When Allison Alexy stepped in as the interim chair for the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, she noticed several of her colleagues discussing burnout.

Her own experience with job burnout had prompted her to seek a new environment and accept the IRWG position, so Alexy understood the effect on one’s work, life and overall mental health.

Alexy, associate professor of Asian languages and cultures, and of women’s and gender studies in LSA, was approved last fall to conduct a research project on faculty and staff struggling with burnout.

From interviews with people on all three University of Michigan campuses, Alexy has documented how the widespread issue is impacting those in higher education.

“Being burned out is not a sign of weakness. I think a lot of people who are burned out feel terrible. They feel embarrassed, they feel ashamed, they feel like they did something wrong. They feel like if they just work a little harder or work a little smarter, maybe it’ll get better. But that is not the case. It’s not something that you can fix by working more,” Alexy said.

“And I think for many people, it really helps to hear a leader or supervisor even just acknowledge that and say, ‘Our best, our brightest, our smartest, our most caring workers are the people who get burned out. And we need to give them space to do what they need to do and recover.’”

Kelcey Stratton, the chief behavioral health strategist with University Human Resources, said U-M offers several free services to help those struggling with burnout. 

Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campus faculty, staff and their adult benefits-eligible family members struggling with burnout can seek help at the university’s Faculty and Staff Counseling and Consultation Office. FASCCO offers no-cost, confidential services including individual counseling to give people tools and strategies to develop resilience and cope with stress.

Michigan Medicine’s Office of Counseling and Workplace Resilience offers similar services to faculty, staff, house officers and their families.

Both FASCCO and the Office of Counseling and Workplace Resilience provide free trainings and presentations for units across campus and at Michigan Medicine that provide strategies to mitigate burnout. Presentations include topics such as stress management and balancing personal life and work life.  

“I think about burnout in a workplace sense, in how can we provide a workplace that is really responsive to the needs of faculty and staff. … So, the training with teams can help support that mentally healthy team environment and workplace environment,” Stratton said.

Defining burnout

Elizabeth Harry, chief well-being officer in Michigan Medicine’s Wellness Office and associate professor of general internal medicine at the Medical School, said that burnout has a well-studied definition: high levels of emotional exhaustion or depersonalization.

Emotional exhaustion refers to a long-term feeling of being exhausted and drained as a result of persistent stress. Depersonalization is often seen in the medical field when physicians stop seeing patients as people and view them as a number.

“The most important piece to understand about burnout is that it’s an occupational hazard. And so, this means it is not a mental health issue, and it’s not a personal or an individual issue. It is a hazard of the occupation that you’re in,” Harry said. “Burnout and mental health issues can be synergistic and have an amplifying relationship on one another, but they’re also separate issues.”

Harry said three main factors contribute to burnout: organization well-being, the climate or culture of well-being and personal well-being.

While organization well-being refers to the recurring struggles that make work more difficult, the climate or culture of well-being encompasses the stressors of someone’s working environment.

“There’s really good data to show that if you’re experiencing microaggressions, you are more likely to experience burnout and depression, and anxiety and suicide ideation. So the culture is very important,” Harry said.

“Burnout is an organization responsibility. So this means that the individual does not need to take ownership here alone, but rather it is a distribution of responsibility from the individual to the organization and national regulatory bodies as well. … I want to really highlight that Michigan Medicine looks at burnout as an institutional responsibility that we are responsible for improving.”

“This is not just made up”

Michelle Riba, professor of psychiatry in the Medical School and director of the PyschOncology Program at U-M’s Rogel Cancer Center, first observed signs of burnout more than 20 years ago.

While the term “burnout” was not yet common, Riba saw how feelings of extreme work-related stress over a prolonged period had adverse effects on health, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, poor sleep and cardiovascular problems.

Finding time to alleviate burnout symptoms outside of work can be difficult, Riba said, when work bleeds over into every aspect of someone’s life.

