Dive Brief:

• The University of Phoenix's Job Burnout Poll for 2018, shared with HR Dive in an email, found that 86% of respondents believe worker burnout is connected to job satisfaction. Older workers agreed more strongly in this connection than workers in the youngest age group: 39% of respondents in the 18-34 year age range agreed, while 54% of workers in the 45-55 age group and 50% of workers in the 65 and older group agreed. 
• More than half of employees have experienced job burnout. For those who are currently unemployed, the number lowers to 39%. The report cites anxiety, fatigue, depression and anger as signs of job burnout, and around half of the respondents reported experiencing these symptoms.
• Slightly more than one-third of respondents said they'd taken days off for mental health in the past 12 months, while 61% said they'd taken days off for physical issues. The survey also revealed that almost half of adult workers don't think employers see mental health as an acceptable reason for an absence. Parents with children under 18 were almost twice as likely as non-parents to take at least one mental health day per year.

Dive Insight:

Burnout may be one of the largest threats to employee engagement and retention — 95% of HR professionals surveyed for a study by Kronos Incorporated cited burnout as an obstacle to employee retention. Nearly half of respondents revealed that 20% to 50% of their turnover was burnout-related. For working parents, research has suggested 60% suffer from burnout as they juggle the responsibilities of work and home, striving to find some level of balance. In tech, almost 60% of one survey's respondents reported they suffer from the work-related affliction. Yet another survey found that more than two-thirds of Americans work while they're tired.

HR Leaders can help ease the effects of burnout, fatigue and stress. Strive to help staff members achieve a sustainable work life balance that benefits the business as well as the employee. Some businesses do so by offering employee assistance programs that not only educate workers about mental challenges they may face in the workplace, but also give them the tools to overcome those challenges.