A new phenomenon – “The Great Exhaustion” — is circulating among some young professionals in Canada, according to a report.
The report — prepared by staffing agency Robert Half– notes that 42 per cent of respondents were suffering. That percentage is 51 per cent for Gen Z (18-26), 55 per cent for Millennials (27-42) and 32 per cent for Gen X (43-58).
Organizational psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, Jennifer Dimoff, told CTV Morning Live the new phenomenon is based on the concept of burnout.
She says, traditionally, healthcare workers and people who work in customer service were the most prone to get a burnout at their job. However, the burnout is now “spilling over” to reach all workers across all industries.
Dimoff explains that people are in a neurological state of “fight or flight,” given the current factors that are happening outside of the work place that are contributing to the way they are experiencing their lives and potentially affecting them. These factors include wars, the cost of living, climate change and political unrest. She notes that we are not designed to process all of these threats all at once.
“There’s something called ‘macro-factor.’ So, in the academic world, we call them extra organizational stressors,” she explains.
She adds that there are many other factors contributing to the work overload, such as heavy workloads, lack of communications from managers, unavailable resources, commuting to the office, toxic organizational culture and unclear job expectations.
The signs of burnout are exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy, she explains.
How to defeat the burnout?
The great exhaustion can not be tackled, unless people start making changes, according to Dimoff.
“We’ve got to make changes at the individual level, as well as the kind of systems (and) organizational level, because people are just being inundated with information in such a way that we’re not designed to process,” she said.
“So, the good news is that burnout can be alleviated with rest and with separation.”
Taking a vacation, prioritizing self-care and taking deep breaths are some ideas Dimoff suggests to beat the burnout.