5 Red Flags to Avoid Burnout at Work

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The fact is, humans aren’t very good at producing great work when we are tired and pushed hard for long periods of time. And if you push people too far, they will inevitably burn out.

Like a match that has no more fuel left to stay alight, burnout means that there is little-to-no mental, physical, or emotional energy left for people to spend. Researchers show that burnout can be defined as

• Exhaustion: feeling like you don’t have any energy.
• Cynicism: ceasing to care about work anymore.
• Ineffectiveness: feeling like your work has no impact.

As well as being bad for your health, burnout is not very good for business productivity. None of us can completely avoid burnout at trying times in our lives, but if it is a state that you repeatedly find yourself in at work, it may be time to re-evaluate your role or company.

Of course, part of avoiding burnout should focus on how to cultivate better resilience as an individual through developing lifestyle choices and skills (e.g., getting enough sleep, delegating/pushing back on workload, building trusted relationships at work, framing problems as positive challenges).

However, we can’t ignore that there are also situational factors that cause burnout. It might be tempting to think that the best way to avoid burnout is to take an undemanding job. There is some truth to this, especially when it comes to the exhaustion aspect.

However, achieving difficult tasks and learning new skills in the process is one of the key benefits that work can give us, and to avoid this is to lose that benefit. Healthy pressure at work is a good thing.

Here are five red flags that can signal that a company may be conducive to employee burnout, along with key questions to ask if you are interviewing for your next job:

1. Culture of Individualism

There is a cultural focus on the so-called “masculine” qualities of achievement, heroism, competitiveness, or assertiveness. A meta-analysis showed that these cultures are actually more likely to foster burnout in stressful circumstances than cultures with a focus on cooperation, humility, and caring.

Questions to ask:

• What are your company values? (Look for values of humility and empathy.)
• Would you describe the company as competitive?

2. Conflict Avoidance

People suppress their opinions or concerns to avoid conflict or prevent rejection. This generally happens in environments where people have low psychological safety, and a meta-analysis found it predicts when people withdraw and cease to care about work, a key component of burnout.

Question to ask:

• How regularly do you raise a concern about a conflict? (This is as opposed to staying silent.)

3. No Mental Health Programs

Companies are increasingly realising that starting and supporting mental health conversations help well-being. A meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (the gold standard of research) showed that mindfulness programs are effective in reducing burnout, with effects maintained up to three months later.

Question to ask:

• What mindfulness or mental health programs exist at the company?

4. No Sense of Humour

You might think of it as “witty banter,” saying funny things, or telling funny stories or jokes. Humour is the ability to maintain a certain perspective even when undergoing difficult times at work, and there is evidence to show that positive humour (i.e., that which is used to enhance relationships and increase ease rather than to manipulate or put down) will decrease burnout on a team. That’s true if it comes from either an individual or a manager.

Questions to ask:

• When was the last time you laughed at work?
• When was the last time you told a joke at work?

5. No Friendship Potential

It may be a red flag if you don’t see anyone there that you could build a personal connection with. Loneliness at work has been shown to lead to burnout. Having social support relationships is incredibly important to help people cope. Amongst other things, that means not feeling abandoned when the going gets tough, not feeling emotionally distant or isolated, not feeling there is no one you could share personal thoughts with or spend time with on breaks, or having a group of friends at work.

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Question to ask:

• Can I meet the people I will be working with? (If you meet with your immediate workgroup and you don’t feel that you could eventually confide in any of them, that might be a red flag that this job will end up burning you out if it gets stressful.)

Finally, there are ways of cultivating an environment better suited for preventing burnout at work. By prioritizing your own mental health, doing your best to build connections with others, and learning healthy ways of raising conflict, you can take the personal initiative to improve your own working life.