Rees, Gary

English

Portsmouth University Research Portal (Pure)

Jumping into the abyss: an exploration of the concept of Organizational Burnout 
Abstract 
Whilst the primary focus concerning burnout at work has been at individual and job level 
(Maslach, Demeteriou, Leiter, Schaufeli), very little academic literature or research has 
organization 
Within the context of continuous organizational change and heightening competitiveness at 
work, it could be argued that there is a greater propensity for individuals to be working 
within teams, divisions and possibly organizations which are suffering from burnout.  
This paper explores the concept of organizational burnout by outlining traditional definitions 
of burnout, analysing the differing levels of burnout and how these are measured at 
individual and job level, then extrapolating from that to an organizational level of analysis. 
Following that, suggestions for further research and understanding of organizational level 
burnout will be explored together with providing some practical managerial interventions. 
The context of change 
The concept of successfully managing organizational change is not a new one, but more 
recently, the pace and scope of change has been unprecedented. A heightened increase in 
agility from organizations to move from a new strategy to the next one is paramount. 
However, where do employees fit within this change in terms of expectations and 
performance? How long can employees (managers and workers) remain highly involved in a 
range of contiguous change interventions, working on several business strategies, and in 
some cases, increased competitive work pressures? Stuart (1996) develops this concept and 
organization
impact on employees which can lead to emotional and physical exhaustion.  
Pettigrew and Whipp (1991) argue that most change management programmes assume that 
change is an exceptional episode, but in reality, most employees contend with ongoing 
change, which in effect may dilute the credibility  of management demands for the employee 
argue that employees endure the following set of concerns:  
Loss of organizational or service identity in the case of mergers and acquisitions 
Changes in team structures and potential loss of relationships with colleagues, 
especially long standing relationships that are seen to be the most productive  
Changes that employees feared might impact upon their ability to do their job or to 
provide what they see as a good quality of service 
Loss of job security  where there was a threat of job losses, it was often all-
consuming and employees found it difficult to see beyond this  
Increased workload and pressure, which could result in normally engaged employees 
beginning to feel that their good will was being exploited  
Some financial institutions undertake organization
and survival in a turbulent economic environment. Whilst it may be possible to assess the 
level and utility of financial capital, can organizations assess whether their human capital is 
close to collapse?  
So when do organizations become exhausted? Perhaps at the point an organization has 
reached saturation (Marks 2003), or at the point of inflection, and where performance, 
output, efficiency etc. plunges dramatically.  Marks (2003), argues that multiple waves of 
organizations, resulting in a deterioration of 
performance that emerges from dealing with stress and uncertainty. A report by 
PricewaterhouseCoopers cited in MacLeod and Clarke (2009) found that nine out of ten of 
the key barriers to the success of change programmes are people related. Organizations 
should therefore place considerable emphasis upon the people factors and the employment 
relationship during times of change, and more so in times of harsh economic cost cutting and 
asset stripping. The need to introduce change correctly at strategic, tactical and operation 
level is the key to successful change initiatives.  
The need for change initiatives 
Given the managerial license for change within a turbulent economic context, do   
organizations really need to change, and perhaps change so frequently? Results from a recent 
survey of over 1500 executives involved in a wide variety of change initiatives indicated that 
only 38% thought these initiatives were successful and only 30% thought they contributed to 
the sustained improvement of their organizations (Erwin and Garman 2010). To what extent 
are organizations changing, and changing simply for the sake of change? If organizational 
change is then carried out, what is the ability of the organization to carry out and cope with 
the change? Where there are contiguous change interventions, employees need to know why 
the changes are being brought about, or risk becoming alienated from the change process.  
Abrahamson (2004) posits that there has been negative, not neutral impact upon employee 
spirit, work team performance and organizational effectiveness resulting from continuous 
changes and transitions in the workplace. Marris (1974) equates change with bereavement; 
hence employees need time to recover from changes, and a period of acceptance of the 
changes. Implicit to this argument is the principle that organizations should not go through 
continuous changes.  
The negative change spiral 
Bruch and Menges (2010) argue that the habit of constant change makes organizations fall 
into an acceleration trap, which impacts negatively upon performance, efficiency, 
effectiveness, employee productivity and retention in particular. There are 3 ways in which 
companies fall into this trap: 
Employees are overloaded with too many activities, with lack of time to complete 
their jobs. 
-  by asking employees to carry out too many kinds of activities, 
resulting in misaligned work.  
Perpetual loading - by not allowing employees to recharge their batteries, resulting in 
possible retrenchment.  
To some extent, the concept of retrenchment echoes withdrawal behaviours, which in turn 
result in poorer performance, productivity and retention. Bruch and Menges (2010) argue that 
consolidation rather than expansion is required in order to avoid the acceleration trap. 
Additionally, a clear strategy of what needs to be done, how decisions are arrived at is 
projects will assist in the necessary post change spring-cleaning.   The lack of planning and 
review of organizational change initiatives may exacerbate the negative consequences of 
continuous changes ultimately leading to burnout. Bruch and Menges (2010) argue that this 
lack of control 
organizations. Given the context of change and the need to consider how organizations can 
