Burned out at your job? There's a new tool that can measure that
BOSTON - Researchers have designed a tool to help measure burnout.
Burnout on the job is common, especially post-pandemic. In fact, more than half of healthcare workers have reported burnout in the past year. You hit a wall and you just can't be productive anymore, but burnout has long-term consequences such as a higher risk of heart disease, joint pain, insomnia, and depression.
But if employees or perhaps, more importantly, employers can identify the early warning signs of burnout, they can intervene before the physical and psychological effects set in. So researchers in Norway, along with the Healthy Workplaces research group, have designed a tool that measures four main groups of risk factors including exhaustion, mental distancing, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment.
For example, they ask questions like do you feel mentally exhausted at work? Do you struggle to feel enthusiastic about your job? Do you have trouble concentrating while you're working? Do you sometimes overreact at work without meaning to? They plan to test the screening tool in more than 30 countries.