Early career burnout - Part 2: Workplace factors
Burnout is on the rise, and it’s disproportionately affecting millennials, Gen Zs, and those in the early stages of their career. Read on to learn what workplaces can do to help.
EARLY-CAREER Burnout (Pt 2: workplace factors)
by Giulia Villa, Fel Donatelli + Joyce Chong
EARLY CAREER BURNOUT – A REFRESHER
In case you missed it, our last article was a primer on early career burnout and those individual factors that increase the risk of suffering from this affliction. To refresh:
Early career burnout refers to the work-related state of mind comprising exhaustion, distancing from one’s work, and decreased personal achievement [1] affecting new graduates.
Burnout is affecting millennials at a higher than average rate compared to the general population (84% vs. 77%), resulting in higher levels of turnover according to a survey on burnout conducted by Deloitte.
The proportion of Gen Z experiencing burnout is catching up to Millennials, with this in part attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic that saw the lines between work and play blurred even further, as well as removing office-based social networks as a coping strategy.
Individual factors that lead to early career burnout include constant connection to work (no) thanks to technology, a fear of failure and negative feedback, as well as mindset, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism.
Looking at individual factors in burnout sheds light on only one piece of the puzzle. Critically, workplaces shape conditions that lead new graduates down the path of burnout. In this second part of our series on early career burnout, we look at those organisational factors and see what actions workplaces can take.
Organisational factors in early career burnout
Various organisational factors contribute to early career burnout, and it’s helpful for workplaces to consider how they can promote better wellbeing to buffer against it.
Job characteristics and design
The overall environment of a workplace is a major contributor to the wellbeing of every employee. Burnout has been linked to excessive workload, inadequate compensation, lack of community and absence of administrative support [2] . More specifically, the following job characteristics are believed to contribute to burnout:
Low autonomy and job control where an employee does not have much independence or influence in their role.
Low role clarity where an employee has low understanding of their role and responsibilities.
Subjective overload where the expectations of the workplace exceed the employee’s capabilities.
Optimising job design means crafting a balance between keeping the employee engaged and benefitting the organisation. The presence of low autonomy/job control, low role clarity, or subjective overload, all pose a risk to employee motivation and satisfaction. Indeed, job characteristics are more likely to predict burnout than individual factors, suggesting that job re-design is the most effective way to prevent burnout.
Onboarding processes: Lack of adequate support, training, and socialisation in the role
Commencing a new role is fraught with confusion and uncertainty. Questions fill the heads of new graduates - what will my colleagues be like? What does my future have in store? What’s expected of me? Indeed, a lack of role clarity is most frequently observed as ambiguity in relation to:[3]
How their job performance will be evaluated.
Whether there are paths for career progression.
What is the scope of the responsibilities.
The expectations of others.
This confusion about their role is just another thing for new starters to worry about and in fact has been linked to higher stress levels and emotional exhaustion.[4] A good understanding of the job description and the relevant duties and responsibilities is crucial to ease the anxiety and inadequacy often experienced by new graduates. It is important to inform new starters of all things relating to their role as part of their onboarding process.
Sometimes, new graduates face a culture of ‘learning by osmosis’. However, a lack of adequate support, training, and socialisation as part of an onboarding process, can contribute to individuals feeling overwhelmed early on in their career. This can lead to feeling underprepared for the role, and inadequacy and frustration can set in thereafter. A lack of socialisation with peers into the role may mean new graduates struggle to assimilate into the role.
Flexible work practices and ever-evolving technology breeds the ‘always on’ culture
Even before COVID-19’s arrival we were witnessing an increasingly blurred boundary between work and play due to technology and flexible work practices (in fact, take a look at this article on constant connection contributing to burnout amongst millennials ). Smartphones and laptops have revolutionised the way that we work; their portable nature means we can essentially always be ‘always on’. Notifications and alerts can lead to overwhelming ‘telepressure’: the feeling that you have to respond to any email as soon as it arrives[5] .
If the separation between work and play wasn’t already challenging enough, the global pandemic transformed traditional ideas of what can constitute a workplace. Many companies opted out of physical office spaces indefinitely in favour of working from home, whilst others were in prolonged lockdown and forced into a more permanent state of blurring the boundaries between work and home lives.
Unfortunately for those commencing their careers just before, or during the pandemic, working from home early in the piece meant missing out on structured formal onboarding processes as well as the informal, ad hoc collegiate support that emerges from being co-located. Put simply, it meant that some new graduates were left to navigate the overwhelming world of their new career from the solitude of their home.
