Burnout in Organizational Settings

Within the last decade, there has been a tremendous surge of interest in the problem of burnout. Although it was virtually unheard of prior to the late 1970s, It suddenly became a very popular topic. Hundreds of articles were written about it, as were numerous books; professional conventions held special sessions on it; and the mass media gave it extensive coverage. The general theme of all these discussions was that: (1) burnout is a problem, and (2) we need to do something about it. Consequently, there has been a tremendous proliferation of workshops, training materials, and organizational interventions planned by burnout consultants. Burnout has become big business. From our vantage point as researchers who have studied this topic extensively, these developments are cause for both applause and alarm. On one hand, we are pleased that this problem is finally getting some serious attention, after years of being Ignored or denied. On the other hand, we are concerned about the rush into solutions before there is full understanding of the problem. Research on burnout is still in its infancy, and there is much that we simply do not know about the phenomenon. For example, there is very little base rate information (e.g., what percentage of people experience burnout, and for how long), as well as a paucity of data on critical criterion outcomes, such as quality of work, turnover, and personal health (Maslach, 1983). Given the shortage of facts about burnout, it would be premature to give an authoritative answer about how to handle It. The picture is not entirely bleak, however. Even if it is not a lot, several things have been learned about burnout, as a result of studies by various researchers. Our own contributions to this state of knowledge have been: (1) the proposal of a mufti-faceted concept of burnout (Jackson & Maslach, 1982b; Maslach & Jackson, 1981b); (2) the development of a standardized instrument, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), to assess these different aspects of burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1981a); and (3) the completion of several studies linking burnout to both work and family variables (Jackson & Maslach, 1982a; Maslach & Jackson,