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Could this be the case of missing the forest for the trees? Perhaps the burnout is happening due to stagnant wages and inflation which forces people to work lon

Could this be the case of missing the forest for the trees? Perhaps the burnout is happening due to stagnant wages and inflation which forces people to work longer or take up additional unfulfilling jobs. Exercises perhaps may only be helping in workers handle additional stress but doesn't improve their being on the whole. Productivity vs Hourly Wage [0] GDP vs Median household income [1] [0] http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Great-Prosperity-vs-Great-Recession.jpg http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/0... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/US_GDP_per_capita_vs_median_household_income.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/US_GDP_per_ca...

prostoalex 11y ago
For [0] and their total compensation calculation, have they included capital gains? The compensation shift from high-tax-rate wages to favorable-tax-rate stock options among the top-tier folks introduced $1/year CEOs, and then you have entire industries like software where stock options are frequently more important part of the compensation than wages. Not only one gets a favorable tax treatment for long-term capital gains, they can also choose when to trigger those tax events, selling over 40 years instead of one swift transaction.
tormeh 11y ago
Probably an ingredient, but I would guess the physically passive office jobs are a bigger problem.
jkyle 11y ago
Regardless of the cause if their baseline stressors, the subjects showed a reduction in their stress levels and increased various well-being metrics. I think that's the very definition of improving their well being on the whole. That there may be other ways to produce similar results, e.g. higher wages or less overall work hours (work/life balance) is not a counter point to the effectiveness of this particular method of accomplishing the same. On a side, even animals with no external pressures to work show increased levels of stress from inactivity.[1] Most animals like ourselves are simply not made for sedentary life styles. So much of our mental and physical well being requires physical activity of some kind in order to produce the chemicals needed for life satiety. There's such a mountain of evidence supporting this that studies like the above aren't even very interesting anymore. After basic necessities are met, healthy diet; moderate, regular exercise; and a sense of value and impact for one's work. Those are the not really that secret sauce to a fulfilled life. We've known this for a long time now. 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15692095 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15692095
cryoshon 11y ago
I'd chalk it up to constant job insecurity, too. There's a glut of unemployed since the last recession, and few places to put them, meaning that people hang on to whatever they have with an iron grip. Oh yeah, and no legally mandated paid sick time, or vacation time. That'll add up to burnout ultra quick. There are also very few controls on how many hours they can physically make you work, and very few controls on how/when they can schedule you to work. Gotta work indefinitely for less and less with no real control over when or for how long you work, and you're a few mistakes from being cut loose. For many people paid by the hour (and quite a few salaried people too), that is the reality. Did I mention that in the US people get their health insurance from work, vastly increasing the stakes of holding down a job? Not being able to afford a doctor when you're unemployed adds a lot of stress when you are employed-- and that's assuming you don't have kids. I guess exercising on the job is a pretty big improvement, if those poor conditions are what you're facing. I really wish that more places would actively set aside time during the normal 8 hour (including an hour for lunch) workday for exercising. Really, this whole country needs to have a sit down and re-enshrine basic equality, basic labor laws, and basic decency. This process will be like pulling teeth, because the capitalists at the wheel consider workers rights to be anti-profit. It probably won't happen unless someone like Sanders gets elected, to be blunt.
- abduhl 11y ago
  Your second paragraph is not true - paid sick leave is legally mandated in the state of California. Please see http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Paid_Sick_Leave.htm http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Paid_Sick_Leave.htm.
  - epicureanideal 11y ago
    3 days worth? Doesn't seem like a high standard. "My employer provides paid time off which I can use for vacation or illness. Will my employer have to provide additional sick leave? No, as long as your employer provides at least 24 hours per year of paid leave that can be used for health care and meets other requirements in the law."
mmaunder 11y ago
The tech space is not stagnating: http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2015.pdf http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2015.pdf
- ramatevish 11y ago
  The industry is trending upwards, but inside of companies pay doesn't tend to match industry increases. If I know that jumping ship would increase my salary because my raises have been barely matching inflation, you can bet that's contributing to chances I burn out.
  - pc86 11y ago
    I don't know if I buy that. Inflation so far is 2015 is well below 1%, and 2014 was 0.8%[0]. The PDF in the GP shows an average salary increase in tech is about 2x inflation for 2014 (but half of those increases are raises and only a quarter are from changing employers). But more importantly, how is knowing that you could pick up and go somewhere else for a 10-20%+ raise going to increase burnout? Either your pay at your current job is enough to warrant whatever stressors you may have, or it's not. I'd be in a much worse place emotionally if it was either my current job or the poor house. [0] http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infla...
melling 11y ago
I've been doing a lot of exercise recently. Your body simply feels much better and more relaxed after some sort of physical activity. I've been walking almost 70 miles a week and I recently added indoor cycling. https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/apple-watch-last-week-i-walked-68-miles/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/apple-watch-last-wee... Being a sedentary software developer can take its toll.
- hughes 11y ago
  How do you find time to walk 10 miles a day? You must spend almost 3 and a half hours a day to achieve that.
  - melling 11y ago
    I'm between "real" jobs. I do 5 miles in the morning (90 minutes), 45 minutes after lunch and the rest in the evening. It takes 3hrs of my day. That's why I'm adding indoor cycling. It takes about half the time to burn the same amount of calories. I discussed that in another blog: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/apple-watch-8-weeks-and-9-pounds/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/apple-watch-8-weeks-... Yesterday, my Apple Watch had me at 1600 active calories. I cycled for an hour and walked just under 10 miles.
    - NullCharacter 11y ago
      So the key to reducing job burnout is... not having a job?
      - melling 11y ago
        I'm an indie iOS developer :-). Yeah, not having a real job is nice but I actually put on 20lbs. When I worked I kept a regular schedule. It's hard to believe there still aren't enough hours in the day. I don't think I've ever had job burnout. However,I did get a little tired of working on my little app.
  - aw0 11y ago
othauso 11y ago
The study is about Australians. I don't see how the US economy is relevant here.
- betenoire 11y ago
  I don't see how it's not relevant. You think Australians are that different from Americans that comparisons can't be made?
  - nl 11y ago
    The Australian economy is pretty different to the US. Australia is just coming off its biggest economic boom in history. Its had 24 years of constant growth and average unemployment over the last 5 years has been at historically low levels. Worker rights are pretty different in Australia compared to the US too. The Australian economy has problems, but they are different to the US economy. I think the grandparent poster's point had some validity.
analog31 11y ago
This could suggest a reverse causation: People who have better jobs, have both less stress and more time to exercise.

