Burnout in the workplace has long been studied by psychologists, management specialists, and others in between.
Newly published research highlights disturbing trends for UK higher education professionals. More than half of professional services staff in the UK HE sector reported working long hours on a regular basis and more than two-thirds of respondents said they experience frequent, disruptive interruptions; 40 per cent said they “rarely” or “never” have enough time to get their jobs done, and 65 per cent regularly give up their free time to meet work demands.
Always on
Most worryingly of all, 69 per cent failed to properly step away from work during annual leave and 90 per cent of respondents said they have continued to work despite illness. Additionally, 44.1 per cent of respondents identified always or often “feel(ing) emotionally drained by (my) work”. Some of the reasons for working during illness or annual leave, detailed by the 335 respondents that responded toa July 2022 cross-sector survey included that they were “required to by my manager” and that “they were made to feel bad if they didn’t”.
Others were concerned the absences would be held against them at a later date, or felt guilty taking time off “because the team is so small” and they felt themselves a “single point of failure” within the institution.
These trends indicate a lack of recovery time occurring in the sector, leading to lower productivity and an increased likelihood of employee turnover.
The cost of burnout
Poor employee retention results not only in the loss of experience and efficiency, but in quantifiable expenses around recruitment and training replacements. Turnover administration costs employers 50 per cent to 250 per cent of the individual employee’s annual salary through recruitment and training, not to mention the lost productivity of line managers whilst they onboard new staff, the comparatively slower productivity of new staff and other indirect costs such as loss of knowledge, skill and contacts.
All these combined create disruption for remaining staff and make it difficult to maintain operational productivity through the turbulence caused by staff turnover. The time taken to fill a vacancy averages between 8-12 weeks, but anecdotal evidence suggests this can be upwards of six months in HE and is exacerbated where specialist skills are required.
A recent, global, McKinsey study found 54 per cent of those who have left their education sector job within the last 24 months have left the sector completely, shrinking the available talent pool and further increasing hiring challenges – perhaps unsurprisingly for those in the HE sector, “unsustainable work expectations” was among the top 5 reasons people left their employer.
Researchers focussing on higher education have sounded the klaxon on the pervasive culture of overwork currently dominating HE, which is arguably of much higher priority than continuing to treat individual worker engagement as a panacea for a systemic problem. With ever-increasing financial pressures on the sector, reducing turnover linked to burnout provides a practical opportunity for providers looking to achieve organisational sustainability.
Towards a prevention approach
Research by the Work Institute found that 75 per cent of employee turnover is preventable with the right interventions, so it pays for HE providers to address this in a purposeful way. The strategic use of high-performance work practices such as job design, flexibility, and effective feedback provides one useful tool for HEIs to manage rising work intensity and burnout, though support measures aimed at individual staff are not enough on their own to counter the culture of overwork.
Newly published recommendations also highlight effective managerial interventions and organisational behaviours based on the data and emerging literature. Two behavioural adaptations, in particular, present significant potential to reduce the negative impact burnout has on the bottom line.
- Ruthlessly focussing our time and energy on only the most strategic priorities and retiring or pausing tasks and vanity projects, where possible, reduces perpetual overload on staff.
- And consciously developing an organisational culture that encourages staff recovery time and utilisation of available high-performance work practices would help ensure the investments institutions make in staff wellbeing are getting the most value for money.
Do senior managers still take the time to go “back to the floor” for the occasional reality check? It’s a fantastic (and sometimes humbling) way to ensure we understand the pressures and tools our teams are working with whilst trying to navigate endless requests from the top – some of the most effective improvements I’ve instigated have come about after a deep dive into something my operational staff have been struggling through on the front line. We should be identifying and challenging effort spent on work that doesn’t align with our current strategic objectives. Observing up close how people deliver business as usual provides incredible insight into these opportunities for improvement.
So, what does burnout have to do with the bottom line? Much more than we as a sector have perhaps taken seriously to date. As financial budgets grow ever leaner, we should reflect on how our choices may be exacerbating burnout and choose to make lasting behavioural changes that could benefit us all in the long run.
Addressing employee burnout is not only compassionate on a human level, it makes sound financial sense to institutions as an investment in long-term organisational sustainability.