Organisational culture
Workplaces play a pivotal role through their culture, so is your organisational culture building graduates up or burning them out? Organisational cultures that expect high performance and value output above all else, reinforce maladaptive perfectionistic behaviours, emphasise constant connection with the expectation of immediate replies to emails sent all hours of the day, and disparage errors made upon first attempt, are environments that may contribute to burnout.
Certainly, organisations hiring graduates are aware that they are in the early stages of their career, thus careful consideration should be given as to how to support them through this process through a combination of setting expectations in relation to a learning and feedback culture, as well as communicating realistic work practices and performance expectations.
Tips for organisations
Given the importance of the workplace in fostering burnout or sustainable work practices amongst new graduates, how can organisations better support those in the early stages of their careers?
1. NURTURE A SUPPORTIVE ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Getting an organisation’s culture right is critical as it serves to support new graduates early on in their career. Ways to promote a positive organisational culture include:
Hiring the right leaders who practice intentional leadership styles who will promote a culture of support and sustainability across the employee lifecycle and emphasise realistic work practices as well as valuing the idea of failing forward. The standards and behaviours imposed by leaders trickle down to affect all employees, greatly influencing organisational culture. Transformational leaders, who engage and motivate employees to enact the change they want to see, have been shown to decrease burnout by improving job satisfaction, performance and personal accomplishment.[6][7]
Actively discourage leaveism, or the practice of working when one is not supposed to be working, including using annual leave, sick days, or weekends to catch up.[8] This may include limiting access to technology and encouraging ‘proper’ time off. Discourage long working hours and constant connection as badges of honour, and instead stress the responsibility of employees to look after themselves to enable optimal performance when they are at work.
Model realistic work practices and work/life balance, particularly in high performance cultures. It’s important for early career individuals to get an idea of how to step into this next phase of their lives, and how to set boundaries around work so that they have time to recuperate and focus clearly the next day.
Have a culture of learning and foster a feedback culture insofar that a new graduate is expected to not know the answers, to make errors, and to fail and these are all viewed as a necessary part of career development. Emphasise the value that new graduates can bring to the organisation. A rigid feedback culture can foster feelings of frustration and hopelessness in new hires. The ability to give feedback is an important component of any employee’s job control and engagement, which we know can be a predisposing factor for burnout.
2. HIRE NEW GRADUATES FOR ‘BEST FIT’ AND CHECK IN REGULARLY
Organisations that hire on the basis of school grades fail to consider if a graduate will be a good fit for that particular role. Developing capability frameworks and success profiles means that organisations are aware of what it takes to succeed in the roles they are hiring for. This cascades down to the hiring process, and incorporating psychometric assessment to match job characteristics to new graduates can not only reveal who may be the ‘best fit’ for the role, it may also reveal areas for an employee’s development and potentially reduce turnover.
Once hired, it’s important to check in on a regular basis with graduates particularly on those aspects known to contribute to burnout (autonomy, job control, role clarity, workload) and make adjustments to their role where indicated.
3. INVEST IN YOUR LEADERS (and, in turn, your culture)
Leadership plays a vital part in your organisational culture.[9] Leaders set the tone for their team in terms of expectations for performance, they can motivate them towards high performance and cohesion, and in doing so weather challenging times.
There are factors that contribute to good leadership, and by investing in the development of their leaders organisations are investing in better organisational culture. Perquiro outlines these factors in their A BRAVE Leader model, identifying these qualities as critical to good leadership:
Authentic leaders have a strong understanding of their own values and act with integrity.
Balanced leaders remain calm in challenging situations and are open to feedback.
Rational leaders use logic to guide decision making, are consultative, and check their own assumptions.
Action-oriented leaders act promptly and demonstrate accountability.
Visionary leaders communicate the organisation’s vision and invests in building collective goals.
Empathetic leaders show genuine care and concern for others.
4. SEEK ASSISTANCE
In much the same way that we would encourage individuals to reach out and seek help if they’re experiencing burnout, organisations would be well-placed to call in consultants to look at their overall culture, as well as their hiring and onboarding processes, and how these facilitate or buffer against burnout in their team and, particularly, their new graduates.
A blend of organisational design and workplace consultants (such as our organisational psychology arm Perquiro) and clinical and registered psychologists that focus on workplace mental health (that’s us!) can help set your organisation on the right path through helpful work design, appropriate recruitment practices, and equipping employees with the right tools to help them manage their own wellbeing.
Early-career burnout getting you down? Grab our tip sheet below to learn more about how to help yourself.
REFERENCES
[1] Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W.B., & Leither, M.P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review in Psychology, 52, 397-422.
