace interventions and strategies to promote employee well-being and productivity. So we're gonna go deeper into those areas of work-life scale areas so that we can identify them, connect with them. And then, at the end of the episode, I'm going to have you kind of do a little scale in your own mind on a scale from one to 10. and rate yourself in each of those areas. Because I think awareness is key. You remember from the last episode, I didn't realize I was in burnout. Until I started asking questions and asking a friend of mine, when was it going to be enough? When am I going to be enough? And just by the nature of my exploring that question, saying it out loud, asking the question out loud, that really resonated deeply with me. And it just really created this whole new level of awareness, a starting point; I just became aware of my point A: if we're not aware of our point A where we are, then we can't create a point B, where are we going? Where are we starting from? What's holding us back? 

Once we can get really clear on those areas, what's holding us back, and where we might be experiencing some burnout, or symptoms of burnout, or some areas in our life in our work life that might be contributing to burnout. Once we're aware of those, then we can change it. So, one of the first areas that Leiter and Masato talk about is workload. And that's, you know, that's pretty obvious. Burnout occurs when we have a heavy workload and when people have too much to do too much on their plates with too few resources. And this constant overload leads to exhaustion. And it negatively impacts work quality; it can negatively impact work relationships, I've seen it where it creates drama between people. That's how silos are formed. People are vying for resources, not really helping each other because they don't have the time or they don't think they do. It's like being on a treadmill that's going way too fast, and you can't get off of it. 

And you're constantly running to keep up, which is in and of itself exhausting. And it leaves no space for thinking, relaxing, or personal growth, right? So that's workload, one that probably many of us are familiar with. Another area that can lead to burnout is control. So a lack of control in decision-making and having inadequate resources to do the job effectively can lead to feelings of ineffectiveness, and that also can contribute to burnout. So, imagine trying to drive a car with no steering wheel. How frustrating would that be? Right? It would make you feel helpless, which would lead to this self-defeating attitude at work. Well, if you don't have the resources, you need to do your job. Or if you are, you think you're empowered to do a job, but you feel like you have to ask permission every step of the way, that can also feel like feelings of frustration and helplessness like you just don't have any control over the situation. And that has a horrible impact on burnout, that can have a tremendous impact on it. So, another area discussed in their research is reward. 

So inadequate rewards, whether it's financial or social, some of these kinds of extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, and fulfillment. We don't have that it can make people feel unappreciated or undervalued. We're not fulfilled if we have nothing that connects us to any internal sense of reward, which can lead to burnout and it can leave us feeling like we're just not adequate. We're not being compensated, we can be resentful, and we can be resentful toward our job. So, if you think about it, working hard on a project and getting no acknowledgment for that. On a small level, I remember kind of getting into social media and getting my message out there, and sometimes I would say, My gosh, I'm putting out all this content. I'm giving all this value pouring into people and sometimes it's like shouting into a cavern. Hello, is anybody there? Can anyone hear me? And it was very demotivating for me because for me when I'm giving, I want people, to get some value out of what I'm giving and what I'm sharing. And it helps to know that somebody's actually getting something out of the one I'm giving. So, for me, that would be a lack of reward if I didn't feel like anybody was benefiting from what I was giving or the gifts I was sharing with the world. So that type of reward, whether tangible or intrinsic, can have an impact on how you feel about your work, which can impact your level of burnout, right? This lack of appreciation can make you question why I am even bothering you. Okay? That's another area where we might experience burnout. 

The researchers also talk about community. What that can look like is poor social support. Any conflict, I kind of mentioned this earlier with time, and maybe we're working in silos, or we're not working together as a team. And so it's creating conflict; there's a lack of positive interactions. And as a result, that can reduce morale and increase stress. And that could also contribute to burnout. So, if your workplace feels like a lonely island or a battlefield right, that can be tough. 

Think about at the beginning of the pandemic, when people were initially working from home, and they were alone, and they weren't going out, like initially, it was like, Okay, I'm gonna leverage this time to learn a new skill or go back to school. I work from home, and I do speaking engagements. But I was locked down. A lot of us were, we were at home, trying to make the best of it online. But a lot of people were feeling the effects of burnout, just from that lack of social engagement with people I know, I experienced it too, in my own work. So, without supportive colleagues, work can become more stressful. So keep that in mind. That's community. That's very important. 

Fairness is another area that we can talk about here. So, perceived unfairness. And there are a lot of things that we'll talk about in subsequent episodes around fairness, and the impact that can have on the brain. But perceived unfairness erodes respect and erodes trust, it can lead to feelings of resentment and moral distress, which can also lead to burnout. So it's like, if you see somebody cut in line and get away with it, and go, Oh, why is that getting under my skin? Right. But we feel that unfairness takes its toll on us day in and day out; if you're experiencing that, we can feel it; it can really, truly weigh heavily on us. And it can be draining; we have this constant sense of injustice, and it's, it's exhausting. The last area that the researcher just talked about is values. 

