2024.04.25

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Who is to blame when someone burns out?

Is it the individual who needs to manage themselves better and exercise good boundaries? Is it the employer for creating overly demanding conditions and setting unrealistic expectations? Is it society having created a culture that applauds hustle and grind, abhors laziness, or that requires people to work multiple jobs in order to finance a moderate standard of living?

Yes.

Burnout is a predictable outcome that results from the confluence of internal and external influences.

If you’ve been of the mindset that most of the culpability rests with either the individual OR the employers OR society, you’re not alone. It’s easier to come up with “plausible” solutions to the widespread problem of burnout if we focus our blame on solely one factor. But the reason burnout persists is because a single-pronged solution by nature addresses only part of the problem.

To truly address the issue, we’ve first got to look at the entire context that gives rise to and perpetuates burnout.

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Contexts that Affect Work-Related Well-Being

An individual’s work-related well-being is a measure of the vitality (or lack there of) that they experience in conjunction with their paid work.¹

We can think about a person’s work-related well-being as being influenced by a nested series of contexts, from the macro-level systems that act as the background operating system, to the organizational conditions, to the individual’s idiosyncratic blend of personal factors.

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Macro Systems

A variety of systems – formal and informal – underpin and influence an individual’s work-related well-being.

The necessity of, and subsequent decisions regarding working for pay to a large degree stem from the macro systems inherent in a particular society.

Examples of macro systems include how healthcare is delivered and accessed, how labor markets function, the generosity and comprehensiveness of a social safety net, and other systematized areas of society such as voting, education, and justice.

Take the social safety net, for example. The philosophy behind it, eligibility structure (e.g., entitlement, means tested, etc.) whether it is comprehensive or piecemeal, and the generosity and composition (e.g., in kind, cash) of benefits all end up playing a role in influencing the incentives, constraints, requirements, and options both organizations and individuals face.

Collectively, these systems form the backdrop and the ambient environment in which rules and laws are made and organizations function.

Federal, state, tribal, local, and other municipal regulations and laws shape the context of work within and across industries. Professional licensing, compliance, continuing education, and safety requirements are a few examples that directly impact many individual workers.

Tax codes at the federal, state, and local level incentivize and disincentivize behaviors of organizations and individuals. The impact of preferential federal tax treatment of fringe benefits has an outsized impact on the financial instruments (e.g., group health insurance, group retirement savings) available to individuals who work full time for employers versus all other individuals.

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Organizational Culture and Structure

Unarguably, the most direct external influence on an individual’s work-related well-being has to do with the specific organization they work for/with.

The organization’s culture includes everything related to formal rules and processes, informal norms and ways of doing things (e.g., everything is a crisis), team dynamics, office politics, and supervisor expectations.

Organizational structure in this context refers to characteristics such as whether it is for-profit or nonprofit, governmental or private sector, publicly traded or privately held, local or international, a small business or large enterprise, in a competitive industry has a monopoly, etc.

Both the culture and structure determine the organization’s philosophy and practice when it comes to total compensation (e.g., pay and benefits). Total compensation is a major influence on an individual’s work-related well-being and well-being overall.

Within the context of organizational culture and structure, there are different implications for workers who are full-time, part-time, salaried, hourly, permanent, or temporary, as well as 1099 contractors, freelancers, and gig workers.

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Personal Factors

Though the individual functions within the two broader contexts and is subject to many constraints, rules, and other limiting factors, it doesn’t mean they give up their agency. An individual’s choices play a large part in determining their work-related well-being, regardless of how conducive the external environment is to promoting well-being or burnout.

Personal factors encompass a wide variety of internal characteristics and states such as beliefs, thoughts, emotions, choices, personality, temperament, mindset, values, motivations, and desires – as well as their skills and abilities.

And it is the idiosyncratic blend of personal factors that produces the visible behaviors (or observable outcomes) that perpetuate burnout or guard against it.

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Contextual Endogeneity

Though this framework treats the contexts as distinct and separate, in reality there is more fluidity and interplay between each. Organizations lobby lawmakers and influence the regulations they are subject to. Individuals lead organizations and make the decisions that result in better or worse working conditions and compensation. Individuals and organizations make up society and thus help determine the macro systems that exist. The systems themselves and the conditions and realities they create make it easier or harder for individuals and organizations to make desired changes.

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Conclusion

Though we see clearly how the three contexts each play a contributing role in work-related well-being (or lack thereof), no easy solution reveals itself.

In cases like this, it can be useful to vision into the desired outcome a bit (no matter how far-fetched), and then to take one tiny, grounded action step.

• What if every individual treated themselves with self-reverence and exercised healthy boundaries?

• What if you treated yourself with self-reverence, exercised healthy boundaries, and modeled both at work?

• What if every organization viewed workers (of all statuses) as a valuable resource to be conserved and wisely stewarded for not just the short-term bottom line but rather for perpetuity?

• What if you as a leader commit to championing this view at every opportunity that arises in your tiny corner of the universe?

• What if we collectively agreed to re-envision our systems, with well-being for all as the goal?

• What if you devoted one hour a month to advocating for systems change?

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¹Much important work is performed that is unpaid such as raising children, caregiving for aging family members, running a household, and volunteering. Those activities are just not the focus of this article.

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