Employee burnout is a company issue - not a personal one

The cost of employee burnout on a firm can be detrimental to both an individual and organisation. It can foster a culture of low productivity, high turnover, and the loss of exceptional talent.

Burnout is often seen as an issue related to the employee or talent management. Recent research by the University of Bath and King’s College London found that industrious employees are more likely to suffer from burnout.

However, writing in Harvard Business Review, Eric Garton, Partner at Bain & Company, says that the organisation is to blame – not the individual.

Citing research from the book, Time, Talent and Energy, co-authored by Michael C. Mankins, also a Partner at Bain & Company and Garton, they found that when employees aren’t as productive as they could be, it’s usually the organisation, not employees that are at fault. “The same is true for employee burnout,” he writes. “When we looked inside companies with high burnout rates, we saw three common culprits: excessive collaboration, weak time management disciplines, and a tendency to overload the most capable with too much work.”