Author's interest in this topic arises from a personal fascination with psychology and its management applications, recognizing burnout as a significant professional issue that demands effective prevention strategies. The increasing prevalence of burnout and its impact on organizational well-being underscore the importance of this research.
Understanding burnout involves various definitions by scholars, such as Freudenberger, who described it as mental and physical exhaustion due to persistent stress, and Maslach, who defined it as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of low personal accomplishment. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is widely used to measure burnout across three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of low personal accomplishment. Symptoms of burnout include physical wear and tear, feelings of helplessness, negative attitudes towards work and social life, hopelessness, and disappointment. Individual causes of burnout include overwork, time pressure, perfectionism, poor work-life balance, and personal stress, while organizational causes encompass ineffective leadership, poor physical conditions, technological overload, monotony, and frequent changes.
The consequences of burnout are significant for both individuals and organizations. For individuals, burnout leads to physical and mental health issues, reduced job performance, decreased job satisfaction, and negative career impacts. For organizations, burnout results in decreased productivity, higher turnover rates, absenteeism, and poor work quality. The presentation emphasizes the importance of focusing on preventing burnout, highlighting the immediate benefits and cost-effectiveness of prevention strategies. There is a need to identify research gaps and synthesize various strategies to evaluate their effectiveness.
The systematic literature review design involved determining specific keywords related to burnout prevention and coping, conducting searches via Web of Science, and excluding healthcare and nursing fields to maintain focus. The search yielded approximately 2000 articles, which were narrowed down to 969 and then 77 for full-text screening. The contributions of this literature review include practical applications and recommendations, identifying and highlighting research gaps, and providing insights relevant to various contexts. The review stands out by focusing on recent studies from 2019 and incorporating interdisciplinary insights.
Key highlighted in the presentation includes Van Dam's (2021) three-phase burnout prevention strategy, Breevaart and Tims' (2019) examination of how employees use social resources to prevent burnout, Aldossari and Chaudhry's (2021) discussion on burnout prevention for women during the pandemic, Li et al.'s (2020) exploration of the relationship between emotional exhaustion, sleep problems, and mental toughness among university students, and Gatari et al.'s (2023) identification of distinct sleep profiles and their impact on burnout among Indonesian employees.
Early implications from the review suggest a need for more experimental research, a focus on relaxation, sleep quality, and mindfulness, and the development of conditional prevention techniques. There is also an opportunity to synthesize Covid-19 related research with normal life, and no significant differences are found between public and private sectors or interdisciplinary prevention strategies. The presentation concludes with an open invitation for questions and recommendations, emphasizing the practical implications and relevance of the research for improving organizational well-being.