From Burned Out to Balanced: Designing Workplaces for Well-Being and Productivity

Feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and burned out seems to have become an all-too-common part of the job for many workers. In fact, since the 2000s, burnout experiences have skyrocketed in organizations. The situation became so critical that Gallup warned about an unprecedented employee burnout crisis in 2017. In a study of approximately 7,500 full-time employees in the US, Gallup discovered that nearly two-thirds of them experienced some degree of job-related burnout (Wigert and Agrawal, 2018).

Two-thirds of the employees experienced some degree of job-related burnout. Now, imagine if this study would be conducted today, in a post-pandemic world amid ongoing global challenges. How would the numbers look?

But, Burnout is not an individual problem only …

Despite being an individual experience, burnout also affects the whole organization. At the organizational level, burnout impacts are manifested in performance, absenteeism, and turnover. For instance, Gallup (2017) reports that burnout employees are typically 13% less confident in their performance and appear to be 50% less willing to discuss their performance goals. They are 1.5 times as likely to take a sick day and 2.6 times as likely to actively seek a different job (Wigert and Agrawal 2018). In alignment with such findings, Kronos study (2016) attributed half of the annual workforce turnover in organizations due to employee burnout. In a study, Goh et al.(2015) found that excessive workplace stress contributes to around 12,000 death and comprises 190 million US. dollars in health care each year in the United States. Obviously, employee burnout poses horrendous burdens on individuals and organizations.

With such shocking statistics, it is crucial to understand the nature of workplace burnout, its causes, and how to address it.

Then, what is Burnout exactly? How does it differ from stress?

Burnout experience encapsulates a broad range of feelings and symptoms. To some, it refers to chronic exhaustion and continuous struggle to meet goals. To others, it stands for lack of motivation and disengagement.

To unpack the term, it is important to note that burnout experience is unlike other forms of stress caused in life. Burnout specifically refers to occupational stress.

WHO (2019) includes burnout in the International Classification of Diseases chart as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

A burnout employee generally exhibits three key stress responses: energy depletion, increased mental distance from one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy. Leiter and Maslach (1999) view exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of inefficacy as responses to work-related emotional and interpersonal stressors.

Yet, What Triggers Burnout?

One way to understand the causes of occupational stress is the ‘Job Demand-Resource’ model. According to this model, burnout could result from the interaction between job demands and job resources. On the one hand, job demands refer to “physical, social or organizational aspects of the job that require sustainable physiological and psychological costs” ( Demerouti et al. 2001: 501). On the other hand, job resources refer to “physical, psychological, social or organizational aspects of the job” that enable the person to achieve their work goals, reduce job demand and stimulate personal growth (Demerouti et al. 2001: 501).

In this framework, job resources could be categorized into external resources –  such as organizational and social aspects in the work setting and; internal resources – such as cognitive features and action patterns of the employee ( Richer and Hacker 1998 in Demerouti et al. 2001).

So, How to Assess Burnout?

In this context, burnout and job stress could be assessed using the ‘Areas of work life’ survey (Leiter and Maslach 1997). The survey covers the perception of employees on six contextual areas in any given workplace: workload; control; reward; community; fairness, and; values.

• Workload refers to job demands such as the amount of work and deadlines.
• Control relates to dimensions such as the level of personal autonomy and degree of involvement in decision-making.
• Reward refers to the recognition received when contributing to the job.
• Community refers to the quality of social relationships with colleagues and managers.
• Fairness relates to the sense of equality and social justice in work policies or procedures.
• Values broadly addresses the alignment between individual values and job goals.

As it could be noticed, the ‘Areas of work life’ model establishes the relationship between the individual level and larger social organizational context.

In light of this model, burnout could be perceived as a mismatch between the perception of employees and their work environment in one or some of these areas of work life.

To reduce burnout and occupational stress, organizations need to examine strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas to identify which aspects to work on. It is worth noting that these areas are mutually interlinked; thus, reaching a balance among them is also crucial ( Leiter and Maslach 1999).

Here, enters Workplace Environment

With such an understanding of the nature of burnout and its causes, workplace design could be considered as a contributing factor to job demand or job resource.

