Medibank Private calculates the costs of employee burnout to Australia as $14.81 billion/year (in 2008)
Burnout happens when people feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they are given to do or by increases in their responsibilities. Most people deal with a peak in their workload but problems happen when they can’t see an end to it. They use up their reserves of physical and emotional energy until they’ve got nothing left. Signs of burnout include a deterioration in performance agitation and argumentativeness fatigue due to lack of sleep. Some employees respond by tuning out and doing the minimum of work and not caring if it is not done properly which has enormous hidden costs.
38%-40% of the executive population experience psychological distress compared to 20% of the general population. Depression anxiety stress and related disorders are common as are elevations of personality-based disorders: narcissistic personality disorder borderline personality disorder antisocial disorder. It leads to impaired decision-making conflict at work and at home. Employees working for a boss suffering from some sort of personality disorder show lower levels of engagement higher levels of stress-related lost time high levels of bullying behaviour much higher frequency of sick days.