“People start worrying about taking vacations because they worry about their job security. And then not taking vacations leads to more stress,” Riba said.

While some may brush off their burnout symptoms, Riba said, people experiencing burnout should reach out to find help. She said university programs like MHealthy and counseling services can provide helpful resources.

“This is real. This is not just made up. … If you are feeling this way, it should be acknowledged, and there could be lots of reasons for it,” Riba said. “It’s important to not just think it’s normal to have these feelings. It’s really not normal.”

Sandy Goel, administrative director of the Michigan Medicine Wellness Office, assistant professor of psychiatry in the Medical School and adjunct clinical professor of pharmacy in the College of Pharmacy, said she experienced burnout a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unable to put a name to her symptoms, she sought counseling and was able to identify her burnout and find tools to combat it.

“One of the reasons that I do this work (in the Wellness Office) is that I don’t want people to have to figure that out themselves. I want them to know that this is a real thing, that it really can happen to people and it’s not your fault,” Goel said.

She encourages other people struggling with burnout to seek help.

“Don’t try to deal with (burnout) alone, and realize that doubling down or working harder is not going to solve it, and it might actually exacerbate it,” Goel said. “It’s actually taking a step back and figuring out where you can catch your breath and what things are in your control where you can make adjustments.”

The Wellness Office website provides a Burnout Toolkit to help Michigan Medicine faculty and staff find ways to alleviate burnout symptoms. The toolkit examines how symptoms of burnout — strained relationships, isolation, irritability, neglecting personal needs — differ from well-being — having energy, feeling connected to people and purpose, feeling psychologically safe.

The website also provides resources for senior leaders and managers at the organizational level to identify burnout, include well-being as part of daily practice and consider well-being in operational decision-making.

The Wellness Office is rebranding on March 11 to the Office of Well-Being. The launch coincides with the inaugural National Day of Health Workforce Well-being.

“Wellness is a physiological thing. It’s mental and physical well-being, meaning are you eating well, are you resting, are you exercising?” Harry said. “We have a lot of great offices that do that very well. … The Office of Well-Being, we want to make sure people are able to thrive in the workplace well-being space.”

Studying contributing factors

Margit Burmeister, professor of human genetics, psychiatry, computational medicine and bioinformatics, and a research professor in the Michigan Neuroscience Institute, is currently conducting a study about the factors that contribute to faculty burnout.

A longtime researcher of depression, Burmeister recognizes the impact burnout has on exacerbating symptoms of depression.

“Most common diseases that we have — whether it’s hypertension, whether it’s diabetes, whether it’s depression — all of these things are caused by a mix of genetic vulnerabilities and environmental triggers,” Burmeister said.

Burmeister’s study, in partnership with Brigid Gregg, assistant professor of pediatric endocrinology, calls upon faculty and clinicians to submit suggestions on how to alleviate administrative burden and reduce burnout. She said the majority of people who responded to their call for feedback reported feeling overwhelmed with administrative tasks.

“I would say in general, having more support at a lower level — meaning not at the highest administrative faculty level, but with people who can actually do things for you — is where I think faculty burnout can be remedied,” Burmeister said.

David Fessell, a recently retired professor of radiology at Michigan Medicine, delivered a virtual workshop on Jan. 31 titled “Reducing Stress & Burnout: 5 Evidence-Based Practices You Can Use.”

Tips and strategies to combat burnout included gratitude practices, mindfulness practices, cultivating awe, sharing good humor and physical exercise. These are tips individuals can practice in the moment or during acute need while the overarching organization issues, which naturally take more time, are being addressed.

“There are several evidence-based practices that can help (with burnout), including using a gratitude journal, regular aerobic exercise and practicing mindfulness. The good news is that many of these practices don’t require large amounts of time,” Fessell said.

“There is hope. Know you’re not alone. Many have experienced similar challenges. … Burnout can be navigated. Many are ready and willing to help.”