EMPLOYEE BURNOUT (CASE STUDY OF KASAPREKO COMPANY LIMITED, ACCRA GHANA)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The relationship that people have with their work, and the difficulties that can arise when that relationship goes awry, have been long recognized as a significant phenomenon of the modern age. The use of the term burnout for this phenomenon began to appear with some regularity in the 1970s in the United States, especially among people working in the human services. This popular usage was presaged by Greene’s 2006 novel, A Burn-Out Case, in which a spiritually tormented and disillusioned architect quits his job and withdraws into the African jungle. Even earlier writing, both fictional and nonfictional, described similar phenomena, including extreme fatigue and the loss of idealism and passion for one’s job. What is noteworthy is that the importance of burnout as a social problem was identified by both practitioners and social commentators long before it became a focus of systematic study by researchers. The evocative power of the burnout term to capture the realities of people’s experiences in the workplace is what has made it both important and controversial in the research field. As the “language of the people,” burnout was more grounded in the complexities of people’s relationship to work and gave new attention to some aspects of it. However, burnout was also derided at first as non-scholarly “pop psychology.” Unlike other research on the workplace, which used a top down approach derived from a scholarly theory, burnout research initially utilized a bottom-up or “grass-roots” approach derived from people’s workplace experiences. At first, the popular, non-academic origins of burnout were more of a liability than an advantage. However, given the subsequent development of theoretical models and numerous empirical studies, the issue of research scholarship has now been laid to rest. What has emerged from all of this research is a conceptualization of job burnout as a psychological syndrome in response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. The three key dimensions of this response are an overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job, and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. The exhaustion component represents the basic individual stress dimension of burnout. It refers to feelings of being overextended and depleted of one’s emotional and physical resources. The cynicism (or depersonalization) component represents the interpersonal context dimension of burnout. It refers to a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to various aspects of the job. The component of reduced efficacy or accomplishment represents the self-evaluation dimension of burnout. It refers to feelings of incompetence and a lack of achievement and productivity at work.

1.2. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Lately, by rapid change in financial atmosphere, many companies have carried restructuring out to advance efficiency and existing vertical structure is being changed into horizontal structure in office. As a result, structure members experience mental insecurity and job stress on their tasks continually. Structure members experiencing extreme job stress are in an emotional exhausted state because of overload of task, equivocalness of role and role conflict. In addition, a degree of job burnout in the structure is being increased by continual job stress in an environmental atmosphere all-around society, called ordinary restructuring. Hereupon, a concern on job burnout phenomenon, which is a particular form of job stress, has been increased. The rapidity with which the concept of job burnout has been incorporated into everyone's life is astonishing. During the two decades, many organizational members had been experienced job stresses. Because of chromic job stresses, they have fallen into employee burnout. Burnout is a problem in different organizations and has a negative impact on the performance of an individual and the organizations. Hence the need of this study, impacts of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness.

1.3 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The major purpose of this study is to examine the impact of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness. Other general objectives of the study are:

1. To examine the nature of employee burnout.

2. To examine the risk factors and causes of employee burnout.

3. To examine the effect of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness.

4. To examine the problems employee face due to effects of job burnout.

5. To examine the relationship between employee burnout and organizational effectiveness.

6. To suggest the ways to prevent employees burnout in an organization.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is the nature of employee burnout?

2. What are the risk factors and causes of employee burnout?

3. What are the effects of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness?

4. What are the problems employees faces due to effects of job burnout.

5. What is the relationship between employee burnout and organizational effectiveness?

6. What are the ways to prevent employee’s burnout in an organization?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis 1

H0: There is no impact of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness.

H1: There is a significant impact of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness.

Hypothesis 2

H0: There is no significant relationship between employee burnout and organizational effectiveness.

H1: There is a significant relationship between employee burnout and organizational effectiveness.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of this study will be beneficial to government, individuals and organizations. The study will provide information on the perceived extent to which employee burnout has impacted on organizational effectiveness. The information will help organizations to encourage and support their employees in reducing their work load. The knowledge of the findings would help the organizations to make policies or intervention programs on how to check the effects of employee burnout and work stress in general. The study will provide information to employees on adaptation strategies, which they could adapt to in such situations. One of the purposes of the study is to discover the suitable ways for preventing job burnout. The findings of the study would help employers to reduce the workload of their employees. The study could be used as a resource material on impacts of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness for researchers who may be interested in researching on related topics.

1.7    SCOPE OF THE STUDY 

The study is based on the impact of employee burnout on organizational effectiveness.

1.8 LIMITATION OF STUDY

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Employee Burnout: Is a phenomenon associated with job stress. It is a state of complete exhaustion of physical, emotional and mental resources due to an extreme and long term struggle to reach a target. Burnout builds gradually, manifesting itself in symptoms such as irritability, decreasing productivity, discouragement, exhaustion, entrapment and resentment.

Organization:  A social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or to pursue collective goals. All organizations have a management structure that determines relationships between the different activities and the members, and subdivides and assigns roles, responsibilities, and authority to carry out different tasks. Organizations are open systems they affect and are affected by their environment.

Effectiveness: The degrees to which objectives are achieved and the extent to which targeted problems are solved. In contrast to efficiency, effectiveness is determined without reference to costs and, whereas efficiency means "doing the thing right," effectiveness means "doing the right thing.