Employees Perception of Burnout

Question: Discuss about theEmployees Perception of Burnout. Answer: Introduction Burnout and Factors Contributing to Employees Perception of Burnout Employee burnout typically refers to the state where employee is not motivated enough to work. Most commonly, burnout is the result of being overworked and under-appreciated, and often, employees end up with more on their plate than they can get done even by doing overtime. On the flip side, burnout also occurs when employees are bored or depressed and become under-stimulated (Dunford, 2012). Others experience burnout because they are fearful of losing their job and feel insecure about their level of work, or are unclear about job expectations. If a leader does not monitor his/her self and pushes employees to their limits without the right compensation and encouragement, this can create problems of burning out employees. Managers would be more like securing the achievement of set and future goals. Managers can become robotic to an extent of just following protocol (Spyropoulou, 2015). They can become complacent and comfortable and not create a vision for the future. Treating employee s with respect and doing the right things allows companies to be held at high standards. An overall happy working environment also helps employees with burn out and helps them to be great at their current role. Ethics are formal rules and expectations and if a company states their standards and stays strong to their values it will trickle into their employees. It is easy to get burnt out when employees have to work long hours and are not paid the salary they desire. When having to plan, everyone should always take into consideration the amount of work changes would put on others. It is also important to remember that everyone deserves to be considered and their well being on the job.Daft (2014) makes a good point when he says that a company's success is not based on luck. When planning strategically, organizations should not necessarily be afraid to think outside the box, but they should at least have a contingency plan for when things go awry. It is important that the workplace env ironment should be created in a manner where employees can avoid any chances of burnout. Schuh (2015) argued that employee burnout is caused through a combination of internal and external factors. The internal factors that cause employee burnout would be personal characteristics of employees, attitude of employees etc. The external factors that cause employee burnout would be work environment, job characteristics, etc. It is important that the organizations and leaders should focus to have effective organizational culture so that internal and external factors that facilitate employee burnout could be avoided. The employee burnout is also caused when the organizational leaders and managers does not provide effective feedback. Good, effective feedback is paramount to the accountability of employees and the supervisor. In order for a person to grow and be effective within an organization, it is important to understand what is expected of them and if they are adequately performing there job tasks and meeting expectations or need improvement (Spyropoulou, 2015). The effectiveness of any organization is directly related to the effectiveness of the leaders and it is believed that leaders can create a platform where there are less chances of employee burnout. It can happen through effective strategic planning. It is believed that strategic planning is very important in clarifying where the organization is going and how is going to get there. In addition, leaders are the ones who male strategic plans for the future. Therefore, these two elements and the relationship they share are of vital importance to the success of the organization. Involving the leaders in the strategic plan from the initial steps, will lock their commitment and buy-in into it, and secure the allocation of funds process.When organizations have a resistant culture, if a strategic plan is not fully created and executed properly it can be like taking ten steps backwards. For example causing more resistance from employees. Demonstrating value creation, generate a good business m odel, identifying risks, prioritizing risks, and reduce risk through business experiments are excellent steps to overcoming resistance in any organization. Authors argued that organization could actually create a culture where there are limited chances of employee burnout when leaders and managers are able to manage all the four functions of management effectively (Korunka, 2013). These functions can be discussed as: Planning: It is the identification of goals of future performance and deciding on the tasks and the use of the resources (Daft, 2011). This component of management challenges the managers with the identification financial, technological and the informational and human resources. On the other hand the leaders have to communicate the need and the vision to the employees for future performance. Organizing: Involves assigning tasks, grouping tasks into departments, delegating authority, and allocating resources across the organization (Daft, 2011). . The challenge here is to identify competent employees to delegate the authority to accomplish tasks in a responsible manner. The leaders have the burden to assign tasks to employees who has the knowledge, skills, education, training and education without creating conflict amongst the teams. Leading: It is the use of influence to motivate employees (Daft, 2011). The challenge for both managers and the leaders here is to create a shared culture and values, communications of goals. Managers do this provision of resources and training and assisting in the new hire process. The leaders communicate the vision, needs, and progress of the change to the employees to motivate them toward goal accomplishment (Shi, 2015). Controlling: Means monitoring employees activities, progress toward organizational goals (Daft, 2011). The challenge here is to identify positive or negative progress and team activities and corrections are made and the wins are celebrated at this time. The leaders may run the risk to motivate the team if the progress is negative otherwise the leaders encourage and motivate the staff with short- term wins. Slide (2015) highlighted that there are seven signs of employee burnout at workplace. The first sign is disengagement. It happens when the employees are not motivated to work and they feel themselves disengaged (Slide, 2015). The second sign is being exhausted. The employees could feel exhausted in physical or mental terms. The third sign is increased absenteeism and accidents. This sign reflects that employees do not want to visit the office. The fourth sign is that employees start to show the sign that they are not fit for the job. The fifth sign is that employees started to feel isolated. The sixth sign is higher sensitivity of employees and the seventh sign is the extreme thinking of employees (Slide, 2015). It is important to mention that signs of employee burnout are not always obvious, but that doesnt mean they arent there. Such things like employee disengagement, mental, emotional and physical exhaustion, or extreme thinking may be indicators of something more serious. Copeland (2014) contends that value based leadership is the key to create a culture where employee burnout could be avoided. With the focus on value based leadership, organization can actually sense and figure out the sign of employee burnout. The value-based leadership is a byproduct of time and culture. Recently there has been a plague of extensive, evasive, and disheartening ethical failures (Copeland, 2014). As a result, management and leadership theorists have emphasized importance returning to the ethics and morality of exemplary leaders (Copeland, 2014). Moreover, values based leadership is engrained in the constructs of such leadership styles as