Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Beating Burnout, Via Design – Part 2

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | January 20th, 2020

Before our holiday break, we published the first of a two-part series on beating burnout. This article is the second in that series, regarding designing to decrease the likelihood that employees feel burned out. In the last article, we talked about the fact that burnout is bad for employee wellbeing as well as their professional performance, and that a range of factors influence whether people feel burned out, or not. Two issues that can contribute to creating a relatively negative atmosphere, one that’s consistent with burnout, according to scientific research, were discussed in the previous article. People can feel burned out when the demands of their work are greater than their ability to do required tasks well. Workplace design that aligns with the jobs that people do (for example, that supports concentration during periods of focused work) and that streamlines cognitive refreshment makes it less likely that workers will be …