Job Burnout Traffic Lights for Work Communities

The survey is used to map the risk of job burnout at the organizational level. The tool provides a clear overview of the identification of job burnout and its prevalence in different units, as well as recommendations for measures to promote well-being. Data on the prevalence of burnout among the Finnish working-age population is presented for comparison.

Duration: 5 minutes to respond + summarizing results and development measures.
Contents: 12 questions related to symptoms of burnout (exhaustion, mental distancing, cognitive impairment and emotional impairment).
Result: Results of the organisation compared to results of the How is Finland doing? study.

For whom?
The survey is intended for workplaces that want to identify the existence and prevalence of the risk of burnout. For large workplaces, the survey can also provide information on the prevalence of burnout in different units, if the number of respondents is sufficient to allow protection of the respondents’ privacy. The survey can be carried out regularly, such as twice a year, which allows monitoring the development of strain. This can be particularly useful during various changes at work and for follow-up purposes, for example.
Benefits?
The workplace receives up-to-date information on the prevalence and severity of burnout symptoms among employees and the various units of the workplace. Individual employees are informed of whether they have symptoms of burnout and, if so, the degree of the symptoms. Both the workplace and the individuals receive feedback with instructions on what to do in case of burnout. Based on the results provided by the tool, it is possible to develop working conditions to reduce and prevent burnout.

How to use the survey tool

Choose a contact person who is responsible for conducting the survey.
The contact person orders organization-specific survey and report links to their email and sends the survey links to the respondents.
After completing the survey, the respondents will receive personal feedback on their own situation.
The contact person can view the results and download a group-level report from which individual respondents cannot be identified.

Order survey and report links

What do the survey and reports look like?

The survey consists of a total of 12 questions related to the four main symptoms of burnout.

Claims about symptoms of burnout and response options for how often these symptoms are experienced.

The individual respondent’s report shows their own results, tips for their specific situation and a comparison with the results of the How is Finland doing? study.

Individual results presented in words and an image with a meter and traffic light colors green, yellow and red. Also a comparison view with your own results and the How Finland is doing? results.

The organization-level report shows the average of the results, a comparison with the How is Finland doing? study, distribution of responses and proposals for measures based on the results.

The organization's report view shows the average of the responses compared to the How is Finland doing? responses and a suggested action based on the results.

Choose one contact person in your organization who will be responsible for using the tool.
The contact person orders an organization-specific survey link and a link to view the organization’s report from the tool’s website to be delivered to their email.
The contact person shares the survey link to the appropriate respondents, such as employees of their own workplace or unit. At least 10 respondents are required to ensure privacy protection. The survey link is valid for 21 days from the date of ordering the links.
Each respondent responds to the survey independently. Responding to the survey takes a few minutes. The survey must be completed in one sitting.
After responding, the respondent receives personal feedback regarding their own situation.
When a sufficient number of responses have been received, the contact person of the workplace can view the organisation-specific report via the report link.
The report also contains tips on measures to be taken if the results indicate a risk of burnout.
The report link is valid for 60 days. The contact person should save the report within this time period.
Please bear in mind that in case your organization operates outside Finland, the cut-off points for different levels of burnout could be slightly different. Here they are based on joint values in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Finland.

Responses to the survey are anonymous. The organization can only view results as averages and distributions and only on the basis of sufficiently large samples so that the responses of an individual respondent cannot be identified. To be able to report data at the level of the organization or unit, there must be at least 10 respondents.

The responses are collected in the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health’s Louhi service. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health cannot identify individual respondents. Experts of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health use the recorded group-level data for describing practices related to work ability management in different sectors. The data are used in the communications of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, and data can be reported as descriptive distributions, such as on the website of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

In the survey, occupational burnout syndrome is assessed on the basis of its four main symptoms. These are based on a definition of occupational burnout updated in Belgium and the Netherlands by Schaufeli et al. (2020) and a survey developed on the basis of it, in which each symptom is assessed using three statements.

Symptoms of burnout include:

Exhaustion: Depletion of resources leading to physical and mental fatigue: difficulty starting a new working day, fatigue following even small efforts, and difficulty relaxing and recovering after a working day.
Mental distancing from work: Strong reluctance to work, mental distancing and a desire to avoid colleagues and clients, along with indifference and cynicism.
Cognitive impairment: Difficulties with memory and concentration, impaired cognitive performance, difficulty in thinking clearly and learning new things, forgetfulness and confusion.
Emotional impairment: Strong emotional reactions, frustration and anger towards work, irritability, emotional overreaction, difficulty managing emotions of grief or anger at work.

The survey and the traffic light model for burnout have also been validated in Finnish conditions by comparing the responses of the so-called healthy working-age population and occupational health care clients suffering from burnout (Hakanen and Kaltiainen, 2022).

Burnout is the result of prolonged occupational stress, which ultimately leads to the depletion of resources.

It is assumed that exhaustion often develops first, resulting in disruption of cognitive and emotional functions, which can lead to people trying to protect themselves and developing a mentally distant, cynical attitude to their work.

It is advisable to distinguish between symptoms of burnout of different degrees from severe burnout, in which a person is no longer able to work at that moment and may also experience symptoms such as depression.

Various psychosomatic symptoms, insomnia and, for example, depressive symptoms may occur in parallel with or as a result of burnout symptoms.