authenticity, ethicality, and transformational leadership (Copeland, 2014). Value based leadership is very significant in the culture of an organization because if the leader has value or internal character it will be displayed on the outside as to the others are treated. A Value based leader shares the vision and promotes his values during the process of leading. What does a value based leader look like? For starters a value-based leader is one who build his organization based upon the core values that have helped shape his character (Dunford, 2012). Value based leaders create a culture that affects others and influences them to live in integrity, not only at work but outside of work which is a lifestyle of leadership. The drivers of employee burnout could also be linked to organizational design and structure. This is the reason that organizations have started to focus on flexible organization design and flat organization structure. According to Daft (2016), The classical perspective, which sought to make organizations run like efficient, well-oiled machines, is associated with the development of hierarchy and bureaucratic organizations and remains the basis of much of modern management theory and practice (p. 25). This, essentially, led to the development of the mechanistic design of organizational procedure. Although the more informal, decentralized organic design seems to be the direction that modern organizations would like to move in, many organizations do seem to continue to operate mechanistically. In reality, it appears that modern organizations may be using a combination of both mechanistic and organic design. While a more casual environment certainly has its benefits, such as encouraging self-directed and self-motivating behavior, aspects of more formal systems, such as hierarchal relationships, remain relevant. Van de Ven, Ganco, and Hinigs (2013) revisited the historical context of contingency theory and determined that foundation has beginnings relating to Taylors scientific management method. The scientific management theory developed by Frederick Taylor has the most significant impact on contemporary organizational design because the theory is the foundation of developing efficiency in an organization (Daft, 2016). Organizational efficiency refers to how much can be produced or provided utilizing the least amount of resources or effort (Daft, 2016). Formal interpretations of Taylors theory indicate that the mechanistic model for organization design works best because managers and leaders make the decisions and lower level supervisors and workers carry out tasks without much input (Han, 2016). Informal interpretations of Taylors theory indicate that the organic model of organizational design works best because there are fewer levels of management to filter communications through and the boundaries of work responsibilities are wider. It is observed that the employee is high in the organizations that are not able to manage the change in the organization. Daft (2015) lists the elements of change as ideas, needs, decision to adopt, implementation, and resources. He further stipulates that in order for change to be successful in an organization each of these elements must occur. These elements are connected through communication, verbal and non-verbal. The sharing of knowledge with these elements is essential among employees and management within the organization, without which, failure follows (Baesu, Bejinaru, 2014). The elements this writer considers most significant are the ideas and implementation of those ideas. Essentially, ideas begin the process of change. Without someone having a new idea there is no need to change. Status quo can be maintained without disturbing the peace. When ideas are birthed, it takes essential effort in communication through the channels to have those ideas implemented. Discovery of the need is important, as well as the decision to adopt the idea, and allocation of resources, but without the initial idea, these elements are irrelevant to the process. Too many times ideas are presented but never realize implementation. The reason is due to an issue with one of the elements of change, eliminating either the need, or failure in communication to see the idea through. This failure can be owed to a lack of management buy-in or the originator being able to communicate the idea fully. In an organizational setting, change is about taking an idea, a new direction and making it real. The employees at low level can feel burnout if the top management and mid level management is not able to bring the change in an effective manner. All change proceeds from conception to pragmatism. The top management commitment is critical for the success of the change implementation. According to Aladwani, (2001). Change requires a strategic vision to ensure its long-term success (p. 273). For a good change in the organization, the managers need to have a good strategy about what change is needed, the plan of the change, its implementation, and the effects of the change on the organization. To ensure successful change in the organization, the organizations progress, the employees resistance and anxieties to the change, and the organizational effectiveness need to be monitored. There are various ways to overcome the issue of employee burnout. One of the most basic but key aspects to avoid employee burnout is effective communication at workplace. The managers should establish both formal and informal communication channels (Korunka, 2013). The communication should be two ways in nature. It means that the employees should be motivated to provide their feedback and reach out to customers. It would create employee satisfaction and employee belongingness and eventually it would be a platform to avoid employee burnout. It is important that that the leaders and management should hold regular staff meetings with the employees at various levels. Another measure that could avoid employee burnout is to clarify the job expectations to employees in the starting. It is important that employees should know their expectations and they should not feel any unnecessary pressure from management (Jung Kim, 2012). The chances of employee burnout could also be avoided if the man agers and leaders could understand the trigger point of motivation. It would be correct to say that employees may not feel burnout if they are motivate to work for the organization. Therefore, it is important that the managers and leaders should appreciate the work of employees. Another direct method to avoid employee burnout is to increase the compensation of employees. It is believed that employees would be able to work with high motivation levels when they get handsome pay. Therefore, pay, perks, and rewards are the ways for organizations to avoid employee burnout. In the end, it can be said that the leaders and managers should create a culture where chances of employee burnout is limited. This culture could be created with the support of internal and external stakeholders of the organization. With the above discussion it can be said various internal and external drivers cause that employee burnout. It is important that organizations should work to create a culture where employees feel self-motivated, as motivation is the key to avoid employee burnout. The leaders and managers also have important roles to play. The leaders create the work atmosphere and work environment. A positive work environment is the key to create a culture where employees burnout could be avoided. The large and multinational organizations must create a culture where the employees from various cultural backgrounds can work together. The employee burnout could also be avoided if the leaders can show the vision to employees. The leaders must focus on effective communication at work place. The communication should create a platform where employees can also reach out to higher management. 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