prostoalex 11y ago

For [0] and their total compensation calculation, have they included capital gains? The compensation shift from high-tax-rate wages to favorable-tax-rate stock options among the top-tier folks introduced $1/year CEOs, and then you have entire industries like software where stock options are frequently more important part of the compensation than wages. Not only one gets a favorable tax treatment for long-term capital gains, they can also choose when to trigger those tax events, selling over 40 years instead of one swift transaction.

tormeh 11y ago

Probably an ingredient, but I would guess the physically passive office jobs are a bigger problem.

jkyle 11y ago

Regardless of the cause if their baseline stressors, the subjects showed a reduction in their stress levels and increased various well-being metrics. I think that's the very definition of improving their well being on the whole. That there may be other ways to produce similar results, e.g. higher wages or less overall work hours (work/life balance) is not a counter point to the effectiveness of this particular method of accomplishing the same. On a side, even animals with no external pressures to work show increased levels of stress from inactivity.[1] Most animals like ourselves are simply not made for sedentary life styles. So much of our mental and physical well being requires physical activity of some kind in order to produce the chemicals needed for life satiety. There's such a mountain of evidence supporting this that studies like the above aren't even very interesting anymore. After basic necessities are met, healthy diet; moderate, regular exercise; and a sense of value and impact for one's work. Those are the not really that secret sauce to a fulfilled life. We've known this for a long time now. 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15692095 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15692095

