Working in a fast-paced and highly competitive environment, employees experience extreme stress and intense occupational burnout from time to time. In a survey carried out by Blind and involving 40,000 employees from Microsoft, 25,000 from Amazon, 10,000 from Google, 7,000 from Uber, 6,000 from Facebook, and thousands of other employees from several employers’ IT departments, 57.16% of the respondents answered “yes” to the question: “Are you currently suffering from job burnout?” That’s over half of the respondents attesting to the fact that occupational burnout was making their working life miserable!

Primary causes of employee burnout in companies’ IT departments

The main causes of tech employee burnout, as reported in a survey undertaken by Kronos, are unfair compensation (41%), too much overwork (32%), and unreasonable workload (32%). Although, other common factors such as negative workplace culture, feeling disconnected from the company’s overall strategy, and poor management have also been discovered to cause burnout.

As a matter of fact, employees in companies’ IT departments experience occupational burnout based on the severity of their working conditions. In the same Kronos survey, Credit Karma employees reportedly had the highest burnout rate, estimated at over 70%, while Netflix workers reported the lowest burnout figure, at just 39%. However, it becomes a grave concern when the burnout rate at some big companies stands around 40%. This indicates an abysmal record of burnout epidemic in the companies’ IT departments that remains largely unmanaged or unresolved.

Dangerous outcomes of burnout

If left unmanaged or unmitigated for a long period of time, a high degree of employee burnout can render the companies’ IT departments unproductive. Considering the costs alone, it is estimated that companies paid a total of $125 to $190 billion for health expenses. Unfortunately, employee burnout results in about 120,000 deaths a year. It is also responsible for the large number of employees quitting their jobs or changing jobs. The Kronos survey also pinpointed that 95% of HR managers agreed that burnout creates a talent management crisis for them as they increasingly find it difficult to retain great, skilful employees.

Burnout and its effects on employees’ mental health

Workplace stress and occupational burnout remain two major factors that contribute to the decline in mental health conditions among companies’ IT workers. According to Lynn Hamilton, Chief Commercial Officer of Talkspace, the online therapy company: “Roughly one in five people have a diagnosable mental health condition., and these numbers run parallel in the workplace. Yet, the vast majority of people either don’t seek treatment, are misdiagnosed or don’t get the adequate treatment they need.”

Employees must be in their right minds to be very productive. What occupational burnout does to companies’ IT department employees is to rob them of their ability to focus on the tasks at hand; they constantly struggle with personal and workplace distractions.

So, what is the best way to handle this anti-productivity malaise?

How using an IT Consultancy Agency can be a wonderful idea

Companies often respond to the issue of occupational burnout almost the same way: Creating a relaxed working structure, setting up wellness programs, and encouraging non-work activities among their employees. Unfortunately, these solutions, despite its costs and rigorousness, have produced little or no commensurable results. So, companies’ IT departments are still grappled with the burnout problem and may remain so for a long time if no proactive approach to resolving the issue surfaces.

There should be a better way of managing this headache: Lately, it is proposed that any employee diagnosed or treated for any mental health conditions be allowed to stay off work for some time. However, this doesn’t seem like a viable option for most companies, considering the cost and time of hiring, training, and on-boarding new or replacement employees.

However, to solve this perennial problem more effectively, it is advisable that companies’ IT departments adjust to using the services of an IT Consultancy Agency to pick up the slack when their employees enter into the burnout zone.

An IT Consultancy Agency is able to timely provide the following services:

• Supplying qualified workers to employers’ IT departments to provide the necessary services their burnout employees couldn’t offer.
• Monitoring the performance of the dispatched replacement employees to see that their working habits fit the cultures of the companies they are working for
• Measuring their contributions to the companies’ overall performance using both internal and external metrics
• Liaising with your companies’ HR manager to further provide good working conditions that will enhance the dispatched workers’ performances

References: 
-Bradford, Laurence (2018, June 19).  Why we need to talk about burnout in the tech industry. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurencebradford/2018/06/19/why-we-need-to-talk-about-burnout-in-the-tech-industry/#265708de1406

-HR Affiliates (2019). Why should I use a staffing agency? Retrieved from https://hraffiliates.com/why-should-i-use-a-staffing-agency/

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