Employers Say Workers Are Burned Out

A survey by CareerBuilder finds nearly half (45%) of employers think workers at their organization are currently burned out on their jobs.

The national survey on employee productivity was based on responses from 2,600 hiring managers and human resource professionals and nearly 5,300 employees. CareerBuilder also found that one-in-four employers (26%) think workers are less productive in the summer. Nicer weather, vacation fever, and kids being out of school led the list of reasons for the perceived summer productivity dip.

Looking at overall productivity trends year-round, 30% of employers say workers are more productive today than before the downturn in the economy began; 12% feel workers are less productive than before the recession.

Employers who saw a rise in worker productivity primarily attribute the increase to the fear of losing a job and the effects of downsized staffs on individual workloads. In addition, 73% are seeing the increase sustain today and 14% state productivity has increased even more.

When looking at burnout from the employee’s perspective, employers have cause for concern. Seventy-seven percent of workers say they are sometimes or always burned out on their jobs and 43% say their stress levels on the job have increased over the last six months.

The rising stress could be a result of heavier workloads. Nearly half (46%) of employees reported an increase in their workloads in the last six months, while only 8% said their workloads decreased.

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