Employee Burnout is Becoming Common in many Companies

In a new survey, it is found that accountants are losing interest in their work and employee burnout is becoming more and more common. As the year-end nears, the matter is becoming all the more difficult for accountants who are burdened with more pressure and workload.

The research made by a recruitment specialist of Robert Half UK shows an alarming number of employee burnout where nearly 30 per cent of HR directors in UK said they are witnessing employee burnout in their company. The percentage is more in companies that are publicly listed and in the South East and London, which is about 35per cent that is more than a third.

In the research, it is further reported that workload is the main factor which is leading to employee burnout as cited by the UK HR directors and the figure is about two third, which is 67%. This figure is more in public sector and large companies which is 73% and 75% respectively, that is three fourth of the total. The other reasons for employee burnout is attributed to long working hours or overtime which is 56%, attainable expectations which is 35%, ‘economic pressures’ which is 32% and lack of ability to balance professional and personal commitments which is 27%.

Managing director of Robert Half UK, Phil Sheridan has said that any professional of any rank can be affected by employee burnout. Working for long hours and having extreme workload can make any professional to lose his motivation. This is quite common for accounting professionals who are working for fiscal year-end.

To come out of this situation and to prevent employee burnout, certain initiatives have been taken by the HR directors of companies of which promoting teamwork based environment constitutes 50 %, reviewing and restructuring of tasks and jobs is 45%, supporting team-building activities, offering flexible working alternatives and supporting employees to take leave constitute 34%, 34% and 31% respectively. About 19% of companies look for temporary employees to tackle the burnout which is quite effective as they do not have to pay fixed labor cost but can manage their workload through them.