Introduction
Stress and burnout closely link to each other, resulting in high employee turnover if directly caused by restricting working conditions. While recognizing their signs and the effect they may have on staff is crucial for employers, it is equally important to resolve these issues before they cause damage within the workplace. Creating an efficient system of codification and evaluation of dissatisfaction may help amend job conditions and result in a decrease in the rate of turnover.
Main body
While burnout and stress are unquantifiable, recording self-assessments of employees’ understanding of their mental wellbeing may grant insight into what changes are necessary to benefit the workplace atmosphere. Since burnout occurs “when resources are threatened by the environmental conditions,” changing these circumstances is within company competency and interests, as they relate directly to productivity levels (Xanthopoulou & Meier, 2014, p. 81). A flexible questionnaire, applicable to any industry, creates a possibility of information transmission among all types of employees and their superiors, therefore stimulating a multi-industry change in employee-employer communications.
While using an adaptable data collection method may be beneficial in demonstrating management involvement to employees, it may coincidentally confuse results. The simultaneous “alignment and differentiation of burnout and depression” further complicate any possible research that builds on personalized and self-reliant results (Maslach & Leiter, 2016, p. 24). Researchers cannot exclude the influence of personal life stress on work, as depression and burnout may cause each other due to their interconnection (Plieger, Melchers, Montag, Meermann, & Reuter, 2015). Job questionnaires created for assessment should attempt to reflect the inseparability of these concepts and, thus, their combined effect on research results.
Conclusion
Changing work conditions to suit employees and stimulate their workplace growth is the tactic that has proven to improve workplace results and job satisfaction. Listening to the needs of workers becomes a crucial step when attempting improvements that may grant, however, confusing results if not accounting for outside influences. Thus, perfecting such a questionnaire should remain one of the primary goals of researchers who are interested in stimulating a positive change, while retaining management support.
References
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103-111. Web.
Plieger, T., Melchers, M., Montag, C., Meermann, R., & Reuter, M. (2015). Life stress as potential risk factor for depression and burnout. Burnout Research, 2(1), 19-24. Web.
Xanthopoulou, D., & Meier, L. L. (2014). Daily burnout experiences: Critical events and measurement challenges. In M. P. Leiter, A. B. Bakker, & C. Maslach (Eds.), Burnout at work: A psychological perspective (pp. 80-101). New York, NY: Psychology Press.