First comes emotional exhaustion, where employees feel overextended by their work. Then, people with burnout go on to develop, which manifest prominently in interactions with others, where burnt-out employees distance themselves from clients and aren’t emotionally involved anymore, Görgens-Ekermans explains.
“In any work environment, there are two processes that can play out: a strain process or a motivational process. There are always certainin the workplace and certain resources that a person has to meet their demands. So when these two are in balance, then employees will be engaged with their jobs — even if the demands are high,” Görgens-Ekermans explains.
“But unfortunately, when there is this disconnect between the job demands, which are very high, and your resources, which are very low, that’s where we start to see the strain process, and the outcome is often burnout. So we need to think of burnout as a syndrome that develops due to exposure to chronic stress in the workplace; too many demands, and too little resources.
What often leads to burnout, Görgens-Ekermans explains, is when people don’t give themselves time to rest and recover. “That could be reading, exercising, getting good sleep, so that the next morning you’re in a recovered state and you have the energy to meet demands. But the problem comes in when people don’t recover,” she says.
Phala Phala farm gate