This story from one of our colleagues, Elizabeth Cramsie.
Burnout continues to be a massive issue for Australian workers and new data shows almost half the workforce is fatigued or burnt out, a new report has found.
Liz Jameson was in her mid 20’s when she decided she’d had enough of 12 hour work days.
“I was breakfast radio producer,” she says.
“I found the industry very toxic. I ended up changing to work backstage in originally in street theatre (and) now I work in musical theatre as a dress, I work with costumes.”
While her new career has her working six nights a week she only works 32 hours in total every week.
And she’s not the only Australian looking for work life balance.
“More and more people are looking to have that option and they might only be required in the office 2 or 3 days a week,” Paula Brough from the Work Organisation and Wellbeing Research Centre at Griffith University says.
“It’s about not doing so much of the unpaid work, the overtime, so they’re having more time with their family.
“The whole culture of working long hours in order to be rewarded, for many workers that’s losing it’s appeal.”
And if workplaces want the best staff, they’ll need to adapt, she says.
“If you don’t have those options for workers who want them they will move, they will leave and go to an employer that does offer that so there’s definite economic benefits for flexible work,
It’s as a national workplace health survey by UQ has found almost half of Australian workers are fatigued and burnt out, with many contemplating quitting their jobs.
Associate Professor Stacey Parker is an Organisational Psychologist at UQ. She says managing burnout isn’t just the responsibility of employees.
“(It’s about) organisations in particular making sure that workloads are managable, so people don’t feel the pressure to keep working in their downtime. Having that uninterrupted downtime is so important for us to be able to recover.
It comes as the new, right to disconnect laws come into place for non-small businesses later this year, giving workers the right to refuse contact outside their working hours.