Is Burnout Getting Better or Worse? Survey Says: It’s Complicated
In early May, the Wall Street Journal ran an article called, “Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades.” The next day, MIT Sloan Management Review published a story with the headline: “With Burnout on the Rise, What Can Companies Do About It?”
The juxtaposition is jarring, with the two stories seeming to be in conflict with each other. So what, exactly, is going on with job satisfaction in 2023? I reviewed four major organizations’ employee attitude surveys to see what the data actually says.
The Conference Board
The Conference Board conducts its annual Job Satisfaction Survey each November as part of the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey. The report does not indicate how many people responded to the survey, but 62% of U.S. employees surveyed in 2022 reported being satisfied with their jobs. That represents a slight improvement over the 60% who reported job satisfaction in 2021, and an all-time high since the survey began in 1987.
The improvement appears to be driven largely by improvements in work-life balance, workload and talent management methods. Of note, however: another major source of improvement in job satisfaction came from employees changing jobs and employers. Employees who changed jobs since 2020 gave a satisfaction rating 3.6% higher than employees who have remained in the same job since 2020. Women overall reported lower job satisfaction (60.1%) than men (64%). And while hybrid workers as a group had a higher rate of job satisfaction than either fully remote or fully on -site employees, they are slightly more concerned about job security than full-time on-site workers.
Related Article: How Leaders Can Alleviate Workplace Burnout
Gallup
Gallup conducts a quarterly Employee Engagement Survey, asking samples of approximately 15,000 U.S. full- and part-time employees to respond to its Q12 engagement questions. I have in the past questioned Gallup’s formula for calculating employee engagement, but comparing their year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter results can be illuminating.
Gallup found engagement hit a high of 36% in 2020, but then dropped down to 32% in 2022. The drop appears to be driven largely by decreased clarity of work expectations, loss of connection to company purpose, limited opportunities to grow and fulfill one’s potential and not feeling cared about at work. There was a demographic difference: Women, workers under the age of 35 and employees in project management roles saw notable declines in engagement. Location likewise featured: employees in “remote-ready jobs who are currently working fully onsite” saw the largest engagement decrease of any of the measured groups.
Microsoft
Microsoft collects a series of surveys on a range of topics, multiple times per year, into its Work Trend Index. The AI study, released earlier this month, included topics related to job satisfaction. About 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets responded to the survey in February and March. The Hybrid Study, with about 20,000 respondents, ran across 11 countries in July and August 2022.
The 2022 study found that 87% of employees feel productive at work, but roughly half of respondents — 48% of employees and 53% of managers — feel burnt out. The 2023 study found similar results, with 64% of employees saying they struggle to get enough time and energy to do their work, and 60% saying they do not have the right capabilities to get their work done.
Qualtrics
Qualtrics’ Employee Experience Trends is a series of studies examining how employees feel about work. The 2023 report is based on data collected in late 2022 from about 29,000 full and part-time workers across 27 countries and 28 industries.
Related Article: How to Keep Remote Employees Engages, Not Burned Out
Learning Opportunities
Qualtrics saw a large decrease in employee satisfaction with pay and benefits over the past year. While about 67% of employees reported feeling satisfied in 2021, only 57% said the same in 2022. Satisfaction with technology also dropped substantially, falling from 68% to 63%. Feelings of engagement and well-being each dropped about 1%, and satisfaction with work-life balance also decreased slightly, by 2%, although it remained higher than 70% overall.
Although those numbers held roughly steady, Gallup found a risk of incipient burnout to be high: 38% of employees overall reported being at risk of burnout All categories of leaders suffering more burn out — 40% on average — compared to individual contributors (36%). Globally, Europe had the lowest engagement levels and South America had the highest.
So What’s Happening With Job Satisfaction?
The way I view the current situation is: The job satisfaction dam is holding, but some troubling cracks are starting to appear.
Three of the four studies saw slight decreases in job satisfaction or engagement — two different, but highly correlated measures — since reaching all-time highs in 2021. Based on the Qualtrics study, satisfaction with pay and benefits is a significant area of concern — although employees might be glad to know that based on the Conference Board study, changing jobs seems to be an excellent way to solve this concern. It is also interesting that the most engaged employees are those working in hybrid roles. And the least engaged, based on the Gallup data, are employees who could work remotely but are not allowed to due to company policies.
The studies also suggest that many people are feeling burnt out due to the inability to keep up with workloads and shifting job demands. The difference between job satisfaction and burnout can be characterized as the differences between liking your work vs liking how you are working. As an analogy: I like bike riding and enjoy doing an occasional 100-mile ride — but I wouldn’t like having to ride my bike 100 miles every day. Women, younger employees and employees in managerial roles seem to be particularly at risk of burnout.
Related Article: The 4-Day Workweek Won't Cure Burnout — at Least, Not Yet
The data doesn’t show us causes and it pays to be careful with speculation, but I suspect declining engagement levels and increased burnout may be tied to economic concerns and business pressures associated with inflation and talk of potential recession. With the exception of Microsoft’s, all these surveys were conducted in the second half of 2022 and so it will be interesting to see how things change this year, given what has transpired economically in the first half of 2023.
The studies also provide helpful, positive news in terms of things companies can do to protect and improve job satisfaction, such as providing employees with clear goals and expectations, having transparent and effective talent management and compensation methods, supporting work-life balance, encouraging learning and development and investing in technology to make employees more efficient and productive. Companies should already be doing all of these. What these studies show is these things matter, and now is definitely not the time to stop doing them. Companies would do well to keep this quote from the Conference Board study in mind when facing pressure to cut HR programs to save costs: “Many workers improved their satisfaction levels by switching to different employers better suited to their needs.”
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About the Author
Dr. Hunt’s work focuses on using technology to increase workforce agility and performance through improving employee experience, development, engagement, inclusion, and well-being.
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