[2] Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2008). The truth about burnout: How organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it. John Wiley & Sons.
[3] Handy, C.B. (1976). Understanding Organisations. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
[4] Jackson, S. E., Schwab, R. C., & Schuler, R. S. (1986). Towards an understanding of the burnout phenomenon. Journal of Applied Psychology 71, 630-640.
[5] Peake, M. (2015, July 10). Do you have early career burnout? Friday Magazine. https://fridaymagazine.ae/life-culture/people-profiles/do-you-have-early-career-burnou-1.1547679
[6] Lowe, K. B., Kroeck, K. G., & Sivasubramaniam, N. (1996). Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic review of the MLQ literature. The leadership quarterly, 7(3), 385-425.
[7] Zopiatis, A., & Constanti, P. (2010). Leadership styles and burnout: is there an association?. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
[8] Hesketh, I., & Cooper, C.L. (2014). Leavism at work. Occupational medicine, 4, 146-147.
[9] Mohelska, H., & Sokolova, M. (2015). Organisational culture and leadership – joint vessels? Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 171, 1011-1016.
Early career burnout - Part 1: Individual factors
Burnout is on the rise, and it’s disproportionately affecting millennials, Gen Zs, and those in the early stages of their career. Read on to learn what you can do to manage your burnout.
EARLY-CAREER Burnout (Part 1: Individual factors)
by Giulia Villa + Joyce Chong
What is EARLY CAREER BURNOUT ?
Commencing a career is an important transition point in a young person’s life, and the first ‘real’ job should be an exciting new adventure. Yet the challenge of adapting to a new role and a new lifestyle can come with a great deal of stress. For many who are in the early stages of their career, and starting to feel stressed and anxious about work, it’s important to consider if poor wellbeing is tipping into early career burnout. Burnout is a work-related state of mind comprising exhaustion, distancing from one’s work, and decreased personal achievement [1].
Why are new graduates at the beginning of their career at a higher risk of burnout? There may be a combination of factors, including experiencing challenges they feel underprepared to cope with, or unable to fit into a new culture and way of life. Overwhelmed and unable to adjust to their new circumstances (both professionally and personally), these individuals then start to experience burnout.
Burnout is a phenomenon recognised in many professions - something routinely identified amongst junior doctors and nurses, teachers and academics (amongst many others) - yet we all have the potential to experience burnout, no matter our profession or our stage of career, and it has a very real effect.
“Consider the impact of health professionals caring for the lives of others, workers operating heavy machinery, and teachers tasked with educating the next generation, turning up to work feeling frazzled and overwhelmed. ”
Indeed, burnout is regarded as such a significant issue that the 11th Revision of the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) has classified it as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.[2]
Organisations should sit up and notice the very real implications that burnout has for employee wellbeing and mental health, lost productivity, and turnover, and it is something that is disproportionately affecting early career employees. In fact:
Burnout is affecting millennials at a higher that average rate compared to the general population (84% vs. 77%), resulting in higher levels of turnover according to a survey on burnout conducted by Deloitte.
The proportion of Gen Z experiencing burnout is catching up to Millennials, with this in part attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic that saw the lines between work and play blurred even further, as well as removing office-based social networks as a coping strategy.
In this two-part series on early career burnout we look at reasons why new graduates at the beginning of their career trajectory are at risk of burnout, and what can be done to make the transition easier at the organisational and individual levels. Here, we shine a light on those personal factors that contribute to early career burnout.
Individual factors in early career burnout
For many, ‘early career’ follows many years at university or in an apprenticeship. Stepping into a job can look very different from sitting in a classroom, or working under significant direction, as you transition into working independently in an organisation. Below are some individual factors that contribute to early-career burnout.
Mindset, Imposter syndrome, Perfectionism, and early career burnout
Mindset plays a powerful role in early career burnout. Consider the expectations you had of your first ‘real job’, and your desire to make a good impression in the workplace. Stepping into the real world may even trigger Imposter Syndrome, in which you feel like an intellectual fraud and fear being exposed. These fears can then lead to perfectionistic coping behaviours so as to avoid negative evaluation, which in turn can inflate workload and contribute to burnout. [3][4]
Openness to feedback and normalisation of ‘failing’
When there is a fear of failure, feedback and asking for help can seem taboo - as if bringing into sharp attention one’s inability to understand what’s expected of them. This mindset [5] can be self-sabotaging, particularly where goals are not communicated clearly to you - rather than asking for clarification, a fear of failure can lead you to spend too much time trying to guess what you’re supposed to be doing.
