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By Julia Warrander and Russell Waite, of Affinity Private Wealth
JOB burnout is on the rise. People are feeling emotionally exhausted, detached from their work and colleagues, and less productive and effective.
This makes them more likely to suffer health consequences, take sick days and quit their jobs. Many employers have responded by investing more into supporting workplace mental and physical good health than ever before. In fact, it is estimated that nine-in-ten organisations around the world now offer some form of wellness programme. However, while yoga sessions, meditation app subscriptions, wellbeing days and access to resilience training are all helpful, forward-thinking business leaders recognise that employee burnout is increasingly a product of how they run their organisation.
Motivation and hygiene
When asked about aspects of their jobs that undermine mental health and wellbeing – leading to burnout – workers frequently cite the feeling of always being on call, unreasonable workload, low autonomy and lack of social support. These are not challenges easily reversed with wellness programmes.
Fortunately, finding a resolution framework does not rely on new ways of thinking. Indeed, we can refer to the work of American psychologist Frederick Herzberg and his dual-factor motivation hygiene theory. He presented his ideas in 1968 and their coverage became the most requested article in the Harvard Business Review at the time.
What motivates us versus what basic needs must be met to maintain job satisfaction were at the core of Herzberg’s theory. He found that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum, with one increasing as the other diminishes, but instead are independent of each other. This means that employers need to recognise and attend to both equally.
Motivators are different from hygiene factors. Motivation factors include challenging work, recognition for one’s achievements and a sense of importance to the organisation. On the other hand, hygiene factors include salary, work conditions and relationships with colleagues. Employees commonly do not recognise when an organisation has these right, but bad hygiene can cause major distractions.
For the reasons above, central to Affinity’s wellbeing programme are employee-led focus groups to discuss how we can improve our workplace. We believe that creating opportunities for better collaboration, teamwork and happiness is a key employer responsibility.
