Higher education is burning out its employees

It's a tumultuous period for higher education in the UK, with many of the givens of university existence being chipped away. It feels like a good time to take the temperature of those who work in that sector. One indicator is the extent to which employees feel they are burned out – when everyday work activities become a struggle, leaving them weary, fed up and performing less effectively. Jenny Watts and Noelle Robertson at the University of Leicester have reviewed the literature to provide us a current account of burnout in university teaching staff.

Searching research databases using terms such as 'burnout' and 'faculty', Watts and Robertson pruned the results using strict criteria to arrive at just 12 English-language papers that tackled burnout in university staff, mainly dealing with Western institutions alongside papers from Turkey and South Africa. The review suggests levels of burnout in universities are similar to those found in professions like school teachers and hospital workers that are generally recognised as challenging; a far cry from the traditional conception of universities as a home for lower-stress work.

What seems to be driving these levels of burnout? Certain groups are more vulnerable, with younger staff more susceptible, possibly due to less developed coping mechanisms.
Consistent with the general burnout literature work, women were more prone to emotional exhaustion, whereas men were more likely to become depersonalised and distanced from their work.

Burnout was reduced when staff felt that their contact with students was valued, and was higher when staff faced negative student evaluations or direct conflict. However, non-student factors such as intensive time pressure appear to have greater effects, suggesting that the stressors are less about unbearable students than changes in work patterns, which may include mounting bureaucracy and more frequent classes. Several of the papers do indeed suggest that simply being responsible for more students leads to more burnout.

There is some evidence that social support protects individuals from burnout, although this was not found in all studies. Type of teaching also mattered, with teachers of postgraduates more likely to hang on to work satisfaction on the one hand, but on the other experience more exhaustion and distancing.

The authors are clear that this is a worrying picture, especially as university staff are responsible for pastoral care of students; hard to be a sympathetic ear when you can't wait to get out of the building. They call for more research into this area in order to form “strategies to enhance wellbeing, student success and teaching quality, particularly during a time of retrenchment in the university sector.”


Watts, J., & Robertson, N. (2011). Burnout in university teaching staff: a systematic literature review Educational Research, 53 (1), 33-50 DOI: 10.1080/00131881.2011.552235

Dirty work jobs call for low expectations

You may have a job that you sometimes personally resent; maybe your work draws hostility from others from time to time. But how about a job that automatically earns you the animosity of your entire society? That's the reality for those employed in dirty work occupations, defined as work that is seen as physically, socially or morally tainted: think sewer workers or morticians. The stigma of this work threatens identity, pushing notions like ‘sick’ or ‘creepy’ where we would prefer nice and desirable. A recent article explores how this affects incoming workers, and what makes some of them stick at dirty work.

Erika Lopina and her team from the University of North Carolina spent two years collecting survey data from 102 people starting animal care roles that involved some contact with the dirty work task of euthanasia. After two months, 28% of these individuals had left their organisation – contrast this with the better retention in mainstream jobs, where turnover within two months sits at somewhere under 10%. Lopina's team were most interested in the remaining 72%: what factors encouraged them to stay?

Firstly, those who remained had initially received more information about the type of work they were getting themselves into, which would lessen any unexpected shocks to identity. Secondly, higher turnover was associated with maladaptive coping strategies such as blaming yourself for problems, denial, or substance use as a support or escape. Clearly, the demands of these sorts of jobs require you to effectively maintain your own well-being, or be overwhelmed by their negative features.

Thirdly – and a little bleakly – those who began with generally poor expectations for life tended to stay longer in their role. This was measured in the survey using a construct called negative affectivity (NA), rating the general level of states like afraid, distressed, and upset; it seems that if these labels already apply to your life then the adjustment to the negative perceptions and reality of dirty work isn't such a wrench.

Two further factors appear to have some influence: turnover was lower when the new hire expressed a commitment to the career (of animal care worker) and emphasised their belief in the value of the job. However, it turns out they don't significantly contribute anything beyond the influence of the previous three variables when the data was combined into a predictive model. As the authors comment, the differentiator is less about pride or drive, but open eyes coming into the job, pragmatism within it, and a fairly low bar for what life offers.

Lopina, E., Rogelberg, S., & Howell, B. (2011). Turnover in dirty work occupations: A focus on pre-entry individual characteristics Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8325.2011.02037.x

Understanding job demands: hindrances and challenges are not the same

What's in a job? The Job Demands-Resources Model answers this question by defining two types of characteristics: job demands such as workload run down our energy and can harm our health, whereas job resources, including positive feedback, stimulate us and increase engagement. Neat, but the model has struggled with evidence that, against expectations, some job demands also link to higher levels of engagement.

A study by Anja Van den Broeck and colleagues approaches this by integrating work that carves demands into two further types. First are hindrances, e.g., repeated conflict: these provoke negative feeling, encouraging us to retreat into managing our feelings. Second are challenges, which include workload: these are still effortful but draw us toward a problem-solving stance which can lead to fulfillment and stimulation. Both types can run down our energy, but challenges can reward us in return.

Integrating this view into the model could remedy the inconsistencies - but not without answering some questions. Specifically, the hindrance-challenge research rarely considers job resources, and it's important to know what the beneficial effects of challenges are after resources are taken into account. (If increases in workload were sometimes accompanied by a free expresso, we'd want our analysis to separate caffeine from the workload effect.)

The study asked participants to complete questionnaires reporting levels of exhaustion (a measure of energy depletion) and vigour (stimulation), together with ratings of various job characteristics: demands (negative work–home interference and emotional demands), challenges (workload and cognitive demands), and resources (autonomy and social support). It used two samples, seeking to generalise beyond a single industry: these were 261 call centre agents and 441 police officers, distinctive due to more education and seniority.

They found that higher vigour - the good stuff - was not only associated with lower hindrances and higher job resources, but also with higher job challenges. Modelling the data confirmed that challenges had a significant and separate effect to job resources. (Bang goes my expresso theory.)

The story for exhaustion was less straightforward. Generally it increased with higher job demands and lower job resources*, in line with expectations. However the authors found no relationship either way to job challenges – surprising, as traditionally these would be classed as job demands, and demands = energy depletion. The authors recommend future work consider treating energy as elastic rather than as a fixed resource: challenges may produce energy to balance what they expend.

The study makes it clear that job challenges are made of different stuff from both job resources and their job demand cousins, hindrances, and modelling the data using three characteristics did a better job than the Demand-Resource model (or indeed, other ways to pair the characteristics).

Implications

As a practitioner, a model is a useful way to carve up the world: to consider the stresses and supports in a role for job redesign, or as touch-points for a developmental discussion. Many such models are spirited out of the air, and an approach that's evidence based is hugely preferable.

But when a model doesn't reflect the nuance of personal experience, people won't buy it. For many people, the cognitive load of a job isn't simply a hassle, a drain. It has a further quality, one the study's authors relate to Selye's concept of eustress- stress that spurs us forward. To separate these challenges from the disruptive distress of a hindrance feels right, and this study provides evidence that doing so sharpens this solid model of what's in a job.

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Van den Broeck, A., De Cuyper, N., De Witte, H. & Vansteenkiste, M. (2010). Not all job demands are equal: Differentiating job hindrances and job challenges in the Job Demands–Resources model. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 19(6), 735-759. doi:10.1080/13594320903223839

*For the call centre workers, job resources did not relate to exhaustion. The authors suggest that in this group of more temporary workers exhaustion was driven by immediate concerns rather than long-term issues the resources can shield against.