Is Burnout Real? If So, Who's To Blame?

There have been countless individuals with whom I've shared the "burnout" conversation. Over my career, I would say this topic has come up at least two or three dozen times. Whether it's working an unsustainable amount of hours, having too many complicated and higher order thinking tasks, a bad boss, toxic company culture, or difficulty managing your work and home life, burnout is real.  

According to Deloitte research, 88% of working millennials say they have experienced burnout, and 77% of all other respondents have as well. Burnout has also been recognized by the World Health Organization as a "workplace phenomenon". But how can that be considering there is consensus that the average American works nine days less per year than their predecessors of the 50s and 60s? In fact, the number of days Americans work on average has only decreased since 1950. Now I know you might chalk it up to those pesky Millenials and their entitlement, but let's unpack this further. 

If you were to look at a graph from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70's you would find a relatively overlapped and correlated upward trend line between company productivity and worker compensation. However, starting in the early 80s you find that a significant disparity between productivity and compensation began growing. Since 1940 productivity has grown by roughly 248%, whereas compensation has only grown to 109%. Here's what's even more interesting. Compensation had grown to 109% by 1975. So for almost 50 years compensation as a comparison to productivity hasn't grown at all. I can't imagine who the money has been going to. How about this, since 1978 CEO compensation has grown by 947%. Huh, I wonder where all that money came from?

I am a capitalist, and I believe in the incentive process that exists for innovators, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and the like. However, we need to move away from the right and wrong version of this debate and talk about how taking care of people is going to ensure American companies have a strong place in the future. With companies starting to receive an ESG score, I think people are beginning to speak up in practical ways. They want to see American businesses held to a higher standard. No longer is it OK for you to make money regardless of the consequences, intended or unintended. That isn't capitalism, or at least it shouldn't be.

The Federal Reserve published a study in 2018 that proved Millennials have less money than generations before them. This was found as a result of studying why Millenials were spending less money than previous generations. Generation X and Baby Boomers have on average 13% more wealth than that of their Millenial counterparts at the same time in life. Why is this? The prevailing theory is that Millenials came of working age during the Great Squeeze, the financial recession of 2007 and 2008. There were very weak labor demands and a crunch on lending.

Why student debt has to be a part of this conversation? We all know that the cost of education from private school to public college has gone up significantly over the years. Since 1990 college tuition has increased by 129%. You'll remember from earlier in this article that wages haven't followed the productivity trend since the mid-70s. Wouldn't you know it, but Millenials are also the most educated generation in history. So let me get this straight. College was made to basically feel like a requirement to get a paying job and have a good life. Only the trick is that there are nowhere near the number of good-paying jobs that used to exist. What are we going to do about this?

What scares me the most is that COVID created an environment where trillions of dollars needed to be printed. So in an era where we probably needed to get back to increasing the compensation rates of workers commensurate with productivity, we can't, because we have trillions of dollars in debt that needs to be paid down so we can get back into a strong financial situation as a country.

This article started by asking if burnout was real and who was to blame. What I found was that there is a lot we need to come to terms with as a society about our systems. The cost of healthcare and education alone is bankrupting the next generation in this country. Millennials should be seen as a reflection of the work and policy that happened during Gen X and Baby Boomer Generations. Not the sum of their debt and the burnout they are expressing in inordinate numbers.

I will be writing a follow-up article to this based on feedback I receive and a lot more research I have done that wouldn't fit in this blog. If you want to be a part of the next discussion please subscribe.

We have a serious issue on our hands and we all need to become more educated on what the contributing factors have been, and will be going forward. 

The Brazen Traveler,

Hotep & Ashe