successfully manage both organizational change and burnout, this paper will now explore the 
nature of burnout and apply individual/job level burnout to an organizational level.  
Towards a definition of burnout 
Maslach and Jackson (1981) cited in Moreno-Jimenez and Villodres (2010) identify three 
core elements of burnout, namely emotional exhaustion (loss of energy, worn out and 
powerless), depersonalisation, or cynicism (negative attitude towards others, distancing and 
irritability) and low personal accomplishment /inefficacy (feelings of incompetence, low 
assertiveness, low self-esteem, ineffectiveness and cognition focussed on failure). Moreno-
emotional exhaustion that may arise when a person is involved in situations of high 
emotional demand over a prolonged 
Maslach et. al. (2001) argue that in addition to job characteristics, there are organizational 
characteristics that affect burnout, such as the lack of social support and/or supervisor 
support. These authors consider the organizational and management environment in which 
work occurs, the importance of values implicit in organizational processes and structures, and 
how these values shape the emotional and cognitive relationship that people develop with 
their work. The organization is itself shaped by wider social, economic and cultural forces.  
Within Table 1, the author explores how many of the individual and job related aspects of 
burnout can be applied to the organizational level. 
Whilst writers such as Bakker and Demerouti (2007) argue that the Job Demands Resources 
model accounts for burnout, what emphasis is there regarding organizational level issues, 
those which go way beyond the remit of the job? 
Implications for organizational level burnout
(author s comparabilities)
Predominance of symptoms like mental or 
emotional fatigue
Organizational malaise/inertia and 
organizational wide Survivor syndrome (often 
seen in Mergers and Acquisitions).  
Emphasis upon mental and behavioural 
symptoms (not physical ones) 
Carry out organizational health tests (ideally 
through independent measures and not only 
self-reporting techniques). This test should be 
subject to external scrutiny and transparency, 
provided that the appropriate ethical and moral 
checks are in place. 
Burnout symptoms are work related Organizational-wide related burnout symptoms
Symptoms exist in normal employees Symptoms exist 
Decreased effectiveness and work 
performance occur because of negative 
attitudes and behaviours 
Performance changes across the whole, which 
may be linked to organizational culture or some 
other prevailing aspect(s).  
Table 1: Five Common elements of Burnout (from Maslach et al 2001) 
The organizational causes of burnout include excessive workload, a lack of autonomy and 
authority, insufficient reward and a growing disparity between personal and organizational 
values (Maslach and Leiter 1998, Schaufuli and Buunk, 1992). There may be a dissonance 
between expectations and reality. This could lead to a contagion of burnout. A combination 
of organizational factors, such as poor communication strategies and practices, lack of 
supportive mechanisms and an unforgiving organizational culture during change may all 
contribute to organizational burnout.  
The concept of burnout may associate itself more readily with stressful occupations, such as 
nursing, teaching, fire and rescue, etc., and sometimes associated with individuals and 
definition of burnout hinging around emotional exhaustion resulting in the inability to carry 
out specific tasks or functions, then how can organizational burnout be defined? Is 
organizational burnout simply an expression of employee exhaustion? Whilst the bulk of the 
literature within psychology rests easily within individual and job-related burnout, how do 
we define organizational level of burnout? 
Roberts (1997) identifies four measures of individual burnout  namely changes in 
behaviour, changes in feelings, changed in thinking and changes in health. All of these 
measures could be applied at organizational level, by measuring changes in organizational 
culture, changes in staff/employee engagement survey reported data, increased 
sickness/absence levels, changes in decision-making and working practices to mention a few.  
The management challenge 
Supposing that there are measures of burnout with a reasonable level of validity, what 
management actions could follow? Perhaps the biggest management challenge is being 
ignorant to signs of wide-scale burnout, and secondly, where within the organizational fabric 
is there a duty of care support system to help reduce/eliminate critical aspects of burnout? 
The role of Human Resource professionals within organisations is also something to explore 
within the research. 
managers willing to try and address pain and suffering in organisations) working with the HR 
function in order to reduce burnout within the organization.  
Denying that there is a cliff pending, let alone that we are peering over the burnout c liff and 
staring into an abyss is in itself a dangerous predisposition. Organizations need to set out to 
avoid burnout at all costs, as there is nothing overtly positive or useful about organizational 
burnout. 
Future research into organizational burnout 
A focus upon the extent to which the work environment and organizational change(s) impact 
collectively upon organizations needs to be considered. Burnout inventories, such as Maslach 
and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventories need to apply more to the organiza tional context 
rather than simply individual opinions of how happy or unhappy an individual fee les at one 
point in time. 
There is significant scope for both qualitative and quantitative type research to be undertaken 
within the field of burnout, particularly in trying to identify measures of organizational 
burnout. In order to provide reasonable explanations of why organizations suffer from 
burnout, a strong qualitative approach is required. Following this, an evaluation of these 
measures is needed in order to ensure that a reasonable level of validity is achieved. Once 
measures of organizational level burnout are established, primary research can then be 
carried out in order to advance our understanding of this challenging and vital concern.  


Jumping into the abyss:an exploration of the concept of Organizational Burnout

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Jumping into the abyss:an exploration of the concept of Organizational Burnout

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