How do you know whether you’re burnt out, or just tired?
And if work is making you stressed and exhausted, how do you know when it’s just too much?
Well now, a team of international researchers has developed a tool to identify those most at risk of workplace burnout – because prevention is so much better than cure, right?
Known as the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT), the online assessment takes less than five minutes to fill out, consisting of just 23 multiple-choice questions.
You can try the test yourself using the online assessment tool.
The tool aims to assess your mental and physical state through the questions, ranging from a scale of Never to Always. It looks at areas such as work-home conflict, job satisfaction and emotional stress.
And although the list of relevant countries is limited to Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, and the Netherlands, it does help provide a picture of what burnout looks like for you.
Psychologist Leon De Beer, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said: ‘Previously, we have not had a detailed enough measurement tool for use in both the field of practice and research that identifies workers who are at risk of burnout.’
Burnout is not an official medical condition and so doesn’t have a formal diagnosis, but it still can affect people mentally and psychologically, and can lead to other health problems.
After the questionnaire, respondents get several scores for each category that indicates burnout risk. During research to develop the test, the team reported that 13% of the 493 Norwegians they tested were at high risk of burnout.
In the UK, around 91% of adults said they experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress at some point in the past year.
The researchers say it’s in the best interest of employers to ensure their teams are functioning well and happy.
‘Not addressing the risk of employee burnout in time can have long-term consequences,’ said Dr DeBeer.
They hope the BAT could help both employees and employers identify the risk and address individual and institutional change.
The research has been published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.
