We almost need another word to replace ‘burnout’. We’ve heard it so often it feels like it’s lost its impact in describing people who are really suffering, people who have just had enough.
To be fair, there are different phases in burnout and different levels of severity so there will be those who are ‘just’ really tired and those who have indeed had enough. And of course, the term is understood by all and entrenched in the thousands of research studies that examine its causes and occurrences.
But the struggle with burnout is so pervasive and ever increasing that perhaps a fresh word will help wake us up from this stupor and do something about it as a society.
A study by Deloittes in May 2022 surveyed 5,000 women across 10 countries, including 500 women in South Africa. The study found that 40% of South African women feel burnt out and more than half of the women surveyed plan to leave their employer within the next two years, citing burnout as the main reason [1].
A Carte Blanche show in July 2022 looked at burnout among doctors in South African hospitals. “The statistics were quite shocking with presenters citing that 40% of doctors suffer from burnout and are twice as likely to commit suicide”[2]. In fact, the show referred to the term ‘moral injury’ as a descriptor of burnout.
The challenge with burnout is that seemingly innocuous symptoms like tiredness and irritability creep up and build, almost imperceptible, to a point where you realise you can’t get out of bed for the Monster that has taken over your body and your life. Most of us are not in a position to stay in bed and recover properly and so we push past the screaming alarm bells to try finish the endless to-do list and in the process we burn our adrenals, hurt our brain and potentially create heart issues and diseases like diabetes.
How are we going to shift the burnout pandemic and what support do organisations and employees need to make the changes necessary whilst still sustaining profitable, growing businesses?
I would argue the first step is building our knowledge about what burnout is and how to recognise it in ourselves and others. This is easy enough. The tricky part is preventing it or shifting it once it has taken hold.
The likelihood of an individual employee preventing or recovering from burnout is very low, albeit not impossible, without the system within which they work being cognisant of the role it plays and being open to look at the structures and processes that may be helping to create a burnout response in its employees.
Perhaps using the term ‘mental and emotional injury’ or ‘emotional collapse’ may give us pause to think about this pandemic differently and reconsider the seriousness of the impact it has on our society.
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