So, first and foremost, you have to understand what your values are. That's key. So you want to take time to figure that out. And I do have other episodes where I talk about values. Still, a mismatch between personal and organizational values can cause an ethical dilemma or distress or a sense that our work is meaningless, contributing to burnout. 

Imagine working for a company and you know their values don't align with your core beliefs about life, about giving, or your values are things that are important to you. If that organization goes against what you value most, that can create resentment or conflict inside of you. It's like you're, you're betraying yourself, and that, in and of itself can be deeply unsettling and can contribute to burnout. I remember maybe a year into the pandemic, maybe a little bit earlier, I was looking at facilitating other courses for other organizations. And one organization brought me on, and I was talking with them and something I didn't know, something didn't feel right, but I ignored it because I didn't know where the work was coming from. And so I was just trying different things and taking different opportunities trying them on for some is, and something didn't feel right to me saying yes to this experience, but I, intellectually consciously, I couldn't put my finger on it on why it just didn't feel right to me. And I ended up teaching one of the courses that was for an overseas company, the HR department developed the course. And it just didn't feel right. And I was getting ready to teach the course. And I just, I wished that it went away that it got canceled, but I gave my word that I would be there and I would do it. And it just, it was contributing to stress and burnout, because I could feel that we were not aligned. And it wasn't a good fit. And I felt stuck. And so, needless to say, I did that event, and I hated it. And then, I declined any further work because it wasn't in alignment. And then that opened me up to other things that were in alignment with me and felt so much better sometimes, you know, we need to feel that experience and know exactly what we don't want. So then we can be really clear on what we do want. But that's what I mean by values. And maybe you can't intellectually, consciously point your finger as to why something isn't a good fit, but you can feel it. And sitting in that feeling can cause burnout if you're in there long enough. 

So, you know, it's interesting because the studies by Leiter and Moss Lock really highlight the importance of each work-life area in predicting burnout. It also suggests that interventions targeting improvements in these areas can be effective in reducing burnout. So, for example, enhancing a sense of control and fairness in the workplace could be something that an organization could do, providing adequate rewards that connect with what people want. Fostering a supportive community. That's something that an organization can do to uplevel these different areas of work life, ensuring a more manageable workload amongst people and aligning individual and organizational values that can significantly improve employee wellbeing. And this approach kind of shifts the focus from individual coping strategies regarding burnout. And it shifts it from that to organizational change, highlighting the role of the workplace environment in employee health and job satisfaction. But it first starts with us, we have to be aware of where there's a disconnect and where we're starting to experience those areas of burnout. Now, moss voc does have a couple of assessments out there that you can look up. One of them is Mazaki, which is a burnout inventory. Another one is the areas of work life. And those are both surveys and assessments that you could take for yourself. But just for today's episode, I want you to think about each of these six areas of work life. And I want you to rate yourself in your mind on a scale from one to 10. One is I am doing really poorly in this area. Things are not going well. I'm in complete burnout to 10. Whoa, I'm off the charts. Everything's great. Everything's amazing. All right. 

So think about your workload. Consider if your current workload feels sustainable. Are you constantly feeling overwhelmed? Or do you have time for recovery, personal growth, and self-care? If you don't feel like you have any time if you're constantly in this hamster wheel, then you might rate yourself as a one. But if you know what, I manage my workload well, set boundaries, and have a great self-care routine. I have lots of time to recover that you might write yourself a 789 10. Now, going to the area of control, reflect on the level of autonomy you have in your role. Do you feel empowered to make decisions and influence outcomes in your work, your job, and your role? One is that I don't have any control. I'm not empowered. I can't make decisions. 10 would be I'm completely autonomous, and I feel really wonderful about the decisions that I make and the impact that my work has on the overall organizational outcomes and job The next area is reward recognition, recognition. 

So, think about and evaluate if you feel adequate to add, oh my goodness, if you feel adequately rewarded for your efforts, both in terms of financial compensation or acknowledgment or even the personal intrinsic reward. One would be I'm not adequately rewarded. And if you were to give yourself a 10, I feel adequate. I feel like really exceptionally rewarded in each of those areas in financial acknowledgment and intrinsic reward.

Now, community connection, think about your relationships at work. Do you have a supportive network at work? Or do you feel isolated or in conflict? If you feel isolated or in conflict, you might write yourself a one. But if you feel like you have a wonderful network or community at work, collaborate, and love it, then that might be a 10. Now, let's look at fairness. Assess how fair and just you find your workplace. Do you trust the process and feel respected? Is there a sense of equity and fairness in your work? One would be not at all. 10 would be if we had this down pat. And then values are the last one. Think about the alignment of your role in your organization with your personal values. Does your work resonate with your core beliefs? Can you be authentically you in your work? And if the answer is a hard no, you might give yourself a one. If you're high on that scale, you might give yourself a 10. But the key here is awareness, which is the first step toward transforming burnout into something more positive. It starts with having that awareness and knowing where your point A is. 

I hope today's episode has been helpful for you. Again, this is episode two of a series. So, we're going to learn different aspects of burnout and little things that we can do to start this transformation and be inspired. Remember, everything is created twice: first in your imagination and then in physical form. We'll see you in next week's episode.