Ability to manage yourself - what your study habits reveal
Congrats! Your uni days are finally behind you. Or are they? You may have heard every tertiary student’s favourite saying: “Ps get degrees”, mainly that passing your course and getting a degree helps with finding a job. While this is hard to argue against, there are certain student characteristics that set you up for a helpful adjustment to your new role or early career burnout. An 18-year exploratory longitudinal study tracking students through their university studies and subsequently into the workforce found that individuals who showed high initial social optimism, and whose social optimism increased, were less likely to withdraw and ‘self-handicap’ through task avoidance.[6],[7]. Put simply, being able to manage yourself and avoid procrastination bodes well for an easier transition into the workforce.
Constant connection and social comparisons
Yes, smartphones and laptops, as well as the blurring of work and personal spaces thanks to COVID-19, means that many early career individuals can essentially be constantly connected. However, is it in your best interest to be tethered to your work at all hours of the day, dreading each time you receive an email notification?
Constant connection can also breed upward social comparisons with other early-career colleagues, or even those whom you studied with. This can lead to lowered self-esteem as you believe that everyone else has achieved more than you, and create pressure to perform at - or even exceed - what you think others are doing [8].
Tips TO MANAGE early career burnout
1.Manage your expectations
The start of your career is an exciting time indeed, but it’s important to manage your expectations (about the job, about your work pace, about what is expected) appropriately to avoid burning out. Learn all you can about your role, look to others who perform similar roles for guidance, but above all recognise that you are at the very start. Avoid comparing yourself to someone who has done this for 5 or 10 years.
2. Practice self-care (no, really!)
Nurturing your mind, physical health and social life is just as important as nurturing your career. Some ideas for finding balance are:
Make the most of your lunch breaks. Take a mindful break by going for a walk, enjoying a meal away from your desk or calling a friend. This will give your brain a much-needed rest and boost your energy levels for the rest of the day.
Schedule ‘me time’ as you would schedule meetings. Whether it’s an exercise class, your meal-prep time or a social outing, blocking this time out in your calendar will help you stick to your plans.
Listen to your body’s cues. Everyone is different. You may find yourself losing sleep, getting sick more often, or simply being in a worse overall mood. Ignoring these signs is likely to lead to a breaking point later down the track, so be vigilant that your body may be trying to tell you something.
3. Set boundaries with others and with yourself
This may seem daunting to a new starter, but protecting your own wellbeing will make you a better employee in the long run. If you are able to, consider removing unessential work-related content from your mobile phone. Reducing the notifications you’re receiving after work hours will help you switch off, so that you can be more refreshed and productive the next day. New employees often overestimate what their boss actually expects of them. To avoid miscommunications, setting boundaries may involve having a conversation with your employer about your availability outside of work hours and the importance of this time for your rest and wellbeing. Our article on leavism can help you understand what leads us to work outside of work hours or on holidays and what we can do about this.[7]
4. Seek help
Our tip sheet below looks at some ways in which you can manage burnout, but if your burnout symptoms have reached a level that you feel you no longer can control, it may be time to speak to a professional. Most workplaces provide confidential psychological support services via Employee Assistance Programs, or you can reach out to an external professional to assist you in this time such as a psychologist who works with workplace mental health (like us!) to help you understand the cause and drive of your burnout as well as help you manage them so you can go back to feeling like yourself.
Early-career burnout getting you down? Grab our tip sheet below to learn more about how to help yourself.
REFERENCES
[1] Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W.B., & Leither, M.P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review in Psychology, 52, 397-422.
[2] https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
[3] Sakulku, J., & Alexander, J. (2011). The imposter phenomenon. International Journal of Behavioral Science, 6, 75-97.
[4] Dudau, D.P. (2014). The relation between perfectionism and imposter phenomenon. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 127, 129-133. Doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.226.
[5] Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.
[6] Salmela-Aro, K., Tolvanen, A., & Nurmi, J. E. (2009). Achievement strategies during university studies predict early career burnout and engagement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75, 162-172.
[7] Salmela-Aro, K., Tolvanen, A., & Nurmi, J.A. (2011). Social strategies during university studies predict early career work burnout and engagement: 18-year longitudinal study. Journal of Vocational behavior, 79, 145-157.
[8] Patrick, H., Neighbors, C., & Knee, C.R. (2004). Appearance-related social comparisons: The role of contingent self-esteem and self-perceptions of attractiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 501-514.
[9] Hesketh, I., & Cooper, C.L. (2014). Leavism at work. Occupational medicine, 4, 146-147
Burnout is on the rise, and it’s disproportionately affecting millennials, Gen Zs, and those in the early stages of their career. Read on to learn what workplaces can do to help.