If going to work feels more like torture, and fatigue,
depression and irritation are daily aspects of your life, job burnout may be to
blame. Too much office stress is putting a major strain on many professionals,
according to Clare Chen, an analyst at Hudson Recruitment, a Nasdaq-listed
headhunting firm. Along with booming business expansion and fast social
transition, job burnout is pervasive in the Chinese mainland. In April,
Hudson Recruitment surveyed 705 multinational companies in China--mostly based
in Shanghai--about their hiring plans and employees. The survey showed that 33
per cent of survey participants believe job burnout is getting more and more
serious in the mainland. Last year, about 27 per cent of respondents complained
of being overworked. 66. ______. The survey also
indicates that practitioners in media, public relations, advertising, medical
and biotechnology sectors are among the biggest sufferers of job burnout, as
they not only work long hours but face pressures of stiffening job competition
and constantly staying abreast of changes in their sectors. Meanwhile, women
employees suffer more than their male counterparts, as 41.4 per cent of the
women surveyed report they are in a state of moderate job burnout, compared with
37.2 per cent of men. Most people start feeling the most office stress after
working for four years, which is much shorter than 10 years in the late 1990s,
the chinahrd, net survey says. 67. ______.
Turning down these extra hours is not a good career move, Zhang says. "If
you refuse overtime, someone will do it and replace you," he says. However,
Hudson’s report finds that a shortage of suitable talent is one of the reasons
for increasing job burnout. 68. ______. Internal
competition for promotions, problems between colleagues, and work and life
imbalances all contribute to psychological tension, which may result in accident
or collapse, says Xu. "High-pressure work environments are taking their toll on
workers’ morale," says Gary Lazzarotto, CEO of Hudson Asia. "This can be
detrimental to both workers, whose health and career progress may suffer, and
employers, who pick up the tab in higher insurance costs and lost
productivity." 69. ______. Furthermore, allowing
time off for training will help facilitate employees’ know/edge and offer a
cushion for intense work. France-based Schneider Electric invited IBM and
Tsinghua University to formulate a leadership development programme for its
managerial-level talents in China. The one-year programme will offer
e-learning, classroom workshops, professional discussions and courses for 36
trainees selected from its China branch. It uses a model that combines academic
training and business practices together, according to Amy Kan, a human
resources director of Schneider Electric China. 70.
______. Xu offers some advice for the job burnout employees: 1.
Organize and prioritize by taking care of the more difficult and important tasks
early in the day. 2. Have expectations so that you can achieve your goals and
deliver on promises to others. 3. Set aside a period of time dedicated to
responding to e-mail and voicemails. 4. Take care of yourself.
A. Hudson’s Chen says there are many factors contributing to the office
stress. "Amid the fierce competition in the human resources (HR) market,
employers have to work longer to cope with heavy workloads, receive last-minute
missions constantly and are faced with work performance appraisals by bosses,"
says Chen. Zhang Xing, a consultant at a PR company, usually works 10 hours a
day. But there are times when he works more than 12 hours a day, and Saturdays
and Sundays sometimes become working days. B. About 55 per cent
of respondents suggested they are working more hours than they were two years
ago. Of those, 13 per cent say their hours are significantly longer. About 42
per cent of office workers surveyed said they worked more than 50 hours a week,
compared with the country’s 40-hour-a-week standard. The number is about one
percentage point higher than in last year’s survey, Hudson reports.
C. Dealing with the modern world "epidemic" of job burnout is a new
challenge for both employers and employees. In developed nations, entrepreneurs
commonly push a policy known as Work-Life Balance (WLB) to help employees work
productively and better enjoy their lives. "If an employer finds an employee
often works longer, the employer should ask if the executive- designed workload
is too heavy for the employee or if there are some problems with the employee’s
working efficiency," says Xu. "Then the employer or the employee should
adjust." D. The long working hours will greatly reduce working
efficiency and productivity, both Chen and Zhang believe. In addition to
physical exertion, psychological tension is another result of an overworked
employee, points out Xu Xinxin, a researcher with the Sociology Research
Institute attached to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. E.
Paid leave is another way to ensure employees not to get worn out. "I find that
many Chinese employees have not realized that it is their right to leave. They
must keep in mind that we have a duty to work and have a fight to leave," says
Lazzarotto. "A nice holiday can refresh you and do good for your company." He
also suggests companies employ new measures to meet the headcount gap.
"Employing and training cost can be compensated by employees’ higher
productivity and guarantee a sound talent structure in the long run," he
says. F. By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had
followed Holmes and Rahe. And millions of Americans who work and live under
stress worried over the reports. Somehow, the research got boiled down to a
memorable message. Women’s magazines ran headlines like "Stress causes illness!"
If you want to stay physically and mentally healthy, the articles said, avoid
stressful events.