An Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) commissioned national poll of workers has found that 39% reported feeling burnt out at work.
It also found that half the workforce — around 7.3 million workers — “regularly work extra hours or do overtime”. It said more than 28% of all workers report high workloads “regularly or always experienced”. Only half of those surveyed (54%) felt they had enough people in their workplace to get the work done.
The ACTU attributes the cause to limited management capability. It said 41%, around 6 million workers, “did not think their immediate manager created an environment in which they feel motivated to do their best work”.
It reported that just over half (55%) of all managers “had sought the view of their employees on how to improve their ways of working or encouraged their individual professional development and growth”.
The ACTU said these findings are repeated in other studies, which shows that show slow productivity growth is being driven by relatively poor management capacity.
ACTU Secretary Sally McManus said: “Too often, too many employers have equated lifting productivity to doing more with less pushing people to work harder for longer. This leads to burn out which harms productivity.”
She said “a practical and immediate measure that could be taken to improve productivity” would be to address the “performance and capacity” of managements.
“Most managers never seek advice on how workplaces should run from the workers themselves,” Mary Merkenich, a teacher and unionist, told Green Left.
“However, in some workplaces, such as schools, there has been some superficial consultation of the workforce. Teachers have long expressed frustration at their unsustainable workloads, but nothing really changes.
“Bosses and managers are unlikely to acknowledge their short-comings and willingly turn to their workforce for advice about how to run workplaces. Unions will need to campaign forcefully for such changes. They also need to urgently begin effective campaigns to address workload.
“In the light of this ACTU survey, unions must demand workers be given power over their workplaces. Only workers themselves will take their health and well-being at work seriously.
“Furthermore, only the workers themselves will consider seriously the quality of the products they produce, the impact of these on society and the planet. We don’t want sham consultations; it must be genuine, effective, democratic control over the running of workplaces,” Merkenich concluded.