Finding a job can be an extremely stressful thing and finding a job that really fits who you are and how you work can, most often, be an impossible venture. A recent research study conducted at the University of Zurich has discovered what many may have already suspected or even known. Working at a job that doesn’t fit your personality and deepest sense of self will quickly lead to job burnout.
Finding a position that encompasses your social needs as well as your innate personality, especially as it relates to being an introvert or an extrovert, can be a difficult thing and burnout can occur when such things are not taken into consideration. For the study, the researchers defined “burnout” at a job as an extensive exposure to anxiety and serious stress factors that directly affect emotional well being.
The researchers declared that there are two key and crucial identifiers needed for a person to experience contentment at their job and to prevent burning out and set out to validate this declaration. The first key factor is the social relationships inherent with any position and the other is the amount of power a person has to affect their working environment and the demands of their job as well as any responsibilities where they are directly responsible for the performance of others.
The research team composed their study of 97 women and men between the ages of 22-62 who were employed full time. The participants in the study also had to go to a Swiss website that the researchers had chosen which related to stress and burnout at a job. In an effort to establish the motive of the individuals, the participants had to answer a questionnaire relating to personal background and work histories.
They were shown five pictures of different people at work performing various duties. The 97 were then directed to write a paragraph or two in which they were creating a scenario for the pictures. They were writing a story they thought was being told through the particular photograph. The research team then evaluated the stories with particular regard to the social affiliation motive as well as the power motive which the researchers believe are the two reasons for job burnout.
The results found that when characteristics of a particular job and the participant’s particular needs didn’t match, the researchers said that such an event was a “hidden” stressor. They didn’t say how they could identify a “hidden” stressor except to say that it was there but the person wasn’t aware of it. The researchers further declared that physical symptoms such as fatigue and headaches also appeared when people didn’t seem suited to the job they were at or were evaluating.