cryoshon 11y ago

I'd chalk it up to constant job insecurity, too. There's a glut of unemployed since the last recession, and few places to put them, meaning that people hang on to whatever they have with an iron grip. Oh yeah, and no legally mandated paid sick time, or vacation time. That'll add up to burnout ultra quick. There are also very few controls on how many hours they can physically make you work, and very few controls on how/when they can schedule you to work. Gotta work indefinitely for less and less with no real control over when or for how long you work, and you're a few mistakes from being cut loose. For many people paid by the hour (and quite a few salaried people too), that is the reality. Did I mention that in the US people get their health insurance from work, vastly increasing the stakes of holding down a job? Not being able to afford a doctor when you're unemployed adds a lot of stress when you are employed-- and that's assuming you don't have kids. I guess exercising on the job is a pretty big improvement, if those poor conditions are what you're facing. I really wish that more places would actively set aside time during the normal 8 hour (including an hour for lunch) workday for exercising. Really, this whole country needs to have a sit down and re-enshrine basic equality, basic labor laws, and basic decency. This process will be like pulling teeth, because the capitalists at the wheel consider workers rights to be anti-profit. It probably won't happen unless someone like Sanders gets elected, to be blunt.

abduhl 11y ago
Your second paragraph is not true - paid sick leave is legally mandated in the state of California. Please see http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Paid_Sick_Leave.htm http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Paid_Sick_Leave.htm.
- epicureanideal 11y ago
  3 days worth? Doesn't seem like a high standard. "My employer provides paid time off which I can use for vacation or illness. Will my employer have to provide additional sick leave? No, as long as your employer provides at least 24 hours per year of paid leave that can be used for health care and meets other requirements in the law."

mmaunder 11y ago

The tech space is not stagnating: http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2015.pdf http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2015.pdf

ramatevish 11y ago
The industry is trending upwards, but inside of companies pay doesn't tend to match industry increases. If I know that jumping ship would increase my salary because my raises have been barely matching inflation, you can bet that's contributing to chances I burn out.
- pc86 11y ago
  I don't know if I buy that. Inflation so far is 2015 is well below 1%, and 2014 was 0.8%[0]. The PDF in the GP shows an average salary increase in tech is about 2x inflation for 2014 (but half of those increases are raises and only a quarter are from changing employers). But more importantly, how is knowing that you could pick up and go somewhere else for a 10-20%+ raise going to increase burnout? Either your pay at your current job is enough to warrant whatever stressors you may have, or it's not. I'd be in a much worse place emotionally if it was either my current job or the poor house. [0] http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/ http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infla...

melling 11y ago

I've been doing a lot of exercise recently. Your body simply feels much better and more relaxed after some sort of physical activity. I've been walking almost 70 miles a week and I recently added indoor cycling. https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/apple-watch-last-week-i-walked-68-miles/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/apple-watch-last-wee... Being a sedentary software developer can take its toll.

hughes 11y ago
How do you find time to walk 10 miles a day? You must spend almost 3 and a half hours a day to achieve that.
- melling 11y ago
  I'm between "real" jobs. I do 5 miles in the morning (90 minutes), 45 minutes after lunch and the rest in the evening. It takes 3hrs of my day. That's why I'm adding indoor cycling. It takes about half the time to burn the same amount of calories. I discussed that in another blog: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/apple-watch-8-weeks-and-9-pounds/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/apple-watch-8-weeks-... Yesterday, my Apple Watch had me at 1600 active calories. I cycled for an hour and walked just under 10 miles.
  - NullCharacter 11y ago
    So the key to reducing job burnout is... not having a job?
    - melling 11y ago
      I'm an indie iOS developer :-). Yeah, not having a real job is nice but I actually put on 20lbs. When I worked I kept a regular schedule. It's hard to believe there still aren't enough hours in the day. I don't think I've ever had job burnout. However,I did get a little tired of working on my little app.
- aw0 11y ago

othauso 11y ago

The study is about Australians. I don't see how the US economy is relevant here.

betenoire 11y ago
I don't see how it's not relevant. You think Australians are that different from Americans that comparisons can't be made?
- nl 11y ago
  The Australian economy is pretty different to the US. Australia is just coming off its biggest economic boom in history. Its had 24 years of constant growth and average unemployment over the last 5 years has been at historically low levels. Worker rights are pretty different in Australia compared to the US too. The Australian economy has problems, but they are different to the US economy. I think the grandparent poster's point had some validity.

analog31 11y ago

This could suggest a reverse causation: People who have better jobs, have both less stress and more time to exercise.