Employee Burnout Is a Problem with the Company, Not the Person (hbr.org)

Employee burnout is a common phenomenon, but it is one that companies tend to treat as a talent management or personal issue rather than a broader organizational challenge. That's a mistake, reads an article on HBR. From the article: The psychological and physical problems of burned-out employees, which cost an estimated $125 billion to $190 billion a year in healthcare spending in the U.S., are just the most obvious impacts. The true cost to business can be far greater, thanks to low productivity across organizations, high turnover, and the loss of the most capable talent. [...] When employees aren't as productive as they could be, it's usually the organization, not its employees, that is to blame. The same is true for employee burnout. When we looked inside companies with high burnout rates, we saw three common culprits: excessive collaboration, weak time management disciplines, and a tendency to overload the most capable with too much work. These forces not only rob employees of time to concentrate on completing complex tasks or for idea generation, they also crunch the downtime that is necessary for restoration.

Comments

Re: Sounds like you're the problem

[TechyImmigrant]

Then you must not be very important if the company can survive an entire month without you.

If I didn't take my vacation they would get to try surviving without me around at all.

Re:Lack of vacation is the big problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers are so expensive and so hard to find that companies have to work the ones they have pretty hard and not allow them time off. I haven't had a full week off since 1993, and it sucks. Also, I typically lose two and a half weeks of vacation each year since I hit the accrual max. It gets old, but until there's enough developers, things are going to stay bad.

If you're good enough, when you say, "I'm taking two weeks off!" your boss says OK.

If he says, "You're too important to take that time off." then you need to reply with, "Then I need a raise. Right now."

If you're so important they can't afford to let you take time off, you're underpaid.

Re: Sounds like you're the problem

[Hadlock]

Finance companies are required by law to make their employees take 5 days in a row off, specifically for this reason, to ensure continuity of business processes in case you get hit by a bus. If you're the only one who knows how things work for day to day processes, there's serious flaws in your organization.