Burnout is caused by mismatch between unconscious needs and job demands
New research shows that burnout is caused by a mismatch between a person’s subconscious needs and the opportunities and demands at the workplace. These results have implications for the prevention of job burnout. Imagine an accountant who is outgoing and seeks closeness in her social relationships, but whose job offers little scope for contact with colleagues or clients. Now imagine a manager, required to take responsibility for a team, but who does not enjoy taking center-stage or being in a leadership role. For both, there is a mismatch between their individual needs and the opportunities and demands at the workplace. A new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Psychology shows that such mismatches put employees at risk of burnout. Burnout is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from work, which results in a lack of motivation, low efficiency, and a helpless feeling. Its health effects include anxiety, cardiovascular disease, immune disorders, insomnia, and depression. The financial burden from absenteeism, employee turnover, reduced productivity, and medical, legal, and insurance expenses due to burnout and general work-related stress is staggering: for example, the American Institute of Stress estimates the total cost to American enterprises at 300 billion US$ per […]