Why does burnout hit people who like their jobs?
What the job demands-resources research says about why a job someone likes can still wear them down, and what time away from work does.
Answer to the question
Why does burnout hit people who like their jobs?
Burnout hits people who like their jobs because liking a job and coping with its load are separate things. In the job demands-resources model, heavy demands are mainly tied to exhaustion and a lack of resources to disengagement, whatever the person feels about the work. Time away from work also shapes the next day's engagement.
Key takeaways
- In a study of 374 workers across human services, industry and transport, job demands were mainly tied to exhaustion and a lack of job resources to disengagement (Demerouti and colleagues, 2001).
- Across four occupational samples totalling 1,698 people, burnout and work engagement shared only about one tenth of their variation, and they had different predictors (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004).
- A survey of 587 managers found workaholism, burnout and work engagement to be three distinct but correlated constructs (Schaufeli and colleagues, 2008).
- In a daily-diary study of 147 employees over five workdays, recovery on one day was linked with engagement and proactive behaviour on the next (Sonnentag, 2003).
- David Marlow's The Ikigai Way argues that liking an activity describes its enjoyable part, and that harmony between work and the rest of life suits better than balance.
This article is general information about research on work psychology and burnout. It is written for general readers and describes how researchers measure working conditions across groups of workers. It does not assess, diagnose or advise any individual. It is not medical or psychological advice, and nothing in it is a reason to change any treatment or to stop seeking care. If work is affecting your wellbeing, speak to a GP or another qualified professional. Medical review: Reja Batool.
Liking a job and coping with its load are two different things, and studies of working life measure them separately. That is how burnout can reach people who enjoy what they do. The job demands-resources model sorts a job by what it asks for and what it supplies, and it does not start from whether the person enjoys the work. That framing answers the question without finding a flaw in the person.
The evidence is plain in a study of 374 workers across human services, industry and transport. Heavy job demands were mainly tied to exhaustion, while a shortage of job resources was mainly tied to disengagement, whatever the occupation.
Burnout can still reach people who really like their jobs
The job demands-resources model was set out by Evangelia Demerouti and colleagues. It divides working conditions into two groups. Demands are what the role asks of a person. Resources are what the role supplies to meet those demands. The same paper tested a two-part view of burnout, exhaustion and disengagement, with a new measure that held up across the occupational groups in the sample.
A job someone likes still has a workload, deadlines and colleagues who depend on it, and enthusiasm can raise the amount a person takes on. In this research, burnout is a work-related pattern of exhaustion and disengagement, measured with a questionnaire. It is a way of describing how people relate to their jobs, not a diagnosis, and the studies make no claim about any one person's health. What they offer is a map of which features of a job travel with which pattern, across thousands of workers in very different occupations.
Three things are worth separating when a person who likes the work still feels worn down, and each can be counted without asking how much the person enjoys the job.
- Demands: how much the role asks at once.
- Resources: what the role gives back to meet them.
- Recovery: time away in which a person can step back.
David Marlow's The Ikigai Way draws a line that fits this list. He separates the amateur, who wants only the enjoyable part of an activity, from the professional, who takes on all of it as one experience. Liking a job usually describes its best part, while the demands that wear a person down sit in the rest of it: the tasks nobody chooses, the unplanned hours, the reports that exist to feed a measure. The demands-resources model counts that whole job.
Burnout and engagement are shaped by different features of work
Burnout and work engagement are often treated as opposites, yet in four occupational samples totalling 1,698 people they shared only about one tenth of their variation. Burnout was mainly predicted by job demands, with a lack of job resources adding to it, while engagement was predicted by job resources alone (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). The authors concluded that efforts to reduce burnout and efforts to raise engagement should be tailored to each aim.
Our view is that this separation explains most of the puzzle in the title. A person who is energetic and absorbed in the work can also carry a demand load that nothing in the job offsets, because the two measures answer to different parts of the job. Engagement is not a shield, and a person who finds the work rewarding may be the one who keeps saying yes.
The same pattern shows in studies of employees themselves. A survey of 587 managers found that workaholism, burnout and work engagement could be told apart, with a model of three distinct but correlated constructs fitting best, and each had its own pattern of links with working hours, job characteristics and the quality of social relationships (Schaufeli and colleagues, 2008). A longitudinal study of highly educated employees found two profiles, one engaged and one marked by exhaustion and heavy work involvement, and the engaged group reported more detachment from work and more relaxation (Innanen and colleagues, 2014).
Recovery and job design shape how the next day goes
Evidence that time away matters comes from a daily-diary study of 147 employees over five consecutive workdays. Recovery on one day was linked with work engagement and proactive behaviour, meaning personal initiative and the pursuit of learning, on the following workday (Sonnentag, 2003). The result is correlational, and it describes day-to-day swings within people.
People who like their jobs are the ones most likely to blur that line, because work does not feel like something to be left behind. Why Attention Residue Lingers at Work covers one mechanism by which thoughts of unfinished tasks follow a person out of the building.
Marlow offers a way of thinking about the line that is an argument and not a research result. He prefers harmony to balance, because balance treats work as a fixed share of a life and turns the question into time management, while harmony lets the parts of a life rise and fall, with work leading in one season and family in another. For someone who likes the job, the useful question becomes whether anything in the week allows work to step back. Does a Four-Day Week Really Work looks at one organisation-level answer to that question.
If demands and resources drive burnout, the practical levers sit in the job: reducing demands, adding resources and protecting time for recovery. Each is a feature of how work is organised and none depends on a worker liking the job less.
Passion is a separate question from load. Can You Be Too Passionate About Work follows the research on how chosen and driven passion differ, and its findings sit alongside the demands-resources studies here, not in place of them.
The 2004 authors concluded that the two aims call for separate efforts. The side that tracks the load needs questions of its own.
Common questions
Why does burnout hit people who like their jobs?
Liking a job and coping with its load are separate. In the job demands-resources model, heavy demands are mainly tied to exhaustion and a lack of resources to disengagement, whatever the person feels about the work. Time away from work also shapes the next day's engagement.
Are burnout and work engagement opposites?
Not exactly. Across four samples they shared only about one tenth of their variation, and they had different predictors: demands and missing resources for burnout, resources alone for engagement.
Does time away from work matter for people who enjoy it?
A daily-diary study of 147 employees linked recovery on one day with engagement and proactive behaviour on the next workday. The finding is correlational.
What can an employer change?
The research points to features of the job: how many demands arrive together, which resources are missing when they are needed, and whether the week has a point at which work is allowed to stop.
Sources
Marlow, D. E. The Ikigai Way. Seed book; vault hub Books/The Ikigai Way.
Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499-512. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499
Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3), 293-315. doi:10.1002/job.248 https://doi.org/10.1002/job.248
Schaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., & Van Rhenen, W. (2008). Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: Three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well-being? Applied Psychology, 57(2), 173-203. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00285.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00285.x
Innanen, H., Tolvanen, A., & Salmela-Aro, K. (2014). Burnout, work engagement and workaholism among highly educated employees: Profiles, antecedents and outcomes. Burnout Research, 1(1), 38-49. doi:10.1016/j.burn.2014.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burn.2014.04.001
Sonnentag, S. (2003). Recovery, work engagement, and proactive behavior: A new look at the interface between nonwork and work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 518-528. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.518 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.518