For instance, if the tasks of some employees demand high levels of concentration, while the design of their physical environment does not provide them with adequate means to control external stimuli such as interruptions or minimize noise, it is expected that a discrepancy between job demand and job resource would surface after some time. This could eventually lead to their burnout and thus result in poor output and higher costs. Alternatively, if the workplace is designed intentionally, it could be an enabling resource for employees.

Let’s Dive into Workplace Design

To design an enabling workplace, a number of issues need to be considered , such as:

1- Nature of Task: The different natures of tasks conducted in the respective workplace should be considered.

For example, the need for individual concentration or group collaboration would have implications for the spatial arrangement of the workplace.

2- Individual Needs: It is crucial to recognize the differences in physiological and psychological needs. Employees would prefer the physical environment that resonates with their physiological needs, such as in terms of temperature, lighting, air movement, and accessibility.

Accordingly, it is important to design indoor environmental quality to respond to the needs of occupants.

3- Flexibility: Employees would benefit from a physical environment that addresses their psychological needs, such as their ability to manage the number and intensity of social interactions, sensitivity to surrounding stimuli, and ability to screen these stimuli ( Veitch 2019).

For such cases, designing different spatial settings and giving employees the flexibility to choose their work location. This could contribute to providing employees with some control over their work environment and creating a sense of community in the workplace. –

4- Connection to Nature: Recent studies show that connecting the workplace with nature could positively impact employees’ mental health.

In this regard, biophilic design is one of the strategies to create a multi-sensory environment that improves the indoor experience. This is reported to reduce occupational stress and improve the cognitive functions of employees  ( eg. Delos 2019; Hui and Aye 2019; Veitch 2019).

Understanding the impact of the workplace from this perspective encourages us to view workplace design not merely as an aesthetically pleasing artifact but as a powerful tool that can help reduce burnout and foster a healthier, more productive work environment.

Selected Biblography

Correa J.S. et al. (2019) ‘Workplace Wellbeing and Burnout Syndrome: Opposite faces in penitentiary work’, Human and Social Management, RAM, São Paulo, 20(3), doi:10.1590/1678-6971/eRAMG190149, 2019.

Delos (2019) ‘The Role of Design in Burnout: Can managing acoustic stimuli in the workplace help reduce burnout?’, Delos Living LLC

Demerouti E., Bakker. A.B., Nachreiner, F., and Schaufeli W.B. (2001) ‘The Job Demands-Resources Model of Burnout’, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86, no. 3, pp. 499-512.

Goh J, Pfeffer J, Zenios S.A. (2015) The Relationship Between Workplace Stressors and Mortality and Health Costs in the United States. Management (http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2115)

Hui K.P. and Aye L. (2018) ‘Occupational Stress and Workplace Design’, Buildings 2018, 8, 133; doi:10.3390/buildings8100133

Kaplan (1993) ‘The Role of Nature in the Context of the Workplace’, Landscape and Urban Planning, 26, 193-201.

Largo-Wight E. et al. (2011) ‘Healthy Workplaces: The Effects of Nature Contact at Work on Employee Stress and Health’, Public Health Reports, 2011 Supplement 1, volume 126.

Leiter M. and Maslach C.(1999) ‘Six Areas of Worklife; A model of the organizational context of burnout’, Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, Spring 1999

Quick J.C. and Henderson D. (2016) ‘Occupational Stress: Preventing Suffering, Enhancing Wellbeing’,

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2016, 13, 459; doi:10.3390/ijerph13050459

Stokols, D. (2011) Chapter 34: Psychosocial and Organizational Factors. In The ILO Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health & Safety, 4th ed.; Stellman, J.M., Ed.; International Labor Organization: Geneva, Switzerland, 2011; Volume 4.

Veitch J.A. (2018) ‘How and Why to assess workplace design: Facilities management supports Human Resources’, Organizational Dynamics (2018) 47, 78-87.

Wigert B. And Agrawal S. (2018) ‘Employee Burnout, Part 1: The 5 main causes’, in Gallup blog (https://www.gallup.com/workplace/237059/employee-burnout-part-main-causes.aspx_)

WHO (2019) ‘ Mental Health in the Workplace: Information sheet, https://www.who.int/mental_health/in_the_workplace/en/